The other ways to handle the back office.
The difference is where the work stops. Manual entry and offshore BPO move the typing around. Point AI tools stop at extracted fields someone still keys in. TIO’s agents carry the job to a finished record, and anything outside your rules goes to a person on your team.
| Who does the work | What you manage | |
|---|---|---|
| By hand | Your team | Hiring and training |
| Outsourced | An outside team | Handoffs and review |
| Extraction tool | Tool reads, team enters | Entry and checking |
| TIO agent | The agent does the job | Rules and exceptions |
How does each approach actually behave?
| Approach | Cost shape | Speed per record | Where errors surface | Who holds the work |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manual data entry | Scales with volume. More shipments means another hire, recruiting and ramp included. | About 30 minutes per lot and 12 minutes per LTL quote, by hand. | Downstream, usually at billing or after filing. | Your team, keying instead of deciding. |
| Offshore BPO | Cheaper keystrokes, plus management overhead and QA time that never shows on the invoice. | Batch turnaround, often overnight. The clock keeps running on your deadlines. | Same errors, found later, across a handoff and a time zone. | A vendor outside your operation. |
| Point AI tools | Subscription per tool, and your team still does the entry. | Fast extraction, then a person retypes the fields into the TMS. | Silent, when a template breaks on a format it has not seen. | Your team, one spreadsheet further from done. |
| TIO agents | Per agent, a fraction of the hire it replaces. Not per seat, not per filing. | Seconds to a finished result: the priced quote, the created lot with charge lines. | Up front. Anything outside your rules goes to a person with the facts attached, instead of the agent guessing. | Your team and the agents, inside your rules. A person files every customs filing. |
The longer write-ups: vs. manual data entry, vs. offshore BPO, and vs. point AI tools. TIO works through an adapter built for your TMS, which stays the system of record.
vs. manual data entry
Hiring another person adds cost that scales with volume. An agent does the same prep in seconds. When your team corrects it, TIO turns the correction into a rule for your operation. More →
vs. offshore BPO
Outsourcing moves the keystrokes overseas but keeps the errors, the latency, and the management overhead. The agents keep the work in your operation, inside your rules. More →
vs. point AI tools
Most logistics AI stops at extracting data and hands you a spreadsheet to key in. TIO’s agents carry the job all the way to the sent quote and the created lot. More →
Where the work happens.
All solutions
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