Ocean export, from booking to shipping instructions.
TIO reads the booking and commercial documents, pre-fills the shipping instructions and B/L data, and tracks cargo and document cutoffs. Your team reviews and approves. Your TMS stays the system of record.
The full ocean export lifecycle, end to end
Ocean export inverts the document flow but keeps the trap: a stack of carrier cutoffs, each its own deadline, with a different party waiting on each one. A missed SI or VGM cutoff does not warn you, it just rolls the box and the customer finds out from someone other than you. Here is the whole lane: the window on each stage, the risk that rolls cargo, and who has to be told.
Quote & booking
~1-2 weeks before sailingWrong rate or lane, equipment not available, named-account terms missed.
Shipper, carrier, origin team.
Where TIO actsReads the booking request and confirmation, binds them to the job, and pre-fills the booking and B/L draft data for review.
Drayage, SI, VGM & gate-in cutoffs
Cutoffs land days before ETD, each its own clockEach cutoff is its own clock: empty pickup, container stuffing, VGM submission, the SI and doc cutoff, and the port gate-in inside the ERD-to-cutoff window. Miss the gate-in or VGM and the box rolls to the next sailing. Gate in before the early-receiving date and it sits accruing terminal storage.
Shipper, carrier, drayage trucker, terminal, origin agent.
Where TIO actsReads cargo cutoff, doc cutoff, VGM, and the ERD/gate-in window from the carrier booking and surfaces each as the next action, ordered by what is due first, so the box gates in inside the window, not before or after it.
Export filing (EEI / AES)
Pre-departureLate or incorrect EEI, license or ECCN issue on controlled commodities.
USPPI, the filer, the carrier.
Where TIO actsAssembles shipper, consignee, commodity, and value from the commercial documents and routes them for the filer to review and submit.
Loading & B/L issuance
Around vessel departureShut-out, B/L errors, original vs. telex release confusion.
Shipper, consignee, destination agent.
Where TIO actsBinds carrier amendments and B/L drafts to the job so the document set never runs on stale information.
Transit, transshipment & destination handoff
Whole sailing plus transshipment, days to weeksRollover, a blank sailing, or a transshipment delay moves the ETA the destination agent is planning to. A late or incomplete pre-alert out, or unclear original vs. telex vs. seaway release, leaves the consignee unable to clear and the destination agent chasing origin after the vessel has already arrived.
Destination agent, consignee, notify party, carrier.
Where TIO actsSurfaces the pre-alert-out action with the full document set and tracks B/L type, surrender or telex state, and carrier ETA changes so the destination agent gets a complete, current package before arrival, not after.
Charges, invoice & close
Days after departureAccessorials uncaptured, margin leakage, dispute window lapses.
Accounting, the customer.
Where TIO actsAggregates carrier and agent charge emails into the invoice draft for review.