Partner Assignment & Rate Confirmations
What is Partner Assignment & Rate Confirmations?
Partner Assignment & Rate Confirmations is TMS.ai's system for matching carriers to loads and generating the paperwork that formalizes those assignments. When you've booked a load and negotiated a rate with a carrier, this feature assigns that partner to the order and automatically creates their rate confirmation with all the shipment details, agreed pricing, and terms. The system eliminates manual rate confirmation creation while ensuring carriers receive consistent, professional documentation.
For brokers handling multiple loads simultaneously, this speeds up the time between booking a load and getting the carrier dispatched. Instead of copying information from your order into a rate confirmation template, then emailing it to the carrier, then waiting for them to sign and return it, the assignment triggers automatic document generation tied directly to the order details.
How Partner Assignment & Rate Confirmations works:
1. Assign a carrier partner to the order. From the order record, select the carrier you've agreed to work with for this shipment. Search your partner network by name, choose from recently used carriers, or filter by equipment type and service capabilities. The system displays partner information including their contact details, equipment availability, and compliance status to help confirm you're selecting the right carrier.
2. Enter negotiated rate and payment terms. Add the rate you've negotiated with the carrier, including the base linehaul charge and any accessorials (fuel surcharge, detention, layover, etc.). Specify payment terms, whether net 30, net 45, quick pay, or other arrangements you've agreed to. These financial details populate the rate confirmation automatically and feed into accounts payable when the load completes.
3. Rat confirmation auto-generates upon partner assignment. The moment you save the partner assignment, TMS.ai creates a rate confirmation PDF containing all order details (pickup and delivery locations, dates and times, commodity information, special instructions), the agreed rate breakdown, payment terms, and your standard terms and conditions. For multi-stop orders, the system generates a single rate confirmation covering all legs of the movement rather than separate documents for each stop.
4. System distributes rate confirmation to the carrier. The rate confirmation is immediately available in the order's document section and can be sent directly to the assigned carrier through the platform. The carrier receives professional documentation showing exactly what they're agreeing to haul, where it needs to go, and how much they'll be paid. This eliminates the gap between verbal agreements and written confirmation.
5. Track rate confirmation status throughout the load lifecycle. The rate confirmation remains attached to the order and is accessible from the order record at any point. If you need to modify order details after assignment (add a stop, change a delivery time, update commodity information), note that changes made after partner assignment won't reflect in the already-generated rate confirmation. Generate a new confirmation or communicate changes through other channels.
6. Rate confirmation links to financial line items for carrier payment. The rates and terms from the partner assignment feed directly into the financial side of the order. When the load delivers and you're processing carrier payments, the agreed amounts from the rate confirmation populate automatically, eliminating re-entry of financial information and reducing payment errors.
What it means for you:
Carrier assignment drops from a five-minute administrative task to a thirty-second action. Your dispatcher clicks assign, enters the rate, and the carrier has their paperwork seconds later. No switching between your TMS and a Word template, no manual entry of pickup times and delivery addresses that are already in the order.
For operations running 50 or 100 loads per day, those minutes compound into hours of administrative time redirected to higher-value work like negotiating better rates or building carrier relationships. The rate confirmation matches your order exactly because it pulls from the same data source, eliminating the discrepancies that cause disputes later about what was actually agreed to.