Cost + Margin Billing

Table of Contents 

• What is Cost + Margin Billing

• Use Cases

• Considerations

• Prerequisites

• How to set up Cost + Margin Billing

• How Charges are Calculated

What is Cost + Margin Billing 

Cost + Margin Billing allows you to automatically charge your customers for freight costs incurred when booking shipments through a Carrier Connection.

When a shipment is booked, CartonCloud captures the expense charges returned by the carrier. Cost + Margin Billing then uses those expenses to generate income charges on the Consignment, either passing the cost through directly or applying a percentage or fixed fee markup on top.

Using Cost + Margin Billing, you can:

• Map external carrier charges to CartonCloud Fee Categories.
• Configure a percentage or fixed margin for each Fee Category.
• Automatically invoice customers for freight costs, including any configured margins.

This is configured using the Charge Group type called Cost+, which is added to a Transport Rate within a Rate Card. Unlike standard Transport Rates, which calculate charges based on zones, weight, or cubic, Cost+ rates calculate charges based on what the carrier actually billed.

Use Cases

• You book shipments through a carrier integration and want to pass freight costs to your customers with a 15% margin applied.
• You want to apply a margin to some fee categories (e.g. Delivery) but pass others through at cost (e.g. Fuel Levy).
• You want to suppress certain carrier charges entirely and not bill the customer for them at all.
• You are a WMS-only operator (no TMS) and use a Carrier Connection to book freight — Cost + Margin Billing lets you charge customers for freight costs without needing the full TMS enabled.

Considerations

• On the Pack Screen, displayed rate options will include any configured margins.
• Expense charges and their associated income charges are visible on the Charges tab of the consignment.

Prerequisites

Before setting up Cost + Margin Billing, ensure the following is set up:

• A Carrier Connection is configured and active in your account
• A Rate Card exists for the customer you wish to bill

How to set up Cost + Margin Billing 

Step 1 - Set up Carrier Fee Category Mappings

Map the carrier’s fee descriptions to the CartonCloud internal Fee Categories so that Cost + Margin Billing can be applied correctly.

• Navigate to More > Organisation Settings.
• Select the Transport > Carrier Fee Category Mappings tab.
• Click + Add Rule.

• Fill in the following fields:
  • Rule name: the name of the rule, so you can easily identify it
  • Conditions: what defines which carrier fee will be mapped, for example, Charge description contains Fuel
  • Action: what Fee Category in CartonCloud the carrier charge will be mapped to, for example, Fuel Levy

• Ensure you enable the Active toggle. 
• Click Save.

Examples:

Step 2 - Set up Cost+ charges in the Rate Card

Define what margin is or isn’t applied for each Fee Category.

• Navigate to More > Rate Cards.
• Select the relevant Rate Card.
• Select the Transport Rates tab.
• Click +Add Rate.
• Click +Add Charge Group.
• Click Cost Plus Margin.
• Apply a margin to expense charges by Fee Category. 
• Define a Markup based on Percentage or Fixed Fee:
  
  
  
  
• Click Save. 

How Charges are Calculated

When a shipment is booked through a Carrier Connection, CartonCloud:

• Captures the expense charges returned by the carrier and records them against the Consignment.
• CartonCloud looks for a matching Cost+ Transport Rate on the customer's Rate Card.
• Applies the configured margin to each Fee Category and generates the corresponding income charges on the Consignment.

Example

A carrier returns the following expense charges after booking:

• Delivery: $10.00
• Fuel Levy: $2.00

The Cost+ rate is configured as follows:

• Delivery: +15% margin
• Fuel Levy: pass-through (0% margin, or configured as Create income charge for the full amount)

The resulting income charges on the consignment would be:

• Delivery: $11.50
• Fuel Levy: $2.00