Parties in Forwarding

Introduction

In forwarding operations, various 'Parties' are involved in each shipment or transaction. These parties can include the shipper, consignee, notify party, booking party, carrier, agent, and more. FMS utilizes standard Business Central entities like Customers, Vendors, and Contacts, along with specific address management features, to represent these roles.

Understanding how to manage these entities is crucial for correctly assigning parties on forwarding documents.

Key Party-Related Entities

• Contacts, Customers, and Vendors: These standard Business Central entities form the core for managing business partners.

  • Customers: Parties who purchase your forwarding services (e.g., the shipper or consignee paying for the freight).
  • Vendors: Parties who provide services to you (e.g., carriers, handling agents you pay).
  • Contacts: Individuals associated with customer or vendor companies, or independent contacts. You typically need to register a party as a Customer or Vendor if you need to create financial transactions (invoices, credit memos) with them.

• Addresses: FMS often requires managing multiple addresses beyond the primary customer/vendor address. This includes specific pickup locations, delivery destinations, terminal addresses, or other relevant points in the logistics chain. The Addresses functionality allows you to manage these specific locations.

Assigning Parties to Documents

On forwarding documents like Shipments, you will assign different roles (Shipper, Consignee, Notify Party, etc.) to specific Customers, Vendors, Contacts, or Addresses.

Note

A single real-world entity might be represented in multiple ways. For example, the company shipping the goods might be set up as a Customer (for billing) and also have specific Addresses registered for their warehouse pickup locations.

See Also

Master Data Overview
Shipments
Document Parties Setup (Setup for default party roles)