Inland Transport

1 What is the Inland Transport module?

Inland Transport handles the surface leg of a shipment — moving cargo by road or rail between ports, yards, warehouses and customers. It is one module with two job types that share the same screen, so the workflow is identical whichever you use.

• One job = one movement — a header (who, from where, to where, by what) plus the cargo carried and the charges raised.
• Truck or Rail — choose from the menu; the form adapts (a truck shows Vehicle & Driver, a rail job shows a Wagon No).
• Stands alone or attaches — a transport job can be independent, or linked as a leg of a Cargo import/export job (a port pickup, a drayage move, a final delivery).
• Charges you recognise — the charge list is filtered to just the Truck or Rail charges you have set up, so pickers stay short and relevant.

2 Truck vs Rail jobs

Both live under the Inland Transport group → Transactions. Pick Truck Job or Rail Job — each keeps its own numbering sequence.

3 Set-up: Carrier, Vehicle, Driver & Charge

Before raising truck jobs, add your carriers, fleet and drivers once under Inland Transport → Masters. The same menu holds the module’s Charge screen; Milestone and Milestone Template are under Others.

Only active carriers, vehicles and drivers appear in the job pickers. Rail jobs don’t need a vehicle or driver — the wagon number is typed on the job — but they do use the Carrier master.

On the Vehicle master, Carrier is a dropdown; use the + beside it to add a new carrier without leaving the screen.

4 Creating a job

Open Truck Job (or Rail Job) and click New. Fill in the header:

1. Job Date and Customer.
2. For a truck: pick the Vehicle and Driver — picking a vehicle fills the job’s Carrier from that vehicle. For rail: enter the Wagon No.
3. Carrier — a dropdown from the Carrier master (change it if another haulier does this move). Optionally Container No, Reference, the planned Distance (km) and Transit (hrs).
4. Currency / Rate — the currency you bill the customer in, and its exchange rate to your base currency. A new job opens in the base currency at 1. Pick another currency and its rate is filled from the Currency master; type over it with the rate for this job. The base currency’s rate is always 1 and can’t be changed. Filling the job from a Cargo job brings that job’s currency, at the Currency master’s rate.
5. Fill the Shipper, Consignee, Origin / Pick-up and Destination / Delivery cards (below).
6. Add cargo and charges (§5), then Save. A job number is allocated automatically.

Shipper & Consignee

Each card has a From master picker (the Consignee/Shipper master) and a Name & Address box. Pick a party and its name and address are filled into the box — you can still edit the text for this job. Or skip the picker and just type.

Origin / Pick-up and Destination / Delivery

In the Destination card’s title bar, the Deliver to… (from master) picker fills the delivery address from the Consignee/Shipper master, and the Copy consignee link copies the Consignee block into the delivery address.

Stops on the way

A direct run needs nothing more: origin to destination. When the truck collects or drops on the way, click Add Stop in the Stops on the way card, once for each extra stop, in the order the truck makes them.

The list shows +2 stops beside the destination of a job with stops, and the job sheet prints them. A drop that has been delivered can’t be removed from the job.

5 Cargo & charges

The entry form has two grids below the header.

Cargo

One line per commodity being moved — commodity, description, packages, gross weight (kg), CBM and container number. A fresh blank line appears as you type, and removing a line always leaves a blank one to type into, so you never run out of rows. The card’s title shows the total weight, and a warning appears at the top of the job when it is more than the chosen vehicle carries. It is a warning only: the job still saves.

Charges

The Charges grid works as on a Cargo job. Each charge has a Buy row over its Sell row, with the profit beside them. Click Add Charge and pick a charge. Its narration, sell and buy prices, tax and UOM are copied from the Charge master, and the quantity starts at 1. The charge picker shows only the charges you flagged for this job type. A charge saved with no quantity counts as 1, on the job, the invoice, the print and the reports alike.

• Buy row: the creditor (the haulier or supplier you pay), the buying currency and exchange rate, quantity, unit, price and buying tax.
• Sell row: quantity, unit, price and tax, in the job’s currency (the Currency / Rate in the header). The sell row shows that currency and rate.
• The footer totals selling, tax, cost and profit. Profit is selling less cost, before tax, as in the reports. Both sides are converted to the base currency first: selling at the job’s rate, each cost at its own buying rate. So a job billed in USD with a haulier paid in AED still shows a true margin.
• Need a charge that doesn’t exist yet? Click + in the charge cell to add it to the Charge master.
• A saved line always shows its charge name, even if that charge has since been made inactive or is no longer tagged for Truck/Rail.

Posting the cost: Cost Allocation

When the creditor’s invoice arrives, post the buying side in Accounts → Transactions → Cost Allocation, as for a Cargo job. Pick Truck or Rail in its job type filter. The purchase voucher carries the job number, so the cost shows on the job in Job Control. When cost posting is on (the Cost Posting card in Transport Settings, §6), the cost goes to the accrued (job control) account. Raising the job’s invoice then moves it to cost of sales and clears the job.

• A posted line shows a lock. Its creditor and buying figures cannot change, and the line cannot be removed: a Cost Allocation posting is final. Its narration and selling side stay open.
• A job with a posted charge cannot be cancelled until the charge is un-posted.

6 Linking to a Cargo job (the leg)

A transport job is often part of a bigger shipment — the truck that collects an import container from the port, or delivers it to the consignee. Record that link in the Cargo Leg panel on the job:

• Cargo Job No — pick the shipment this move belongs to. Type part of the job number, shipper or consignee to search the Sea, Air and Misc jobs; cancelled jobs are left out.
• Cargo Job Type — Sea/Air/Misc, Import or Export.
• Leg Type — Pickup Drayage Delivery.

Linked jobs show their parent Cargo Job in the list, so you can see at a glance which shipment each movement served. Leaving the panel blank keeps the job standalone. Transport does not need the Cargo module: in a company without Cargo the panel is not shown, and a Truck / Rail job always stands alone.

Truck and Rail job numbers (prefix, next number, department and accounts for TK and RL) are set in Tools › Preferences › Transport Settings. Above the series, its Cost Posting card holds the Accrued expense / cost-of-sales posting switch, the Cost of Sales Account and the Accrued Expense Account. These accounts are fallbacks: a charge’s own account comes first, then the series’, and the card’s only where both are blank. The card is the same setting Cargo Settings shows, so in a company with both modules a change shows on both screens. The Consignee / Shipper, UOM and Commodity lists a job picks from are under Transport’s own Masters.

Fill the job from the Cargo job

Once a Cargo Job is picked, click Fill from Cargo Job in the panel. Ritzy copies:

• the customer: the consignee on an import, the shipper on an export;
• the shipper and consignee blocks, and on an import the consignee as the delivery address;
• the origin and destination from the house’s Land transport from / to;
• the first container number, and one cargo line per house line with its packages, weight, volume and container;
• the Leg Type: Delivery for an import, Pickup for an export.

On a new job everything is filled. On a saved job only the empty fields are, so nothing you typed is lost. If the Cargo job already has transport jobs, Ritzy names them, so you don’t book the same move twice.

Create a transport job from the Cargo job

On a saved Sea, Air or Misc job, the Create Truck Job button in the title bar opens a new Truck Job already filled from it, as above. A user who may add Rail jobs too sees Create Transport Job and picks Truck Job or Rail Job. The button shows only to users who may add transport jobs.

7 Tracking the trip: status & proof of delivery

Besides being open, closed or cancelled, every job shows where the trip has got to. The stages run in this order:

An open job shows its stages across the top of the form, each with the date it was reached. To move it on, click Update Status at the foot of the job. Ritzy suggests the next stage; change the When if it happened earlier, add a remark if you like, and Save. A stage can’t be dated in the future. Picking an earlier stage corrects a mistake, and the correction is kept too: the clock icon beside the stages shows the full history, who set each stage and when. An invoiced job can still have its status updated.

The job list shows the stage as its status, and the All stages filter above the list narrows it to one stage, for example every job still In transit.

Proof of delivery from the driver’s phone

In the Ritzy Delivery app the driver sees the job, and one more row for each drop stop on the way. At each drop the driver takes photos and records the receiver (and a signature). The first drop moves the job to Out for delivery, and confirming the final delivery moves it to Delivered and POD received together. The stop’s POD column on the job shows each drop as delivered. See the Mobile Apps manual.

The driver’s trip in the app

A driver whose login is set on the Driver master (or who is the job’s delivery user) sees the job under My trips in Ritzy Delivery and moves it on from the phone: Start trip (Dispatched), Confirm pick-up (Picked up, with photos, the name of whoever handed it over and their signature), On the way (In transit) and Out for delivery. Each stage is logged with the time and the phone’s location. On the job form you then see:

• Collected … from … under the stages, with the pick-up remarks on hover.
• Last seen: the truck’s last position, sent every few minutes while the driver has the trip open. Click it for the map.
• Problems the driver reported (late, breakdown, damage, short, refused, no access, other) in red, with the note, a photo and where it happened. Whoever created the job and whoever last changed it get a notification the moment it is sent. Click Resolve, say what was done, and Save; the driver sees your answer on the trip.

Milestones follow the trip

The job’s milestones complete themselves from these stages, on the date each was reached: Booking confirmed, Vehicle dispatched, Picked up, In transit (rail: Departed), Out for delivery, Delivered and POD. Raising the invoice completes Invoiced. A customer following the tracking link sees them as they happen.

8 Finding, editing & cancelling jobs

The list shows every job for the chosen type in the current financial year, newest first.

• Search by job number or customer in the box at the top right.
• Edit, Print (printer icon, §9), Raise Invoice (§10) or Cancel from the buttons at the end of each row. A cancelled job has no Raise Invoice button.
• Each row shows the route, the vehicle/wagon, the carrier, the linked Cargo Job, the Invoice number once billed, and a status: the trip’s stage while the job is open (§7), or Closed / Cancelled.
• Filter by stage with the All stages picker beside the search box.
• Jobs are cancelled, never deleted. A cancelled job keeps its number and its charges and stays in the list, shown in red; it can be opened and printed but no longer edited.
• Invoiced jobs are locked — they can be opened and printed but not edited or cancelled until the invoice is cancelled (§10).
• Other transactions block a cancel too. A job can’t be cancelled while another live transaction uses its job number, such as a voucher, drafts included. The message names it, so cancel that first.

9 Printing the job sheet & invoice

Click the printer icon on a list row, or Print at the foot of a saved job, and choose:

10 Raising an invoice

When the move is done, bill it straight from the job. Click the Raise Invoice icon on the list row, or Raise Invoice at the foot of a saved job, then fill in:

A cancelled job can’t be invoiced. Confirm and a sales invoice is posted to Accounts from the job’s charge lines, tax included.

The invoice is in the job’s currency at the job’s rate. A job in USD at 3.6725 posts a USD invoice: the customer owes the USD amount, and the ledger carries its base-currency value at 3.6725. A receipt against it is allocated in USD, as for any foreign-currency invoice. To bill at a different rate, cancel the invoice, change the rate on the job and raise it again. When cost posting is on, the cost-of-sales entries on the invoice are converted at the same rate. The printed invoice names the currency in its header, and the rate too when it is a foreign one.

In the Accounts invoice list its Source column shows Transport. Ritzy then offers to print it (Print now, or Later). The invoice number appears in the job list’s Invoice column.

11 Dashboard, Quick View & Reports

Alongside the job screens, the Inland Transport group has its own Dashboard, a Quick View browser and a Reports section — the same top links every module carries.

Dashboard

A period view (set the date range in the top bar) of how transport is running:

• KPI tiles — total jobs, Truck vs Rail, Open vs Closed, On the Road (dispatched, picked up, in transit or out for delivery), Awaiting POD (delivered, proof not yet in), how many are linked to a Cargo job, and the total charge value raised.
• Trip Stages — how many jobs are at each stage. Click a stage to open the Truck Job list filtered to it.
• Top Customers by charge value and the busiest routes (origin → destination) as ranked bars.
• Top Vehicles by job count and the Truck vs Rail split.

Quick View

A fast, read-only job browser: switch between Truck and Rail, search by job or customer, and click a row to open the job. Each line shows the route, the vehicle/wagon, the linked Cargo Job and the Open/Closed status.

Reports

Under Reports everything reads back for a date range. The job type filter offers Truck & Rail, Truck or Rail. Each report can be exported and printed.

Cancelled jobs are left out of the Sales Analysis, Open Trips, Delivery Performance, Not Invoiced and Driver Problems reports.

Selling values in the Dashboard, Job Register, Job Profitability, Vehicle Utilisation and Sales Analysis are in the base currency. Each job’s charges are converted at that job’s rate, so jobs billed in different currencies add up, and margin compares like with like.

12 Tips & FAQ

Milestones

New Transport jobs get their milestones from the job type’s template (Others → Milestone Template; the milestones themselves are under Others → Milestone), and the Milestones button on the job shows them. Each trip stage completes its milestone (§7), as does raising the invoice, and you can share a tracking link with the customer. See the Milestone manual.

Why are Truck and Rail one module, not two?

They record the same thing — a route, a carrier, cargo and charges — so they share one screen and one set of masters, with only the carrier field differing. Fewer menus, one place to look.

A charge I need isn’t in the picker.

Add it in Inland Transport → Masters → Charge, or with the + in the charge cell. A charge that already exists but isn’t listed there is not tagged for this module: open it from the Charge screen that does list it (Cargo’s, for a charge not yet tagged for any module) and tick Truck (or Rail) under Applicable To. It will then appear on the job.

Do I have to link every job to a Cargo job?

No — the Cargo Leg panel is optional. Use it when the move is part of a shipment; leave it blank for standalone haulage.

Can I bill a transport job?

Yes — use Raise Invoice on the job (§10). The charges are posted as a sales invoice in Accounts, and you can print it from the job.

Can I bill a customer in a foreign currency?

Yes. Set Currency / Rate on the job (§4) and enter the selling prices in that currency. The invoice is raised in it at the job’s rate (§10), and the reports convert it to the base currency. The buying side has its own currency and rate on each charge, so you can pay the haulier in a different currency from the one you bill in.

The carrier changed when I picked a vehicle.

That’s by design: a vehicle belongs to a carrier, so picking it fills the job’s Carrier. If another haulier is performing the move, pick a different carrier afterwards.