LTL freight in ASM: classes, accessorials and billing terms
LTL ("less than truckload") freight carriers ship pallets and large items that are too big or heavy for parcel carriers. ASM can quote them live at checkout, with your own freight account. This article explains the settings freight carriers have that parcel carriers don't.
Before you begin
How a freight quote differs from a parcel quote
A parcel carrier mostly needs weight, size and two addresses. A freight carrier also needs to know:
- What kind of goods you ship: the freight class.
- Which extra services the delivery needs: accessorials, such as a liftgate.
- Who pays the carrier: billing terms, role or direction.
Freight carriers price all three, so each one changes the rate your shopper sees.
Freight class
Freight class is a number, usually between 50 and 500, that describes how dense and easy to handle your goods are. Lower classes (dense, sturdy goods) cost less to ship. Higher classes cost more. Your freight carrier or rep can tell you your products' classes.
In ASM, each freight carrier's card has a Freight class field. It's the class sent with a quote when a product doesn't have its own.
- Set it on every freight carrier unless every product you ship by freight has its own class. Most freight carriers refuse a quote without a class.
- Estes is different. It uses only the class on its card and ignores product classes. An empty Estes class fails every Estes quote.
- Classes per product are available with the Individual Freight Class add-on, as the product's Freight class field. See Add-on product fields.
Accessorials
Accessorials are extra services added to a freight delivery or pickup. Common ones:
- Liftgate — a truck lift to lower the pallet to the ground, for addresses without a loading dock.
- Residential — delivery to a home.
- Inside delivery — bringing the freight inside, not leaving it at the curb.
- Notification — the carrier calls before delivery.
On a carrier's card, Accessorials is a list you can pick several from. Everything you pick is added to every quote from that carrier, and each one raises the rate. Only pick what most of your freight deliveries really need.
Some cards have their own switches for these, such as Residential pickup, Inside delivery and Furniture delivery on R+L Carriers, or Lift gate and Residential on TBB Global Logistics.
Billing terms, role and direction
Many freight cards ask who pays the carrier, under names like Billing terms, Payment type, Terms, Charge code, Role or Direction. Typical choices:
- Prepaid or Shipper — you pay the carrier. This is the usual choice for an online store.
- Collect or Consignee — the receiver pays.
- Third Party — someone else pays, such as a logistics company.
Pick the option that matches how your account is set up with that carrier. If you're not sure, ask your carrier rep, because a mismatch can make quotes fail.
Packaging and pallets
- Packaging type (on cards such as TForce Freight and FedEx Freight) says how the freight is packed, such as pallet or crate.
- Pallet code (R+L Carriers) is specific to your R+L account. R+L ignores a wrong code without an error, so check it with your rep.
- Some freight accounts are priced by density. They need product dimensions. Without them, the carrier rejects the quote (TForce Freight says "Handling unit dimensions are required"). See Set dimensions, boxes and "ship alone".
Testing a freight carrier
Test connection on a freight card quotes a 300 lb pallet (48 × 40 × 48 in) to a business address, at the card's Freight class (class 70 if it's empty). It doesn't need any shipping rules.
Freight carriers record every quote, so each test may appear as a quote number in your account on the carrier's website. That's expected. See Test a carrier connection.