Partners & Logistics

Trade Partners

Partner records, roles, capabilities, and how partners get reused across jobs.

What it is

Every external party you work with on a job — a freight forwarder, a CHA, an inspection agency, an insurance provider — is a ServicePartner record, added once and reused across every job that needs them. A partner isn't a contact card: it carries its own tenant underneath (its own organization, brand and subscription), so partner identity runs on the same multi-tenant stack as everyone else on the platform instead of a parallel one.

External partner types

Connection states — pending / active / revoked

Connection per brand, per partner

Partner types

A partner can be a freight forwarder, a CHA, an import CHA (destination-side customs), an FHA (freight handling agent), an inspection agency, or an insurance provider. A single partner record can hold more than one type. A nominated LC bank is deliberately not one of these — it's filled through a different flow rather than being force-fit into an onboarded partner record.

Capabilities — what a partner offers

Beyond its type, a partner can list specific service offerings it provides — pre-carriage, export or import customs coordination, marine insurance, warehousing, fumigation, cargo inspection, Certificate of Origin handling, LC/bank document handling, or a custom "other" — each with its own typical price and currency. This is what lets you (or the platform) tell two freight forwarders apart by what they actually do, not just their type label.

Connections — how a partner becomes reusable

1
Invite or apply
Either you invite a partner by email from your side, or they submit a self-serve application (reviewed by the platform, going through applied → under review → approved/rejected/on hold).
2
Pending
The connection exists but isn't usable yet — either side can be the one waiting on the other to accept.
3
Active
Once accepted, the partner is connected to your brand and appears in the partner picker for any job role they can fill.
4
Revoked
Ending the relationship revokes the connection. If the partner still has an active role assignment on an in-flight job, you're told so rather than that fact being silently dropped.

Note

A connection is scoped per brand, not per organization — the same partner may need a separate connection for each brand that wants to work with them.

Screenshot pending — Partner Connections page listing active and pending partner connections

Connected partners, ready to be assigned to a job role.

How partners get reused across jobs

An active connection is what appears in a job's role-assignment picker — assigning a partner to a role on a job never re-collects their company details, since those already live on the shared partner record. Rating and total-jobs counters accumulate on the partner record itself, so its track record follows it across every job it's assigned to.

New to adding a partner? Start with the Trade Partners guide. For assigning a CHA specifically and how the partner portal works, see CHA & Partner Coordination.