Turning unstructured emails into automated shipment intelligence

Background

Freight forwarding is fundamentally an email-first industry. Every client instruction, vendor quote, shipping line update, customs clearance, and exception notice arrives as an unstructured email. For a leading forwarder handling hundreds of shipments a month, this meant the operations team was drowning in 300+ daily emails across dozens of stakeholders.

The client initially relied on manual extraction and keyword-based guesswork to route these emails. While standard for the industry, this approach faced severe challenges around scale and accuracy, leading to systemic revenue leakage, unreconciled vendor and client invoices, and operational inefficiency.

To overcome these operational bottlenecks and halt revenue leakage, the client partnered with our team to design a custom AI context layer. The new system was engineered to process complex, unstructured communications, automatically classify, extract and reconcile financial documents, and integrate seamlessly with their core system of record, CargoWise.

Technical challenges

The project's complexity stemmed from three core requirements:

• Siloed Context & Missed Actions: With multiple stakeholders involved, identifying which of the active shipments required action among hundreds of daily emails led to critical communication delays and chaotic Slack channel workarounds.
• Revenue Leakage & Finance Bottlenecks: Vendor quotes and incidental charges communicated via email were frequently missed. Manually mapping them to CargoWise caused significant financial losses, and with vendor incidentals arriving up to 10 days later, generating Proforma or Tax Invoices was painstakingly slow, leading to a backlog of unreconciled vendor and client invoices.
• Zero Client Visibility: Sales teams and clients were left in the dark about sailing updates, exceptions, or liner booking updates, resulting in endless manual tracking and status inquiries.

Solution principles

To address these challenges, the solution was designed with these key principles in mind:

• Single Source of Truth: Eliminate siloed emails by building a unified context layer that groups all documents, quotes, and communications under a single shipment ID.
• Human-in-the-Loop Automation: Ensure highly accurate automated data entry into CargoWise, shifting operators from manual typists to strategic reviewers.
• Proactive Visibility: Empower both the operations team and the end-clients with real-time, self-serve access to shipment status and critical documents.

Approach

We engineered a custom AI solution that sits between the forwarder's email ecosystem and their TMS, extracting context, building a unified shipment record, and automating the flow of data.

Automated document extraction

Relying on human operators to parse through PDFs and email threads was the primary bottleneck. We implemented a multimodal pipeline that automatically classifies and extracts critical data from all shipping documents, vendor quotes, customs forms (POD, MM Copy, Duty), and complex email threads without manual intervention.

Context engineering

We didn't just parse text; we built context. By intelligently linking the initial quote, Booking Docs, Bill of Lading (BL) numbers, and incidental charges under a single shipment ID, we ensured operations and finance teams share a unified, complete view of the shipment lifecycle.

Seamless CargoWise integration

Extracted data is pushed directly into CargoWise via API integration. Every charge code, document reference, and shipment milestone is populated automatically. Human operators transitioned to a validation role, catching edge cases without carrying the burden of data entry. Crucially, vendor and client invoices, along with elusive incidental charges, are captured, mapped, and provisioned in the TMS as they arrive.

Ops co-pilot & client portal

We deployed an AI-powered Co-Pilot for the operations team to instantly query any shipment in natural language and surface pending actions or exceptions. Simultaneously, this structured data powers a customer-facing portal with real-time ETAs, live tracking, and automated delay alerts.

Outcome

Our rapid development cycle enabled the client to ship production-ready features within 8 weeks, directly transforming their operations, finance, and client experience.

Through targeted optimizations in extraction and integration, our solution achieved substantial operational improvements.

Eliminating revenue leakage

Automated invoice reconciliation and instant provisioning of incidental costs allowed the finance team to reduce the billing cycle. By contextualizing emails, the system ensured that no vendor exceptions or additional origin charges slipped through the cracks, directly protecting the bottom line.

Scalable operations

Manual shipping mapping in CargoWise was eliminated, resulting in a 90% reduction in manual data entry. Real-time portal updates transformed the client experience, eliminating the need for constant email follow-ups and instantly notifying stakeholders of exceptions.

Is your logistics organization struggling with unstructured data, manual data entry, or revenue leakage? Reach out to us today.