Denim and Tai Software to Streamline Freight Broker Payments

Transportation management system Tai Software has launched a partnership with freight-factoring firm Denim.

The “two-way digital integration,” announced Monday (Sept. 16), allows users to send important job information from Tai to Denim with a single click, with load details created as jobs within Denim’s portal to eliminate duplicative data entry.

In return, Denim updates payment status and dates within Tai’s platform, offering brokers a clear view of both payables and receivables. This lets freight brokers save time on freight billing, reduce manual invoicing errors and get paid faster, the companies said in a news release.

“We love creating automated processes that eliminate manual data entry across an organization,” said Walter Mitchell, CEO of Tai Software. “This integration shows how committed we are to developing modern innovative solutions that help freight brokers build their business.”

PYMNTS spoke earlier this year with Bharath Krishnamoorthy, co-founder and CEO of Denim, about the company’s efforts to improve pricing in the freight sector.

“Freight brokers sit in the middle of the ecosystem, linking shippers and carriers,” that report said. “The shipper has the goods, and the carriers are where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. If the brokers are not operating efficiently, the loads are delayed, and supply chains get snarled.”

The company has built its business around the long-established practice of factoring, or selling an invoice for cash on hand. Traditionally, the practice has followed a model in which the factoring firms take a charge of as much as 10% of the total value of the invoice.

“It’s been primarily used for trucking companies,” Krishnamoorthy told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, “and what we’ve done is built a platform that allows us to safely offer this product to freight brokers.”

The specific target audience, he said, is the “long tail” of smaller brokers that may be facing cash constraints, lacking access to credit or bank loans that might be readily available to bigger companies, and waiting weeks to get paid for an order.

“If you’re a $10 million or $50 million brokerage,” he said, “what you really care about is streamlining your operations,” Krishnamoorthy added, noting that much of the industry is still using spreadsheets and cutting paper checks.