Resources
Our Terminology
- Accessorial Fees – an additional fee for service beyond standard transportation pricing.
- BOL (Bill of Lading) – a document which acknowledges receipt of the goods and establishes the terms of a contract between a shipper, transportation company, or logistics provider.
- Bonded Warehouses – a facility authorized for the storage and processing of goods.
- Carrier – any person who, in a contract of carriage, undertakes to perform or to procure the performance of carriage by rail, road, sea, air, inland waterway, or by a combination of them.
- Claim – a demand for payment made upon a transportation line due to loss sustained through alleged negligence.
- Clean Bill of Lading – a receipt for goods issued by a carrier with an indication that the goods were received without damage or other irregularities.
- Commodity – a shipped article. For dangerous and hazardous cargo, the correct commodity identification is crucial.
- Consignee – The person or company (named in the bill of lading) to whom commodities are shipped. The owner of the cargo.
- Consignment – goods in transit under a bill of lading.
- Consignor/Shipper – the person or company shown as the shipper on the bill of lading.
- Container – a truck trailer body that can be detached from the chassis for loading into a vessel or a rail car or stacked in a container depot.
- Customs – the authorities designated to collect on imports and exports levied by a country.
- Customs Invoice – a form requiring all data in a commercial invoice along with a certificate of value and a certificate of origin.
- Dim Weight (Dimensional Weight) – this measurement, along with the weight of the pieces shipped, is typically used by air freight carriers to determine their freight charges.
- Dock Receipt – a receipt issued to acknowledge receipt of a shipment at the carrier’s dock or warehouse facilities.
- General Tariff – a tariff that applies to countries that do not enjoy either preferential or most-favored-nation tariff treatment.
- Gross Weight – the full weight of a shipment, including goods and packaging.
- Liftgate – shippers, consignees, and residences without forklifts generally require this.
- LTL (Less Than Truckload) – shipments of 150 – 10,000 pounds, not requiring more than six standard pallet spaces.
- Net Weight – the weight of goods alone, without any immediate wrappings.
- N.M.F.C. (National Motor Freight Classification) – a listing of items used to determine the “class” of a shipped item.
- Non-Commercial (Limited Access) – can be considered, but are not limited, to church sites, construction sites, mine sites, utility sites, government sites, carnivals, etc.
- Packing List – an itemized list of commodities with marks and numbers, but no cost values.
- Pallet – a flat metal or wood bottom for cargo.
- Port of Entry – where foreign goods are admitted into the receiving country.
- Power of Attorney – a method used to assign authority to another company or person.
- Residential Fee – a pickup or delivery performed at a personal residence, apartment, dormitory, rectory or parsonages.
- Standard Pallet – describes a pallet that does not exceed 48 inches by 48 inches.
- Truckload – a shipment moved by itself directly from point of origin to point of destination.
- Volume – shipments consisting of more than six pallets, but less than a full truckload.