Glossary

This glossary explains the words you meet in TrakIT and on this help site. Each entry gives a short definition and links to the page that explains the term in full. The terms of the accounting module, such as ledger account or journal entry, are in the Accounting glossary and FAQ.

Some names are set up for your installation, so TrakIT may show a different word from this page: the job reference (by default Transport Document), the load ID (by default Manifest) and the entity types.

A

Account

In finance, a charge line on a finance job, quotation, invoice or bill. Each account is made from an account master, such as ocean freight or handling, and is an income, expense or disbursement account: what you charge the customer, what you pay suppliers, or what you pay on the customer’s behalf and pass on. It is not a ledger account of the books. See Estimates tab.

Account master

One of the charges that accounts are made from, such as ocean freight or handling. Each company has its own account masters, in three trees: income, expense and disbursement. They are set up under Admin > Masters > Finance Masters. See Account Masters tab.

Accounting terms

The terms of TrakIT’s books, such as chart of accounts, ledger account, journal entry, financial year, base currency and FX revaluation, are explained in the Accounting glossary and FAQ.

Action

Something TrakIT does by itself when an event or data field of a work order changes, or a set number of hours before or after its date: for example, send an email or a message, generate a document, update another field or close the work order. Actions are set up on each event or data field of a workflow. See Actions tab.

TrakIT Support can also add actions that run after an operation on other records, or that you start from an Actions button on a record’s page. See Validations and actions.

Activity

A dated task, call or meeting, with a type, an owner and, if needed, a team, a reminder and a recurrence. An activity can be for a customer, an asset or a lead, or be general. See Activities.

Asset

A truck, trailer, piece of equipment or anything else your work orders use. Each asset has a type, from the asset types TrakIT Support sets up, and can be added to work orders. See Asset management.

B

Bay, row and tier

The three measures of a zone of a container yard, and the coordinates of each stack position in it: the bays across the zone, the rows, and the tiers, how many containers high it can stack. See Yard positions.

Bill

An invoice you receive from a supplier or another entity. You allocate to it the expense and disbursement accounts of your jobs that it covers, validate it, then finalize it. See Bill.

Business hours

The hours a KPI counts when it is set to In Business Hours: 09:00 to 17:00, local time, on the days that are neither weekend days nor public holidays of a chosen country. A business day is 8 hours. Other KPIs count calendar hours, and delay tracking always counts calendar days. See Country holidays.

C

Company

A legal entity that TrakIT keeps apart, with its own country, currencies, invoice numbering and finance settings. Each user, workflow and invoice belongs to one company, and each entity has a responsible company. Users work in their own company and in any others a system administrator gives them. See Companies.

Container

The shipping container a work order carries, identified by its container number. A work order carries one container, or one load without a container, identified by its load ID. An amber warning icon next to a container number means the number is not valid for the workflow. Yards > Container Master lists every container TrakIT knows. See Container master.

D

Dashboard

A page of widgets, each a figure, a chart or a table drawn from TrakIT data, under Analytics > Dashboards. You can build your own dashboards, share them and copy templates. See Dashboards.

Data field

A value recorded on a work order, such as a reference number, a name, a date, an amount, a location or an entity. Each workflow has its own data fields, made from the master data fields, and a data field can apply to the whole job. Computed data fields are worked out by TrakIT. You fill them in on the work order’s Data tab; they are set up on Event and data definitions. The old help site called them work order data.

Other records, such as entities, assets, invoices and users, have data fields of their own, set up under Admin > Masters > Data Fields. See Data fields.

Delay tracking

Tracking how long a container is out, for example from discharge until the empty container is returned, and working out the charges for the days beyond its free days. Each tracking type, such as demurrage or detention, has events that start and stop it, set on the workflow’s events. Operations > Delay Tracking lists the containers being tracked. See Delay tracking.

Demurrage and detention

Charges for keeping a carrier’s container beyond its free time: demurrage while it stays in the port or terminal, detention while it is outside. In TrakIT you can follow them as tracking types of delay tracking, set up under Admin > Masters > Master Tables. See Delay Tracking.

Document checklist

The list of documents a job needs, with whether each needs an original or a copy, and its status. It comes from the workflow, you can add documents for one job, and it is the same on all the work orders of the job. See Document Checklist.

E

Entity

An organization TrakIT works with, such as a customer, a carrier, a transporter, an agent, a bank or an authority. Jobs, work orders, quotations, invoices and bills all refer to entities. Each entity has one main entity type, can have other types as well, and has a responsible company. Entities are kept on System > Entity Management. See Entity management.

Entity type

The kind of an entity. TrakIT has ten entity types. TrakIT Support sets up their names for your installation, so yours may differ from the standard names below.

Standard name	What it is
Customer	The entity a job is done for.
Shipper, Receiver	The shipper and the receiver of a job. When you create a job, they are the customer unless you choose another entity.
Carrier	The shipping line, airline or other main carrier.
Transporter	The company that transports a work order’s container or load. A work order can also have a return transporter, whose name is also set up for your installation.
Bond Agent	The agent that provides the customs bond.
Clearing Agent	The agent that clears the goods through customs.
Bank, Authority, Other	Banks, authorities and the other organizations you deal with.

See Entity types and tabs.

Estimates and actuals

The two sets of accounts of a finance job. Estimates are the income and costs you expect. Once they are approved, TrakIT copies them to the actuals, where you record the income and costs that really happen, raise invoices and enter bills. See Estimates tab and Actuals tab.

Event

A step of a work order that is recorded with a date and time, such as a discharge, a gate-in or a delivery. Each workflow has its own events, made from the master events. An event can be required or for information only, and can apply to the whole job. You record events on the work order’s Events tab or on Operations > Events & Data; they are set up on Event and data definitions.

External user

A person outside your company who signs in to TrakIT’s External portal, such as a member of a customer’s or a transporter’s staff. An External user holds at most one portal role and sees only what concerns the entities they are linked to. See External users.

F

Finance job

The finance side of a job: its estimates and actuals, invoices, bills and documents. It is kept separately for each company that works on the job, each with its own currency and status. The status runs from Draft through Approval Requested, Approved and Request for Closing to Closed, and can also be Cancelled. Open it with Finance on the job, or from Finance > Jobs. See Finance job and From quotation to payment.

Form

A template that TrakIT fills in with the details of a record to make a document, usually a PDF: a work order or job document, an invoice, quotation, voucher or bill, a yard move document, or the layout of an advanced report. The layouts of the emails TrakIT sends are forms too. Forms are listed under Admin > Form Definitions, and you generate work order and job documents on the work order’s Forms tab. See Form definitions and Setting up document templates.

Free days

The days a container can be kept before delay charges start. When a container enters delay tracking, TrakIT takes its free days and rates from the workflow’s delay cost definitions, or else the workflow’s default free days. Free days are calendar days, weekends and holidays included. See Free days and charges and How containers are tracked.

G

Geo Data

The tree of places TrakIT works with: Global, then regions, clusters, countries, states, areas and cities, and under each city its locations. Each company belongs to a country in it, each workflow is assigned to two places in it, and users get access to workflows through the places assigned to them. See Geo Data.

H

Header field

One of the fixed fields of a work order’s header, such as the job reference, the customer, the container number, the load type or the seal number. Unlike events and data fields, header fields are the same in every workflow: each workflow chooses which ones its work orders show, which are required, and which External users see. See The header fields, Header Fields tab and Header.

I

Internal posting

A record that settles income and expense lines of your company’s jobs against each other, for example when one of your jobs does work for another, instead of invoicing a customer or receiving a bill. See Internal postings.

Internal user

A member of your own staff who uses TrakIT. Internal users hold one or more internal roles, work in the workflows and companies they have access to, and can be members of user groups. See Internal users.

Invoice

What you charge a customer, raised for a job or on its own. An invoice is a draft with a pro-forma number until it is approved and gets its final number; it is then finalized, which posts it to the books if your company keeps them in TrakIT. Debit notes and credit notes are kept and handled with the invoices. See Invoice.

Item

Something kept in stock in a warehouse, with its code, name, unit and stock levels. Each item belongs to an item type, from those TrakIT Support sets up. Items come in and go out on work orders, and each movement is a warehouse transaction. See Warehouses and Item master.

J

Job

A job groups the work orders of one shipment or assignment, for example the containers of one bill of lading. It belongs to one workflow and holds what its work orders share, such as the customer, shipper and receiver, the job types, the job-level events and data, and the finance. Each job has a job ID, TrakIT’s number for it, and a job reference. The API and the old help site call a job a shipment; the External portal calls it a job. See Job.

Job reference

The reference that identifies a job, for example its bill of lading number. TrakIT Support sets its name for your installation: by default Transport Document, shortened to T/D. A workflow can number its jobs automatically. To change a job’s reference, use Change followed by its name in a work order’s tasks menu. See Job header and Change the job reference.

Job type

A kind of job a workflow offers, such as door-to-door or port-to-port. You select the job types that apply when you create a job, and a job can have several. A workflow’s events, data fields, KPIs, default accounts and delay costs can be limited to some job types. See Job Types.

K

KPI

A key performance indicator: the time between two events of a work order, measured against a target. When a KPI goes over its target, or under it if it is set up that way, it raises an alert, which you can snooze for up to a number of days set for your installation. A KPI counts calendar hours or business hours. See KPIs tab, KPIs tab of a workflow and KPI reports.

L

Lead

A company you hope to win as a customer, followed on CRM > Leads from the first contact until you win or lose it. A won lead can be converted into an entity. See Leads.

Load ID

The identifier of a load that has no container, used on a work order instead of the container number. Its name is set for your installation with Default Name for Load in Application settings: by default Manifest, which gives labels such as Container/Manifest.

Load type

The type of container, or other load, that a work order carries, with a four-character code: for containers, the ISO size and type code, such as 22G1 or 45G1. TrakIT Support adds load types. See Load Types.

Location

A place under a city in Geo Data, such as a port, yard, warehouse, office or customer site. A work order’s location list holds the locations it goes to, in order, and each warehouse and container yard has a location. See Location list.

M

Master tables

The shared lists that workflows and records draw on, under Admin > Masters > Master Tables: the master events and data fields that workflows are built from, services, job types, KPI definitions, load types, delay tracking types, document types, reasons, message templates and more. A workflow adds a master event or data field and gives it its own code and settings, so one master item can serve many workflows. Only system administrators change the master tables, and TrakIT Support adds load types. See Master tables.

N

NA

Not applicable: what you record for an event or data field that does not apply to the work order, for example with Not Applicable (NA) in an event’s date picker. NA counts as a value, so a required event set to NA does not keep the work order open. See Events tab.

Notifications

The emails, chat messages and text messages TrakIT sends you about the things you choose: changes to work orders, entities and assets, KPI alerts, event and data updates, free days running out, and the steps of jobs, invoices, bills, quotations, receipts and payments. You choose them on System > Notifications. See Notifications.

Q

Quick Search

The search under the main menu that finds a work order, entity, asset, user, invoice or bill from any page. See Quick search.

Quotation

The prices you offer a customer for a job, and the costs you expect, before the job exists. Once a quotation is approved, you can generate it as a PDF, email it, and create the job from it. A quotation can also be a template for new quotations. See Quotation and From quotation to payment.

R

Receipt and payment

A receipt records money received from an entity, such as a customer, and is allocated to its invoices. A payment records money paid to an entity, such as a supplier, and is allocated to its bills. Both are approved, then finalized. See Receipts and payments.

Report

TrakIT has four kinds of report, under Reports:

• Interactive reports: ready-made reports with figures, a chart and a table, which you run on screen.
• Workflow reports: files of one workflow’s work orders, emailed on a schedule to customers or to your users.
• Advanced reports: reports you design on the work orders of any workflow, delivered by email, to an FTP server or to a web address.
• Query reports: reports built on a database query that TrakIT Support writes for you.

To choose between them, and to schedule and share reports, see Scheduling and sharing reports.

Responsible person

The user responsible for a work order. It is set when the job is created, by default to you or to the workflow’s default responsible person. The responsible person is emailed when someone else cancels the work order on the work order page and, if your installation sends them, receives daily emails about abandoned work orders. See Job header.

Role

A named set of permissions. Your roles decide what you may see and do in TrakIT, and their permissions add up. An internal user can hold several internal roles; an External user holds at most one portal role. System administrators need no roles. See Role management and Roles and permissions.

S

Service

What a workflow offers within a job, such as customs clearance or trucking. Each work order records the services it uses, and a workflow’s events, data fields, KPIs, default accounts and forms can be limited to some services. See Workflow Services.

Shared link

A link that opens a TrakIT page without a TrakIT sign-in: one work order, a customer’s shipments (a tracking link), an invoice statement, one invoice, or a form to upload a requested document. A shared link works until it expires, is used up or is revoked. System administrators see and revoke shared links on Admin > SysAdmin Pages > Shared Links. See Shared links.

Shipment

The name the API and the old help site use for a job. The External portal calls it a job.

System administrator

A user who can do everything in TrakIT. A system administrator needs no roles, sees every menu, company and workflow, and is not limited by custom filters or workflow access; their user line shows SysAdmin instead of roles. Several setup pages are for system administrators only. TrakIT Support makes a user a system administrator. See Who sets TrakIT up and System administrators.

T

TBA

To be advised: what you record for an event or data field whose value is not known yet, for example with To Be Advised (TBA) in an event’s date picker. A required event or data field set to TBA is not complete, so the work order stays open. See Events tab.

Tracking link

A shared link that shows a customer the list of their shipments, from which they can open each work order, without a TrakIT sign-in. You issue one with Issue a Tracking Link on the customer’s entity page, and it works for 15 days. Forms and message templates can also include one. See Share a link.

TrakIT Support

The TrakIT support team. They set up what only they can change on your installation, such as the entity, asset, item, load and tax types, the names of the job reference and of the entity types, computed data fields and email templates, and they make users system administrators. Contact them through System > Request Management, the Support link in the footer, or the support chat if your installation has it. See Getting help.

Transport document

The default name of the job reference, shortened to T/D. The old help site spoke of the T/D number.

U

User group

A named set of internal users of one company, such as a team or a department. Wherever TrakIT sends something to users, such as a report, a reminder or an event action’s email, you can choose a group instead of naming each person. See User groups.

W

Warehouse

A site that holds items in stock. A warehouse is divided into areas, and each area into storage locations. Work orders receive items into a warehouse and send them out, and TrakIT works out the stock from these movements. Warehouses are set up under Admin > Masters > Warehouses & Yards. See Warehouses.

Work order

One container or load of a job, and the unit TrakIT tracks: it has its own header, events, data fields, documents, KPIs and status, and follows the job’s workflow. Each work order has a work order ID; work order is often shortened to WO. See Work order.

Work order status

Every work order has one of these statuses:

Status	Means
Active	Open and in progress.
Abandoned	Still open, but its latest event, not counting events for information only, is older than a number of days set for your installation or its workflow. If it has required events or data fields, it becomes active again when an event dated within that number of days is recorded. Your installation can also have abandoned work orders closed automatically.
Closed	Complete: closed by a user, or by TrakIT once all its required events and data fields have a value other than TBA.
Cancelled	Cancelled by a user, with a reason.

A closed or cancelled work order can be re-opened. See Close, cancel or re-open. For how work orders move between statuses, see Work order statuses.

Workflow

The definition of one kind of job from start to finish: its events and data fields, header fields, documents, forms, finance, KPIs, delay tracking and how its work orders look. Every job follows one workflow. A workflow has a type (Import, Export, Round Trip or Non-Shipment), belongs to a workflow group and to a responsible company, and is assigned to two places in Geo Data. You see the jobs of the workflows you have access to. See Workflow definitions and Workflow.

Workflow group

A group of workflows, for example by business line or region. Every workflow belongs to one group, and the group decides whether its workflows use finance. When there is more than one group, pages such as Operations > Jobs show a tab for each. See Workflow groups.

Y

Yard

A container yard: a place that holds containers, divided into zones and stack positions. Yards are set up under Admin > Masters > Warehouses & Yards, and worked from the Yards menu. See Yard inventory.

Yard move

One move of a container or truck in a container yard: through the gate (Gate In and Gate Out), inside the yard (such as In Stack or Reposition), or work on a container and its cargo (such as Stuffing or Stripping). A move can be planned first, then executed, usually with the Device app, and can be linked to a work order. See Yard moves.

Z

Zone

A part of a container yard that holds stack positions, arranged in bays, rows and tiers. See Yard positions.