Eliminating Blind Spots in Inbound Logistics

Supply chain teams that manage inbound shipments face a daily reality that has not changed much in decades. Purchase orders live in spreadsheets. Shipment status updates arrive via email from freight forwarders. Invoices from carriers, customs brokers, and drayage providers are processed manually. Receiving teams compare packing slips to POs by hand. And trade documents are scattered across inboxes and shared drives.

The result is a constant lack of visibility. Teams spend hours each week just figuring out where shipments are, whether invoices are correct, and what has actually been received at the warehouse. When something goes wrong, such as a delayed container, a duplicate invoice, or a short shipment, the information needed to respond quickly is buried across multiple systems and people.

Enterprise TMS and ERP platforms exist, but they are built for large organizations with dedicated IT teams. They are expensive, complex to implement, and often treat inbound logistics as an afterthought. Growing companies and mid-market teams are left choosing between enterprise software they cannot afford or justify, and spreadsheets that do not scale.

InboundShipments is purpose-built for inbound supply chain management. It brings purchase orders, shipment tracking, invoice processing, receiving, vendor contacts, and trade documents into a single platform designed specifically for the inbound workflow.

Shipments are tracked automatically through carrier API integrations, pulling 40+ milestone events from ocean carriers via carrier API integrations. Freight and customs invoices are processed using AI-powered extraction that recognizes 23 fee types, detects duplicates, and tracks demurrage and detention deadlines. Vendors can view PO details through shareable links without needing accounts. Receiving records are linked to purchase orders for line-item quantity verification.

The platform handles the complexity of international trade natively, with support for multiple currencies, Incoterms, HTS classification codes, and UN LOCODE port references. It supports the full contact ecosystem that importers work with: suppliers, manufacturers, freight forwarders, customs brokers, and warehouses.

Our mission is to give every supply chain team real-time visibility and control over their inbound operations. We believe that the teams responsible for getting goods from suppliers to warehouses should have tools that match the importance and complexity of their work.

Too many supply chain professionals are stuck doing work that software should handle: refreshing carrier tracking pages, manually keying invoice data, emailing vendors for updates, and reconciling spreadsheets that were outdated the moment they were created. We are building InboundShipments to eliminate that kind of busy work so teams can focus on the decisions and relationships that actually move the business forward.

Inbound logistics deserves dedicated software. The inbound side of the supply chain has been underserved by technology. Generic project management tools, spreadsheets, and outbound-focused TMS platforms do not address the specific workflows of purchase order management, container tracking, customs compliance, and freight invoice processing. Purpose-built software makes a material difference.

Visibility should be the default, not a premium feature. Knowing where your shipments are, what they cost, and when they will arrive should not require expensive integrations or enterprise contracts. Real-time visibility should be accessible to any team managing inbound freight.

Vendor collaboration should be frictionless. Suppliers, freight forwarders, and customs brokers are partners, not adversaries. The tools you use to work with them should reduce friction, not create it. That means no mandatory vendor logins, no complex onboarding, and no training requirements.

AI should augment human judgment, not replace it. We use AI to extract data from invoices and documents because it eliminates tedious manual entry. But the human reviewer always has the final say. AI handles the data extraction; your team handles the decisions.

InboundShipments is designed for the people who actually manage inbound freight day to day: logistics coordinators, supply chain managers, purchasing teams, and operations leaders at companies that import goods.

Whether you are managing ten shipments a month or hundreds, the platform scales with your operation. It is designed to be useful from the first shipment you track, without requiring a lengthy implementation or training process.

We are building InboundShipments because we believe the inbound supply chain is one of the most important and most overlooked functions in modern business. The teams doing this work deserve tools built specifically for them.