Shipping or carriage of goods by water has played a significant role in the development of human society over the centuries. Shipping has been a crucial link by which commercial relationships have been established between widely separated parts of the world.
There are two major types of shipping services: shipload services, which move goods in bulk for one or few shippers; and liner services, which carry relatively small shipments of cargo inside containers on a regular schedule for many shippers.
Hence, IST has developed IST Ship-Link that serves liner shipping business.
The System helps shipping line agent to streamline operations in order to have an efficient performance to cope with the huge requirements of delivering goods.

EDI
Electronic Data Exchange with worldwide partners and transport chain participants is the most effective way to deploy and setup your shipping applications. IST Ship-Link supports internationally standard UN-EDIFACT and ANSI X.12 as well as XML for exchange of any type of data between shippers, agents, forwarders, terminal operators and port authority.

DOCUMENTATION
Booking
After confirmation of booking the user can issue the shipping order to the shipper. The container tab-page in the booking screen connects the booking desk to the container control module to assign empty containers from the available empty containers list; this list can be viewed by container number or by terminal empty date.

B/L
IST Ship-Link documentation module deals with import and export B/L data. Check routines and plausibility tests help you to make sure that the reporting and communication rules between all concerned parties are correctly and strictly followed.
IST Ship-Link automatically accesses the booking data once the B/L (which has a corresponding booking) is created, and then it feeds them into a B/L form. Therefore, all you have to do is to provide information which was previously unknown.

Manifest
The manifest is very easily created, as long as all necessary data is already stored in the database. You only have to choose the appropriate format from the import or export menu correspondingly and then press the print button.

BILLING & INVOICING
Demurrage Calculation
IST- Ship-Link demurrage module is designed to capture all your tariffs and automatically calculates amount due. This procedure creates the potential for collecting extra revenues based on predefined criteria, e.g. by customer, by service, by location, etc.

Delivery Order and Delinquent Containers
You can issue the delivery order to the consignee after the settlement of the import B/L invoices. Also, you can add additional Delivery Order clauses, validity date and more with few mouse clicks.

Stevedoring and Storage
IST Ship-Link Stevedoring and Storage function is designed to capture all the existing terminal and depot tariffs. On the basis, calculations are performed providing forecasts as well as real invoice control routines.

Collections and Outstanding
The customers' invoices settlement is very crucial for any Shipping Agency Company, therefore IST Ship-Link supplies you with numerous statistics and reports make you the captain of your receivables accounts data.

CONTAINER MOVEMENT CONTROL
Transferring Containers from Documentation
IST Ship-Link transfers the imported/exported containers from documentation to the container control module with just a few mouse clicks eliminating the double entry.

Discharging and Loading Lists
After transferring the containers to the container control module the user can prepare and print the discharging list and summery for dry box or IMO list or reefer list as well as the loading list.

Inventory and Overdue Containers
IST Ship-Link container history module meticulously controls the container movement details.

Freight Collection &Commission
IST Ship-Link can directly import sea freight and other invoices from liner agency software. After all, all these data have long been captured and are accessible for further processing. So, the information flows into the disbursements account without any manual effort.

Statement of Account
After receiving the data from the agency department, the accounting department and business partners the disbursement account module can create a draft statement of account.

SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION, SECURITY AND INTEGRATION
Security
The user security and administration tool is maintained in a separate, non-operational menu. This strict segregation makes sure to only have a very limited number of key users on administrator level who are authorized to maintain the user profiles even down to function level for each single user and/or user group and to set system switches and control codes.

Business Intelligence & Analytics
IST Ship-Link guides you through the complex layers and dimensions of the business events and helps you recognize where to improve business performance. A single click on a predefined report gathers from the database and presents it in real-time on your screen.

Accounting Integration
A connection between IST Ship-Link and your accounting software is essential. It helps to eliminate duplicate data entry, connect business information and processes, and protect your existing software investments.