Case study

Refrigerated LTL Freight Broker

White-label broker TMS, native driver app and automation layer for refrigerated LTL

Industry: Refrigerated freight brokerage (LTL consolidation) · System: Foundation Broker, white-labeled under the customer's brand · Platforms: Web, iOS and Android

At a glance

• One operating system replaced a basic off-the-shelf TMS, email threads, personal cell phones and hand-keyed QuickBooks entry.
• A customer-branded driver app on iOS and Android, with geofenced auto-arrival and in-app POD capture.
• A hard compliance block: a load cannot be assigned to a carrier with expired insurance.
• Automated billing: approved paperwork pushes an itemized invoice to QuickBooks Online.
• Platforms: shipped across web, iOS and Android.

The customer

The customer is a licensed freight broker that specializes in refrigerated LTL consolidation. Its freight is multi-stop, temperature-specified and counted in cases, pallets and weight. Drivers on its loads run multi-stop manifests that are dispatched, tracked and paid as one unit.

The challenge

The broker was growing on a basic off-the-shelf TMS, manual QuickBooks entry, email threads and cell phones, and none of it was connected. Dispatch didn't know what accounting had billed. Drivers could only send a POD by texting a photo. Carrier insurance was tracked by memory. That added up to five recurring failures:

• No single source of truth. Load data lived in the TMS, appointment times in email, driver updates on personal phones and billing in QuickBooks. Reconciling them was a daily manual job.
• Paperwork lag. PODs arrived as texted photos that had to be found, renamed and checked against the BOL before an invoice could go out, often days late.
• Compliance risk. Carrier insurance expirations and authority status were tracked informally. For a broker, one lapsed certificate of insurance on a live load is an existential exposure.
• No driver visibility. Once a load was dispatched, the office was blind until someone called the driver.
• Manual billing. Every invoice was keyed into QuickBooks by hand, with stop details, weights and pallet counts retyped each time.

The solution: a white-labeled install built on Foundation Broker

The broker didn't want a fleet system bent into shape. It needed software built around how a broker works: loads, manifests, carriers, rate confirmations, PODs and cash. Foundation started from the Foundation Broker core and delivered it as the broker's own white-labeled install. Then it custom-built the workflows that are specific to refrigerated LTL consolidation.

1. White-label branding, top to bottom

• The system runs under the customer's name. Drivers use a customer-branded driver app on iOS and Android.
• Rate confirmations, trip sheets, BOLs, invoices and settlement statements are generated as customer-branded PDFs.
• The customer's install is separate from every other Foundation customer's.

2. Dispatch, loads and manifests built for consolidation

• A tabbed dispatch board follows the broker's real workflow: unassigned, planned, dispatched, in transit, delivered, completed.
• Loads carry multi-stop routing, commodity and temperature specs, case/pallet/weight counts, accessorials and per-load financials.
• Loads roll up into manifests (trip sheets), so a driver running five stops is dispatched, paid and tracked as one unit. Stops can be reordered by drag-and-drop, and loads can be split and relayed for interlined freight.
• Workflow shortcuts include duplicate-from-previous, recurring load templates generated automatically every day (with temperature carried on the template), a route map with freight totals and appointment times, lane history, and a pin-to-dock taskbar for records in progress.
• Customers' weekly recurring orders sent by email can be imported straight into next week's recurring loads. A person reviews and confirms every match before anything is written.
• Customer tenders sent as spreadsheets can be converted to PDF and attached to the load.

3. Carrier onboarding and compliance a broker can enforce

• Digital carrier onboarding: carriers get a link, upload authority, W-9 and COI, and sign the Broker–Carrier Agreement in a scroll-to-sign block that records name, title, IP, timestamp and user agent.
• FMCSA compliance profile: safety ratings, out-of-service rates, crash history and inspection data are pulled live through SAFER and SearchCarriers lookups instead of being looked up by hand.
• Insurance tracker and compliance center, with scheduled compliance refreshes.
• Hard compliance block: a load cannot be assigned to a carrier with expired insurance. It is a block, not a warning.
• Rate cons: sent from the system and signed electronically.

4. A native driver app

• Drivers sign in with a manifest number and PIN. There's no account to create and no app-store friction during onboarding.
• Geofenced auto-arrival: when the driver comes within a two-mile radius of a stop, the app marks the arrival automatically, timestamps it and flags it in the GPS timeline.
• In-app POD capture: document edge detection and image enhancement turn a photo into clean, billable paperwork. Uploads queue offline and send when signal returns.
• Live GPS ping timeline for dispatch, plus public tracking links customers can open without logging in.
• Two-way messaging between dispatch and the driver, inside the manifest.

5. Paperwork, billing and cash: automated

• Paperwork review queue: PODs are shown side by side with the ordered case, pallet and weight counts, and discrepancies are flagged automatically. Built-in text recognition highlights PO, BOL and load numbers on the POD image, and an AI-assisted read handles handwritten counts. These checks are advisory; a person always approves.
• QuickBooks Online integration: approved paperwork pushes an itemized invoice to the primary AP contact, with every additional AP contact copied. Carrier pay is grouped at the manifest level, with settlement statements and carrier bills synced to QuickBooks. Invoice and bill status are polled back automatically.
• Factoring submission: invoices are batched into the factoring company's required file format along with their document packets (delivery paperwork and the carrier rate confirmation) for SFTP delivery.
• Billing-issues report and digest, so exceptions surface before invoices go out.
• Accessorial approvals, revenue codes, sales-rep commissions and customer default rates are configured to how the broker bills.

6. Communications inside the record

• Integrated telephony (RingCentral): incoming calls pop a screen that matches the load or carrier. Two-way SMS/MMS lives inside every manifest, a texted image can become an official POD in one click, and there is an admin-wide call and message log.
• Comms Deck: a command screen that brings the inbox, load rail, stop actions, driver-app status and tracking together.
• Customer ETA and load notifications, plus appointment-request emails.

7. Governance and an integration layer for what's next

• Role-based permissions managed through a live matrix, plus a full audit trail of logins, POD approvals, invoice status changes and carrier pay updates.
• Row-level security on every table.
• Reporting API and event stream: reporting reads support updated-since filtering, pagination and ordered results, so downstream tools never re-pull everything. Every outbound event is logged with its HTTP status and error text. Approved apps read through revocable, scoped API keys instead of database credentials.
• Roadmap: a warehouse management system and a CEO-oriented KPI dashboard are scoped for the coming year.

Results

• The whole brokerage runs in one system. Orders are entered once, then dispatched, tracked and paid from the same record.
• PODs arrive digitally and are checked against ordered counts before anything is billed, closing the gap between delivery and invoice.
• Invoices flow into QuickBooks without retyping, and carrier pay reconciles at the manifest level, the way carriers actually invoice.
• Carrier insurance can't lapse into a live load. The system enforces compliance instead of relying on memory.

What this means for your operation

If you're a broker or 3PL: the system runs on the same Foundation Broker core you would start from: carrier sales and coverage, track and trace, carrier compliance, carrier pay and audit, customer billing and reporting. Foundation then built the workflows only the broker needed, under the customer's own brand.

If you run trucks (10–250 power units): the same building blocks the broker uses for the drivers on its loads apply to a fleet: manifests, a native driver app with geofenced arrivals and offline POD capture, manifest-level settlements and QuickBooks sync. Foundation Carrier starts with dispatch, equipment, driver pay, HOS visibility and maintenance, and is customized the same way.

Build yours

Every Foundation customer gets its own fresh install, customized without limits, with no per-user, per-truck or per-load fees. Setup runs $2,500–$7,500, then $500–$1,500/month, priced by complexity and integrations. An ownership track and white label are available.