Freight forwarding software in Australia
For the international side of the work. An Australian forwarder or licensed customs broker, moving air and sea cargo across the border, with an agent at the other end.
Every email your company receives is read, understood and turned into a task for the right person, with the answer already drafted. Your team approves. Nobody lives in the inbox any more.
Keep your TMS for the records. FreighAI runs the work around them.
- 01This page is for the international job: cargo crossing the border, an overseas agent, a cargo report before arrival, an entry, a broker who signs it.
- 02Australia also has a strong domestic transport and despatch software layer. That is a different category with a different buyer, and not what this page is about.
- 03FreighAI does not report cargo to the Integrated Cargo System, lodge declarations or classify goods. Your filing route and broker licence are untouched.
- 04What it takes over is the email around that: the enquiry, the agent chased for a rate, the booking confirmation, the tracking question, the carrier bill.
- 05Australia is an expansion market for us. Our published customer is Infinity Logistics in the UAE. There is no Australian reference yet.
Two markets wearing the same words
Search for freight forwarding software in Australia and the results cover two different businesses. One is domestic: pallets moving between Adelaide, Sydney and Perth, booked with local carriers and tracked to a delivery window. Australia has a strong software layer for that. This page is not about it.
The other business is this one. Air and sea cargo crossing the border, an overseas agent at the far end, a cargo report before the ship berths, an entry, a licensed broker who signs it, and an importer who wanted a price yesterday. Domestic transport software and international forwarding software are different categories with different buyers, and saying so saves you a demonstration you did not need.
So take a normal Tuesday. An importer in Melbourne emails pricing@ for an air rate on two pallets out of Shanghai, and leaves out the chargeable weight. Somebody reads it and writes back. Somebody emails three overseas agents for a lane you do not hold, then remembers to chase two on Thursday. A booking confirmation lands in operations@ and a person keys it into the file. A carrier bill lands in accounts@ and a person checks it line by line.
None of that is border work. It is the commercial work around it, done one email at a time by the same small team that is also trying to get an entry away before the vessel arrives.
- Which enquiries arrive by email or WhatsApp before anything exists in your system?
- Which chasers depend on somebody remembering, on a Thursday, after lunch?
- How many of those messages actually needed a licensed broker to read them?
The last question is the useful one. Very little of an Australian forwarding inbox needs a licence to answer. Almost all of it needs somebody’s afternoon.
- A cargo report to the Integrated Cargo System before the goods arrive
- An Import Declaration, or a SAC declaration at AUD1,000 or less
- A licensed broker entering it, and a possible biosecurity referral
The border work is regulated and licensed. The work around it is email.
What changes once the inbox is not yours to work in
FreighAI takes over that inbox. It watches every company mailbox, pricing, operations, tracking and accounts, and follows each conversation from start to finish. It works out what each email is and what it needs, then takes the action that message calls for. It writes the reply, creates the task, and puts it in front of the right person in the right department, beside the original conversation. Your team approves. They do not compose, forward, file or chase. The reply goes out in their name.
The email is only the start. The real time goes on what comes after it. Find the rate on the carrier’s site. Check the tracking in another tab. Open the TMS for the job. Look up what you charged this customer last time. Forward it to operations and wait. Chase the agent, or forget to. FreighAI does all of that itself. It pulls your rate cards, checks the carrier, looks up the customer’s history, reads the shipment status, and talks to your TMS or accounting system. It chases what has not come back. It passes the work from pricing to operations to accounts, with the email and everything it found attached. Nobody forwards it. Nobody re-keys it. Nobody asks for an update. Then it puts the finished piece in front of the right person, with the reply already written.
Your people work in FreighAI. Not in the inbox. Not in five browser tabs. The Integrated Cargo System, your entries and your books stay where they are.
What still belongs to you at the border
FreighAI lodges nothing in the Integrated Cargo System, reports no cargo, and does not classify goods or look up duty. That stays with your broker and whatever you file through today. Statutory books stay in your accounting system. This is the line the first workflow is drawn against, and it is why a broker can put FreighAI in front of the commercial side without touching the regulated side.
Cargo reporting, the declaration, tariff classification, customs value and any biosecurity referral. Licensed work, unchanged.
Reads every thread, finds the rate, chases the agent, drafts the reply, and hands a finished task to the right person in the right department.
pricing@, operations@, tracking@, accounts@ and the messages that touch no system until a person carries them there.
What is specific to Australia
The parts of the job that genuinely differ here — not a translated version of the same page.
The Integrated Cargo System (ICS)
The ABF describes the ICS as the department’s single system for the management of imports and exports. Cargo reporters, including airlines, shipping lines and freight forwarders, report the movement of cargo to it before the goods arrive or depart, and electronic cargo reporting is mandatory. It also validates permits and gives notice when one is required and has not been quoted. FreighAI does not report cargo, lodge in the ICS or hold permit logic.
The Import Declaration (N10) and the AUD1,000 line
An Import Declaration is a statement made by the importer, or their agent a licensed customs broker, about the goods, the importer, how they are transported, and the tariff classification and customs value. The ABF requires one above AUD1,000 into home consumption, with all duties, taxes and charges paid, including an import processing charge. Below that, a Self-Assessed Clearance declaration applies instead.
The licensed customs broker
The Customs Act 1901 provides that only the owner of the goods, or a customs broker licensed by the Comptroller-General of Customs, can submit an import declaration to enter goods for home consumption. All Australian brokers are licensed by the department under Division 3 of Part XI, for up to three years, expiring on 30 June. That licensed judgment is worth protecting from an inbox. FreighAI hands your broker a finished task with the thread beside it. Your broker still decides.
Biosecurity referral to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
Biosecurity is not a footnote in an Australian import. The ABF states that a cargo reporter cannot make a Cargo Report SAC Declaration where the goods are being referred to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and that using SAC declarations incorrectly can mean failing import requirements including biosecurity. Those calls stay with your people. FreighAI removes the email around them: the agent who has not sent the paperwork, the follow-up nobody wrote.
Pricing in Australian dollars
Quotes are priced in AUD from your own rate cards and margin rules, so a floor set in the currency you actually price in is the one your pricer approves.
need DHL quote Gurugram → Ajman, 72kg, by Friday. express.
packing list attached. urgent pls 🙏
Pls quote for shipment as below. Confirmed pkg dims attached, IEC docs to follow…
The Melbourne enquiry arrives. The quote is already drafted.
An inbound enquiry is the usual place to start. It is the highest-volume thread an Australian office has, and the furthest thing from the border.
- Reads the enquirySpots what is missing in an enquiry and drafts the email asking for it.
- Chases your agentsEmails all your agents for a lane in one go, with the route and charge lines filled in, then chases the ones who do not reply.
- Prices from historySuggests a price from what that customer paid on that lane before, within your margin rules.
What FreighAI connects to for Australia operators
Connects so FreighAI can read every conversation and send replies in your people’s names. Your team works in FreighAI, not in the inbox.
Connects so FreighAI can read every conversation and send replies in your people’s names. Your team works in FreighAI, not in the inbox.
Your own DHL account, your own negotiated rates, your own carrier relationship. FreighAI reads those rates through your credentials.
Your own FedEx account, your own negotiated rates, your own carrier relationship. FreighAI reads those rates through your credentials.
What happens to one enquiry
Take the inbound enquiry as the first workflow. It is where an Australian office loses the most hours, and nothing in it needs a licence.
An enquiry arrives. FreighAI reads it, notices the weight is missing and asks for it. It pulls your rate cards, checks the carrier for a live rate, and emails your agents for the lanes you do not hold, then chases them until they reply. It drafts the quote with your margin rules and what that customer paid on that lane last time. Your pricer approves and it goes. It follows up. When the customer pushes back, the counter-offer is already drafted. When the quote is old, it expires. When it is won, the job is created.
Where the rate can be fetched without waiting on a person — a carrier API, a portal read in the background, or your own uploaded rate cards — a priced quote goes out in 10–15 minutes instead of 1–2 hours. That holds for ocean and air just as it does for express; the mode does not change it. Where a lane has to be priced by another agent or over the phone, the wait belongs to whoever is answering — not to the software. FreighAI still writes the RFQ, chases the reply, and turns whatever comes back into a priced, margin-checked quote the moment it lands.
Where an approved result goes next, into your file or your broker’s queue, is settled in scope rather than assumed here. We scope the first workflow, integration requirements and implementation plan with your team.
need DHL quote Gurugram → Ajman, 72kg, by Friday. urgent pls 🙏
Hi Marco — DHL Express, AED 425 + AED 35 handling. ETA Thu·18:00, valid 24h. PDF attached.
- 01Enquiry emailArrives in pricing@ or on WhatsApp
- 02Reads itAsks the importer for the chargeable weight
- 03RatesYour rate cards, your carrier account, your agents chased
- 04Drafted quoteBeside the thread it arrived on
- GATEYour pricer approves
- 06Follow-upAnd the counter-offer, when the price is pushed back
- 07Won quoteBecomes a job on its own
- 08Cargo reportReported to the ICS as you do today
- 09The entryLodged and signed by your licensed broker
At Infinity Logistics, average response time fell from more than 60 minutes to about 15 minutes, and the win rate rose from 35% to 73%. Those are one customer’s attributed results, in the UAE, not a promise to an Australian business.
The systems Australian forwarders already run
Most international forwarders we speak to already own a system of record, and CargoWise began as software for Australian forwarders. Its own forwarding page describes covering the job from the initial quote to the final invoice, with customs and compliance, trade documentation, buy and sell rates by lane, carrier and commodity, visibility and multi-currency accounting. None of that argues for changing anything. CargoWise has an Australian story too: its maker’s history page says the company began by writing code for Australian freight forwarders.
So the conversation worth having here is about the boundary, not the comparison. Keep your TMS for the records. FreighAI runs the work around them. FreighAI reads a carrier bill and matches every airway bill back to its job, checking line by line before it is booked. It answers “where is my cargo?” on the customer’s own thread, from carrier status, for approval. Work passes from pricing to operations to accounts with the email and everything it found attached. Nobody forwards it, re-keys it or asks for an update.
If you run something else, the conversation is identical. Name the record that must stay authoritative, then decide what passes to it and when.
Pages worth reading before the demonstrations
Two comparisons matter here, and each states what the other product is genuinely good at, from that vendor’s own material with the date it was checked. cargo.one sits closest to the rate and booking problem: if the hardest part of your week is finding, holding and pricing capacity, read that one. Zauber sits closest to the inbox problem for larger operations built around CargoWise. The software guide is the vendor-neutral one: what to ask any supplier before you sign.
Common questions
Does FreighAI lodge declarations or report cargo in the Integrated Cargo System?
No. Cargo reporting and declarations go through the ICS exactly as they do today, on whatever software and broker arrangement you have. FreighAI works upstream of that, on the commercial thread: the enquiry, the quote, the follow-up and the carrier bill.
Do we still need a licensed customs broker?
Yes. The Customs Act 1901 provides that only the owner of the goods, or a customs broker licensed by the Comptroller-General of Customs, can submit an import declaration to enter goods for home consumption. Nothing here changes that. Your broker gets a finished task with the thread beside it, and still decides.
Is this domestic transport or despatch software?
No, and it would be misleading to let you think so. Australia’s domestic transport and despatch layer is a different category for a different buyer. FreighAI is for the international side: cargo crossing the border, overseas agents, entries and the email around them.
Do you have Australian customers we can speak to?
Not yet. Australia is an expansion market for us and we would rather say so than imply a presence we do not have. Our published customer is Infinity Logistics in the UAE. The mechanism does not change with the border, but if a local reference is a requirement, we are not there.
We run CargoWise. Does this replace it?
No forced replacement is required. Keep your TMS for the records. FreighAI runs the work around them. The coexistence page sets out what stays in CargoWise and what has to be settled in scope, and it asserts no CargoWise gap.
- Australian Border Force — ICS Context: the single system for imports and exports, cargo reporters, mandatory electronic reporting, permit validationverified 2026-09-03
- Australian Border Force — Integrated Cargo System (ICS): the Customs Connect Facility gatewayverified 2026-09-03
- Australian Border Force — Import declarations: the AUD1,000 threshold, the N10, SAC declarations and the referral to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestryverified 2026-09-03
- Australian Border Force — For Customs brokers: the Customs Act 1901, licensing by the Comptroller-General of Customs, Division 3 Part XI, licence termsverified 2026-09-03
- WiseTech Global — Our history: “We began writing code for Australian freight forwarders.”verified 2026-09-03
- CargoWise — International Forwarding Solutions: quote to invoice, customs, documentation, rates, visibility, accountingverified 2026-09-03
- Infinity Logistics customer reference, 15 May 2026 — response time and win rateverified 2026-08-31
Every Australian regime statement above comes from an Australian Border Force page fetched on 3 September 2026. No duty rate, charge or penalty is repeated. The Biosecurity Import Conditions system is deliberately not described: the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry site could not be reached the day this page was written, so the biosecurity point uses the ABF’s own wording instead.
Send us one Australian file from last week
Pick one import or export file your office handled last week and forward the whole email trail, agents included. We will show you what FreighAI would have read, asked for and drafted, and which desk it would have landed on.