Service detail
What each service includes
The descriptions below are written for a buyer who needs to know exactly what happens on the day, not for a brochure.
If a service line is not clear, call +12769457798 and ask the desk directly.
Service H / bay reservation
Container Hold Booking
A container hold is a reservation of physical space in the bay, attached to a specific vessel and voyage, with a named
consignee and a known seal number. Booking the hold is the first act of the import cycle because everything afterwards
depends on the box having somewhere to sit when it comes off the ship. The desk opens the booking against your commercial
invoice and packing list, checks that the container count matches the manifest, and records the bay position that the
terminal has confirmed.
Once the hold is open, the booking note becomes the reference document for every later step. It carries the vessel, the
voyage, the bill of lading reference, the port of discharge, the consignee name as it appears on the chit, and the hour
at which the hold was opened. When a vessel is delayed, we update the note and notify the parties on the sheet; when a
booking is amended, for example because a second container joins the shipment, a new note is issued rather than an
annotation scrawled on the old one.
The desk also handles the practical questions that come with a hold: whether the terminal allows free storage beyond the
agreed window, whether a chassis is needed at the gate, and whether the container can be inspected on the quay before it
moves. Those answers go into the booking note as plain sentences so a driver can read them without interpretation.
Service C / declaration work
Customs Chit Filing
The customs chit is the document that allows the container to leave the terminal and enter the country. Filing it well
means filing it early, and filing it early means drafting it while the vessel is still at sea. Our desk drafts the chit
from the commercial documents, cross-checks the tariff classification against the goods description, and confirms that
the country of origin, the value and the quantity all agree across the invoice, the packing list and the manifest.
Discrepancies are the normal case rather than the exception. A supplier may describe a product in one way on the invoice
and another way on the packing list; a pallet count may disagree with the carton count by one unit; a currency conversion
may have been rounded in two different places. The desk flags each of those items in writing and asks for the correction
before submission, because a chit that has to be amended after release is far more expensive than one that is corrected
beforehand.
After filing, we keep the submission receipt and the release notice together with the booking note. That bundle is what
the courier service later carries if a counterparty needs signed originals, and it is also the record we use when a
client asks months later why a particular container was cleared under a particular code.
Service B / quay timing
Berth Unload Windows
An unload window is an agreement in time: the terminal will make the container available between two hours, the drayage
driver will arrive within that span, and the receiving warehouse will have a door and a person free at the other end.
The window only works if all three parties are working from the same written schedule, which is why we publish it to
everyone at once rather than in a sequence of phone calls.
Windows are built around the arrival pattern of the vessel and the real capacity of the receiving dock. A warehouse that
can take one truck at nine in the morning cannot take four at nine in the morning, and a window that ignores that fact
creates a queue on the quay and a driver waiting at a gate. The desk asks for dock capacity before it publishes a window,
and it keeps a small buffer inside the window for the ordinary friction of a terminal gate.
When a vessel arrives late or a chit clears late, the window is reissued rather than stretched. Stretching a window is the
quickest way to lose the agreement behind it, because a stretched window is not a promise, it is an aspiration. A reissued
window with a named new hour is still a promise, and the parties can plan around it.
Service W / road movement
Warehouse Transfer Runs
A transfer run moves the container from the quay to the warehouse, and it carries the full documentation set with it:
booking note, chit release, delivery window and the door contact sheet. The driver receives a route and a door number,
checks the seal against the booking note before departure, and collects a signature and a timestamp at the receiving dock.
The run is not closed until both ends have reported.
Transfer runs are scheduled so that the receiving warehouse has time to unload without holding the chassis longer than
agreed. For repeated clients, the same driver pattern is kept wherever possible, because a driver who knows the loading
dock and the receiving clerk is measurably faster than one who has to ask for directions at the gate. That consistency is
the difference between a run that fits inside its window and a run that quietly eats into the next appointment.
Where a container has to be split across more than one destination, the desk plans the sequence in advance and records
partial deliveries on the same sheet. Nothing is sent onward without the seal being re-verified and the remaining quantity
being written down.
Service R / repeating cycle
Retail Restock Programs
Retail restock programs turn the other five services into a rhythm. A buyer sets a replenishment target, the desk agrees a
berth slot pattern, and from that point the hold, the chit, the window, the transfer run and the courier step all run on
the same repeating calendar. The value of the program is not any single step; it is that the steps stop being negotiated
from scratch every month.
Programs are reviewed on a fixed cadence, usually monthly, with the buyer and the receiving warehouse. Volumes are adjusted
for seasonal peaks, and the berth slots are reserved ahead of the peak rather than requested during it. Where a program
includes a promotional burst, the desk plans the burst as a separate surge block inside the standing calendar so that the
normal replenishment is not pushed aside.
For a retailer, the practical benefit is that the shelf date becomes predictable. The truck arrives on the same day of the
week, the receiving crew knows the pattern, and the store manager stops building informal safety stock to cover an
unreliable arrival. Predictability is worth more than a small discount on a single shipment.
Service D / paper movement
Document Courier Service
Most documents move electronically, and we encourage that. There remain cases where an original has to travel on paper:
a bank or a counterparty insists on a wet signature, a legal file needs a stamped set, or a customs office requests a
physical copy. The courier service exists for those cases and is deliberately narrow so that the ordinary flow of work is
not slowed by unnecessary paper.
The courier step starts at the desk. The document set is bound, listed on a cover sheet and logged against the relevant
booking. The envelope is handed over in person to a courier with a tracking line, and the recipient signs at the far end.
If a document is time-critical, the desk tells the client the realistic transit time rather than the optimistic one.
Courier logs are kept with the booking record. That means a signature can be traced months later to a specific envelope,
a specific booking and a specific day, which is often the exact level of detail a client needs when a dispute turns on
when a document arrived rather than what it said.