Introducing Rate Management in TrakIT

TrakIT now keeps every rate you buy and sell in one place, and puts the right one on your quotations and job estimates in a click. No more hunting through spreadsheets, old emails and last month's quote to find out what a lane should cost.

Every rate in one place

Rates live on rate cards, and there are five kinds, named the way your team already talks:

• Selling tariff - your standard prices for every customer without a contract
• Customer contract - prices agreed with one customer or a customer group
• Vendor rates - what carriers, airlines, transporters and agents charge you
• Spot rate - a one-off price with a short validity
• Surcharges - fuel, currency, security and other charges added on top

Each card is laid out like the rate sheet it came from: a price per container type for sea, weight breaks for air, one price per line for road or LCL. A card can serve one company or all of them, and covers every leg from pickup to delivery.

Prices change in versions. Editing a card opens a draft; publishing it sets the date it takes over and closes the previous version the day before. Nothing goes live until someone publishes it, and every version stays on record to compare or restore.

Quote in seconds

On a quotation or a job's estimates, press Get Rates. TrakIT reads the shipment - places, mode, containers, weight and volume - and prices every leg from the published cards. It picks the customer's own contract before the group's, the group's before your tariff, and the nearest place before a whole country.

• Chargeable weight for air and LCL: the greater of the actual weight and the volume at the card's ratio, with weight breaks applied (a higher break is used when it works out cheaper).
• Exchange rates from your company's own rate table, so a USD buy rate lands correctly on a local-currency job.
• Margin rules sell a cost on at a markup, a margin or a fixed amount, rounded the way you price, and flag any line below its minimum margin.

You see a preview first, with how every price was worked out. Lines someone priced by hand are kept unless you tick them, and lines already invoiced or billed are never touched. Find rates does the same for a shipment with no quotation yet, comparing vendors by cost, margin and transit time.

Rates that stay current

Keying in hundreds of lines is the hard part of any rate system, so TrakIT gives you several ways in:

• Upload an Excel or CSV file, even a vendor's own layout. Match its columns once and TrakIT remembers them for that card and that vendor. Or paste rows straight from Excel into the grid.
• Email the file to TrakIT with the card's code in the subject, and the reply lists what happened to every row.
• SFTP: drop files in a shared folder and TrakIT picks them up every 30 minutes.
• API: send rates from another system as a file or as plain JSON lines.

Whichever way they arrive, every row is checked first, and the rates land in a draft only when all of them are right - publishing stays a person's decision. Bulk changes, such as raising a whole card by 5% or moving its validity, show a preview before they apply. And TrakIT emails a user group 30 and 7 days before a card's rates run out, so nobody quotes from expired prices.

Know where you stand

Three reports, each one click to Excel:

• Missing rates - the lanes and charges your team still prices by hand on quotations and jobs, so you know which cards to build next.
• Cost variance - every vendor bill line against the contracted rate its estimate used, so overcharges stand out before you pay them.
• Commitments - volume promised under a contract (500 TEU a year, say) against what your jobs have actually moved, and whether you are on pace.

When a customer asks for your prices, send them a rate sheet: a clean PDF or Excel file of their contract or your tariff, with places by name, prices by container type or weight break, and the card's terms - nothing internal.

Getting started

You'll find it under Finance > Rate Management. Your administrator decides who can do what in Role Management: who may view, edit and publish cards, upload files, see buy rates and margins, set margin rules and use Get Rates. Buy rates stay hidden from anyone not given access to them.

The easiest start is one card you quote from every day: download its blank template, fill it in, upload it, publish it - and press Get Rates on your next quotation.

For further questions and guidance on Rate Management, please contact TrakIT Support.

Introducing User Groups

User Groups let you save a team of users once and pick that team as the recipient of an email, report, reminder or alert. When the team changes, you update the group in one place and everything that uses it follows.

At a Glance

Admin → User Groups shows the groups you belong to, the groups you can ask to join, and the archived ones.

Why User Groups?

If the same five people need a shipment alert, a daily report and a reminder, you would normally pick those five people each time. When someone joins or leaves the team, you have to find every place they are named and fix it. With a User Group you keep one list of people under one name, pick that name wherever a recipient is needed, and change the members once.

Examples: Import Operations, Claims Team, Finance Approvers.

Creating a User Group

You need permission to create groups: ask your administrator for User Groups (Create) in Role Management. If you do not see the New Group button, you do not have it yet.

1. Go to Admin → User Groups.
2. Click New Group.
3. Fill in the form:
   • Name: what people will see, for example "Import Operations". A name can be used once in your company.
   • Code: a short tag of 2 to 20 letters, digits or underscores, for example OPS_IMP. Event actions use it to name the group as [G-OPS_IMP]. The code cannot be changed later, so choose it with care.
   • Type: Operational, Project, Department or Notification-only. It helps you organize and filter groups and does not change how a group works.
   • Email: optional. Use it when the team has a shared mailbox or distribution list.
   • Email Recipients: who receives an email sent to the group (see below).
   • Visibility: who can see the group (see below).
   • Description: optional. Say what the group is for.
4. Click Create.
   
   
   
   
   
   

You become the owner of the group and its first member. A group belongs to one company, your own. A SysAdmin can create a group for any company and choose its owner.

Who receives the email: Email Recipients

• Group Email + Member Emails: the group's email address (if it has one) and every member receive the email.
• Group Email Only: only the group's email address receives it. Use this for a shared mailbox. An email address is required.
• Member Emails Only: every member receives it. The group's address is for information only.

Who can see the group: Visibility

• Visible: every internal user can see the group. Users of the group's company can ask to join, or the owner can add them.
• Private: only members can see the group. The owner adds people.
• Hidden: only the owner can see the group. Members see just its name in their own list, with a Leave button. The owner adds people.

SysAdmins can always see every group.

Adding members

Only the owner (or a SysAdmin) can add members.

1. In Admin → User Groups, click the group name to open it.
2. On the Members tab, click Add Members.
3. Search by name, user ID or email, tick the people you want, and click Add.

Each person you add is told by chat. Only internal users whose primary company is the group's company, and who are not locked, appear in the list.

To remove someone, click the x at the end of their row. The owner cannot be removed: transfer ownership first.

The Members tab shows each member, their company, when they were added and their status.

Members who will not receive messages

A member stays in the list but is skipped when messages are sent if they are locked, have moved to another company, or are an external user. The Status column says why, for example "Locked - not sent to". Everyone else shows Active.

Joining and leaving a group

1. Go to Admin → User Groups and open the All Groups tab.
2. Find a Visible group of your company and click Request to Join.
3. Add a short note for the owner if you like, and click Send Request.

The owner is emailed and can Approve or Decline from the group's request list, and you are told the outcome. Until then you can click Withdraw Request.

To leave a group, click Leave next to it. You can leave at any time. An owner must transfer ownership first.

What an owner can also do

• Edit: change the name, description, type, visibility, email and email option. The code and company stay as they are.
• Group icon: click the group's picture to upload one. It is cropped to a circle.
• Transfer Ownership: hand the group to another member, who is told by email and chat.
• Export: download the members as an Excel file, from one group or from the list.
• Action Log: a tab showing who did what and when: members added or removed, edits, requests, ownership changes and exports.
• Archive: retire a group you no longer need.
  
  
  
  
  

Archiving a group

Groups are archived, not deleted. An archived group sends to nobody, but it stays in the reports, reminders, actions and alerts that already name it, so nothing breaks. It cannot be picked in new places. Click Reactivate to bring it back as it was. Before you archive, the group page shows where the group is used, so you know which alerts will stop.

A user who owns a group cannot be deleted until the group is transferred to someone else.

Using a User Group as a recipient

Wherever you can choose users as recipients, you can choose a group instead. You can only choose groups you can see that are not archived.

• Event and data actions (Sequence Actions): in the recipient list, choose the group from the user group dropdown. It is added as [G-CODE]; you can also type it. Members receive the email, chat message or text, depending on the action.
• Advanced Reports: in the recipients box, enter the user group name, along with any user IDs or email addresses.
• Reminders for data fields (Scheduler): pick the user group in the recipients list, where it appears as 👥 Group name (Company).
• Location alerts (geofence triggers on a location): pick the group in the users list, also marked 👥. Everyone in the group is notified when the trigger fires.

In report recipients, a user group name shows in the Recipients column as below:
Similarly user groups can be added as recipients while setting up reminders for data fields and Location alerts for geofence triggers.

In Event / Data action, a user group name appear as [G-CODE] : 

A group picked as a recipient. Groups are marked with 👥.

Tips

• Name groups by purpose, not by person: Claims Alerts, not John's Team.
• Choose the code with care, because it cannot be changed.
• Keep a second person ready to take over as owner, in case the owner leaves.
• Use Notification-only groups for people who only need alerts.
• Check where a group is used before you archive it.

If a group does not appear where you expect it, it may be Private or Hidden, or archived. Ask the group's owner.

Questions? Write to TrakIT Support at support@trakit.in.

Ask TrakIT in plain words

You can now connect Claude, ChatGPT and other AI assistants to your TrakIT. Ask about your jobs, containers, invoices and reports in your own words, and get answers straight from your live TrakIT data.

What's new

TrakIT now has an MCP server. MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is the open standard AI assistants use to connect to other apps. Once you connect your assistant to TrakIT, it can look things up in TrakIT for you while you chat: find a job, check the latest event on a container, list overdue invoices, or count last month's TEU.

Safe By Design

Read-only. The assistant can look things up. It can't create, change or delete anything in TrakIT.

Your permissions, nothing more. It sees exactly what you see in TrakIT, with the same roles and filters. If you can't open something in TrakIT, the assistant can't read it either.

Switched on per person. Your TrakIT administrator decides who can connect an assistant.

Your normal TrakIT sign-in. You sign in on a TrakIT page, with two-factor codes if your company uses them. Your password is never given to the AI.

Recorded and reversible. Every request is logged, and you can disconnect at any time.

Before you start

You need three things:

• AI access in TrakIT. Ask your TrakIT administrator to enable AI access on your TrakIT profile.
• An assistant that supports custom connectors. Claude works on every plan (the free plan allows one custom connector). ChatGPT needs a Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise or Edu plan.
• The TrakIT connector address: https://mcp.trakit.in/mcp

Connect Claude

In Claude, open Settings and go to Connectors.

1. Click Add custom connector. Enter the name TrakIT and the address https://mcp.trakit.in/mcp , then click Add.
2. Click Connect next to TrakIT and sign in (see Signing in below).
3. In a chat, click +, open Connectors and make sure TrakIT is switched on. Then ask your question.

Connect ChatGPT

1. In ChatGPT, open Settings → Apps & Connectors → Advanced and turn on Developer mode.
2. In Apps & Connectors, click Create. Enter the name TrakIT, the connector URL https://mcp.trakit.in/mcp and authentication OAuth, then click Create.
3. Sign in to TrakIT when ChatGPT asks you to.

Signing in

When you connect, a TrakIT sign-in page opens. Its address starts with https://mcp.trakit.in.

1. Enter your TrakIT address, the one you use to open TrakIT in your browser (for example yourcompany.trakit.in or trakit.yourcompany.com ), and click Continue.
2. Sign in the way you normally do: click Continue with Google or Continue with Microsoft, or enter your TrakIT user ID or email and password and click Sign in. Your company decides which of these are offered.
3. If TrakIT asks for a verification code (for TFA), enter it and click Verify.
4. Check what the assistant will be able to read, and click Allow.

You're taken back to your assistant, and you're connected. From time to time you may be asked to sign in again.

What you can ask

Ask the way you'd ask a colleague. If you work in more than one TrakIT company, say which one. Here are some examples:

Jobs and shipments

• Show my open jobs created this week.
• Find the job for container MSKU1234565.
• List last month's export jobs for Acme Traders.

Tracking

• What's the latest status of job BL-26-0117?
• Has the vessel arrived? What's the ETA?
• Which milestones are still pending on its containers?

Customers and partners

• Find our customer Acme Traders.
• Which shipping lines do we have in TrakIT?
• Which clearing agents do we have in TrakIT?

Invoices and bills [Finance access required]

• Which sales invoices are overdue?
• How much does Acme Traders still owe us?
• Show the unpaid supplier bills for job BL-26-0117.

Job profit · [Finance access required]

• What's the profit on job BL-26-0117?
• Which costs make up the expenses on this job?
• Is the finance on this job approved or closed yet?

Reports and trends

• How many jobs did we open each month this year? Show it as a chart.
• Compare our TEU this quarter with last quarter.
• Which customers have the most open work orders right now?

You can also combine questions: "Prepare a short summary of this week's operations for my manager" or "Which of our biggest customers have overdue invoices?" What you can ask about depends on your TrakIT role. For example, invoices and job profit need finance access in TrakIT.

Tips for better answers

• Use job, container or invoice numbers when you have them.
• Ask for a table or a chart when you want one.
• Ask follow-up questions. The assistant remembers the conversation.
• Check important figures in TrakIT before you act on them. AI assistants can make mistakes.

Good to know

Your questions, and the TrakIT data the assistant reads to answer them, are handled by the AI provider you use (for example Anthropic for Claude or OpenAI for ChatGPT), like anything else you type into that assistant. Follow your company's policy on AI tools.

The connection stays until you disconnect it or your administrator turns off your AI access.

To disconnect, remove TrakIT under Settings → Connectors in Claude, or Apps & Connectors in ChatGPT.

If something doesn't work

"Couldn't determine how this server signs in"

Check the address. It must end in /mcp: https://mcp.trakit.in/mcp.

"Your TrakIT account doesn't have AI access"

Ask your TrakIT administrator to tick AI under Access on your user.

The assistant answers without using TrakIT

Make sure TrakIT is switched on for the chat, or mention TrakIT in your question.

You don't know your TrakIT address

It's the address you use to open TrakIT in your browser, such as yourcompany.trakit.in.

This is a new experience for us as well - and the first release of the TrakIT MCP Gateway. Please connect with the TrakIT Support team if you have suggestions or questions that the AI can't answer or is answering incorrectly. We'll do our best to improve the performance and accuracy.

Sign finance documents on the spot with Live Signature

Invoices, quotations, bills and vouchers can now carry a signature drawn right in TrakIT, with a mouse, a pen or a finger, before the PDF is generated. There is no printing, signing and scanning: the signature and the time it was given go straight into the document.

At a Glance

The template's signature box waits in the preview; after Confirm, the drawn signature and its time take its place, exactly as they will print.

How signing works

Signing happens in the same Generate window you already use, in the preview of the document.

1. Open the document and click Generate (or Pro-Forma, Approve, Generate PDF), then pick the template.
2. The preview shows a dashed "Sign Here" box where the signature belongs.
3. Sign inside the box with your mouse, a pen, or your finger on a tablet or phone.
4. Click Confirm to keep it, or Clear to start again.
5. The box is replaced by your signature, with the time underneath, for example 14:05, 25 Sep 2026.
6. Click Generate. The PDF carries the signature exactly where the box was.

Changed your mind after Confirm? Click the signature to sign again. If Generate stops on another problem, such as a mistyped email address, your confirmed signature is kept while you fix it.

Setting it up on a template

Any finance template can take a signature: invoices, debit and credit notes, invoice documents, quotations, bills, and receipt or payment vouchers. Two steps in Admin → Form Definitions:

1. In the form content, place the signature box where the signature should appear: <div class="LiveSign"></div>. It is 280 x 90 by default; give it a width and height in its style to change that. Text inside the box, such as "Customer Signature", shows as a small caption.
2. Edit the template header and turn on Require Live Signature.

TrakIT checks the template as you save it. The switch only turns on when the content has exactly one signature box, and while it is on, the box cannot be deleted from the content by accident. The box belongs in the form content itself, not in the header, the footer or a section that is hidden from print.

Required or optional

The switch decides whether a signature is a must or a choice. A template with the box but without the switch still offers the signing pad. Either way, a signature that has been drawn but not confirmed stops Generate with a reminder, so a signature is never dropped by mistake.

Good to know

• The time is yours and it is checked. It is shown in the time zone of your TrakIT profile, the same as the "Generated By" line, and TrakIT confirms it on its own clock.
• Every signed PDF is recorded. The user action log notes the template, the user who generated the PDF, the signing time and a fingerprint of the signature image.
• Each document is signed fresh. A signature belongs to the one PDF it was given for, so regenerating a document asks for a new one.
• Some documents have no preview to sign in. The credit note created when an invoice is reversed is one; templates that require a signature are not offered there.
• It is a drawn signature. It shows the signature and when it was given, like ink on paper. It is not a certificate-based digital signature.

For any questions or concerns, or for any assistance in setting up the signature box, contact TrakIT Support.

Finance and Management Emails for Entities

Every entity in TrakIT now has three sets of email addresses: General, Finance and Management. Invoices can go to the accounts team while job updates keep going to operations, without workarounds.

The entity edit page now shows three email boxes side by side. Each takes one or more addresses, separated by a comma or a new line.

• General Emails is the email field you already use, under a clearer name. Nothing in it changes.
• Finance Emails is for invoices, statements and payment reminders.
• Management Emails is for the people who should get reports and summaries.

Wherever TrakIT emails an entity, you choose which of the three to send to, and you can tick more than one. An email address listed in two categories receives the email only once. If every category you chose is empty for an entity, TrakIT sends to its General addresses, so nobody is left out.

Where you can choose

Look for General, Finance and Management tick boxes in these places. In the 'send' dialogs, each category also lists its addresses, and a category with no addresses is greyed out.

Where	What you choose	Ticked by default
Event/Data Actions	Entity Emails, for Send Email and Send Documents actions once an entity is picked	General
Advanced Report Subscriptions	Entity Emails, once an Entity Type Subscription is set	General
Broadcast Messages	Entity Emails, under Entity Type	General
Reminders	The categories next to Notify Entity	General
Invoices/Credit Notes	The customer's categories when you generate and email the document	Finance
Receipt Vouchers	The customer's categories when you generate the voucher	Finance
Finance Documents Email	Individual addresses, each labelled with its category	Finance
Quotations	The customer's categories when you generate the quotation	General
Job Documents (Email Docs)	Categories for each party: customer, transporter, freight forwarder and clearing agent	General
Forms (Generate PDF & Email)	Categories for each party on the job	General

When a Finance default is set but the entity has no Finance addresses, General is ticked instead.

Sent automatically

Some emails TrakIT sends on its own now go to the Finance addresses first, and to General when Finance is empty:

• Outstanding invoice payment reminders.
• The contact email sent to your accounting system (Xero or QuickBooks) when entities sync.

Operational emails stay on General: job status updates, pending document reminders and comment notifications.

Getting started

1. Open an entity, click Edit, and fill in Finance Emails and Management Emails.
2. Open an action, report subscription, reminder or broadcast that emails entities, and tick the categories it should use.
3. Send an invoice as usual: the Finance addresses are already ticked.

You can see all three fields on the entity page, in the entity list and in its export. The Email filter on the entity list searches all three.

To fill the fields in bulk, add Finance Email and Management Email columns to your entity import sheet, next to General Email (a column named Email still works).

Form and template designers can print the new addresses with these codes:

Code	Prints
##ENTFINEMAIL##	The entity's Finance addresses
##ENTMGMTEMAIL##	The entity's Management addresses
##INVTOFINEMAIL##	The invoiced entity's Finance addresses
##INVTOMGMTEMAIL##	The invoiced entity's Management addresses

The entity codes also take a party suffix, such as ##ENTFINEMAIL|TRANS## for the transporter, just like ##ENTEMAIL##.



For any questions or concerns, please contact TrakIT Support.