Frequently asked questions

Beacon automatically detects changes in ETAs, vessel schedules, or shipment statuses and highlights them for you. You can configure alerts for significant changes (like delays over 24 hours) and set up daily digest emails summarizing all changes across your shipments. This eliminates the need to constantly check for updates manually.

Beacon offers email notifications for key status changes like ETA updates and arrival at destination. These notifications can be delivered to different team members based on their role in managing your shipments.

Beacon highlights shipments that have been delayed, allowing you to identify and address issues proactively. The platform also preserves the history of ETA changes, so you can track how often particular routes, carriers, or suppliers experience delays, helping you make more informed planning decisions.

Beacon's Live Boards allow you to create personalized tracking portals for each customer. Simply create a board filtered to show only that customer's shipments, then share a secure link with them. They'll see real-time status updates, ETAs, and any documents you choose to share—all without you having to send a single email update.

Yes. When you share a Live Board with customers, they automatically receive automatic email notifications for ETA updates, or changes in the last 24 hours

Beacon's permission system lets you create customer-specific views where each customer sees only their shipments. You can also control whether customers see sensitive information like costs, specific documents, or internal notes. This ensures you maintain appropriate confidentiality while still providing transparency.

Beacon allows you to monitor supplier performance by tracking important metrics such as lead times and shipment reliability. By tagging shipments with supplier information, you can generate reports that show historical performance and trends, giving you valuable data to use in supplier negotiations and planning discussions.

Yes. You can create supplier-specific boards where suppliers can update cargo-ready dates, provide container numbers, upload documents, and add shipping details. This creates a collaborative workflow that reduces email back-and-forth while maintaining a clear record of all communications and commitments.

Beacon's reporting tools allow you to compare suppliers by examining data like transit times and route reliability. These analytics help you quickly identify which suppliers are causing the most disruptions so you can address issues or adjust your planning accordingly.

Beacon's Live Boards let you create custom views for different internal teams. For example, your sales team can see shipments for their customers, marketing can monitor promotional inventory, and finance can track high-value shipments. Each team gets the information they need in real time, without requiring manual updates from logistics.

Yes. Team members can comment directly on shipments, tag colleagues, attach documents, and update specific fields based on their permission level. This creates a centralized communication thread tied directly to the relevant shipment, eliminating scattered emails and ensuring everyone has the same information.

You can flag critical shipments with priority status, which highlights them in the dashboard and can trigger special notifications. The platform also supports watch lists where teams can monitor high-priority shipments together, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks during handoffs between departments.

With Beacon, you can attach any document—commercial invoices, purchase orders, packing lists, export documentation, certificates of origin, and more—directly to the relevant shipment or order card. These documents are instantly accessible to anyone viewing the shipment (based on their permission level) and are organized in one central location rather than scattered across email threads or shared drives.

Yes. When you share a Live Board containing shipments or orders, all permitted documents attached to those items are automatically viewable by the board recipients. This means your warehouse team can instantly access packing lists, customs can view compliance documents, and customers can see relevant commercial documentation—all without manual distribution.

Absolutely. You can share order boards with suppliers and specifically request that they upload required documentation. The platform tracks which documents have been provided and which are still pending, sending automatic reminders when documentation deadlines approach. This creates accountability and a clear audit trail for document collection.

Beacon allows you to create warehouse-specific boards showing exactly what's arriving and when at each location. Warehouse managers receive automatic notifications about incoming shipments, delays, or special handling requirements. This eliminates surprises and helps warehouse teams optimize staff scheduling, loading bay allocation, and storage planning.

Yes. You can tag shipments with labels like "Black Friday" or "Summer Collection" and then filter your inventory views accordingly. This allows you to monitor all seasonal inventory across multiple shipments, carriers, and suppliers in one place, ensuring your promotional planning aligns with actual inventory availability.

Beacon provides alerts for containers approaching free time expiration, allowing you to prioritize their pickup. You can configure notifications to alert warehouse managers X days before containers need to be processed, helping to avoid costly detention charges. The system also tracks historical detention costs by location, helping you identify and address recurring issues.

Beacon's order management capabilities let you track purchases from the moment an order is placed, through production, all the way to delivery. You can add orders to the system before they have container numbers, track cargo-ready dates, and then seamlessly transition to shipment tracking once freight is booked.

Yes. Beacon provides sailing schedules for major routes, allowing you to see upcoming vessels and their estimated departure and arrival dates. This helps you work with suppliers to target specific sailings and gives you visibility into realistic delivery timeframes before containers are even loaded.

Beacon allows you to link multiple shipments to a single order, giving you visibility into how orders are split across containers. You can track what percentage of an order has shipped, what's still pending, and expected arrival dates for each portion, helping you plan inventory availability accurately.

Beacon offers comprehensive analytics including carrier reliability, actual vs. quoted transit times, port performance, detention and demurrage tracking, and supplier delivery metrics. These insights help you identify bottlenecks, optimize carrier selection, and make data-driven decisions about routing and lead time planning.

Yes. Beacon calculates the carbon footprint of your shipments based on verified calculation methodologies. You can view emissions by route, carrier, transport mode, or time period, helping you meet sustainability reporting requirements and identify opportunities to reduce your environmental impact.

Beacon's comparative analytics show how different carriers perform on the same routes, revealing differences in transit time, reliability, and predictability. The platform also highlights when alternative routings might be faster or more reliable based on current market conditions and historical performance data.

All customers are up and running with Beacon in days, not months. You can upload your existing tracking spreadsheet and be operational immediately. For more complex implementations with API integrations or extensive customizations, our team works closely with you to ensure a smooth rollout tailored to your specific needs.

Yes. Beacon offers API integration capabilities that allow for connection with your ERP (like SAP), WMS, or other internal systems. This enables two-way data flow, with Beacon receiving shipment information and returning status updates and ETAs to your core systems, creating a unified data environment.

Every Beacon customer on business or pro plans receives dedicated onboarding support to ensure a smooth transition. Starter plan customers have email and live chat support. Our customer success team helps set up your initial boards, trains your team on the platform, and remains available for ongoing support. We also provide regular product updates based on customer feedback and industry developments.

Beacon offers flexible pricing based on your annual shipment volume and the features you need. We have different plans to accommodate various business sizes and requirements, from our Business plan with core tracking and sharing features to our Pro plan with extended reporting and unlimited boards. Contact us for a customized quote based on your specific requirements.

Yes, we offer a free 14-day trial with full access to the platform. You can upload your actual shipments, create custom boards, and experience the value of Beacon with your own data. No credit card is required to start your trial.

You can start your free trial directly on our website, or book a personalized demo with our team. During the demo, we'll explore your current process, identify opportunity areas, and show you exactly how Beacon would work for your specific supply chain challenges.