Shipments

A shipment is one cargo movement: a vessel, a container, a truck, an ITT (inland transfer) or a bulk parcel. One shipment can carry cargo for several trades, and one trade can move on several shipments. Mercora shows shipments in two places:

• the Shipments tab on each trade, for that trade’s cargo;
• the Shipments page in the sidebar, for every movement across the book.

On the sugar trade VCS-S-2026-0714, for example, one container shipment on the vessel KITI BHUM carries all 27 MT from Laem Chabang to Singapore under B/L RCLLCH2607841.

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The Shipments tab on a trade

Open a trade and choose the Shipments tab. Shipments summary shows the number of Movements, the total shipped Quantity, and how many are Delivered. Shipments lists the trade’s vessels, trucks and other movements, one row each. Containers don’t get their own row here: they sit under the vessel that carries them, on that shipment’s Cargo tab. The header counts the movements, the containers, and any of the trade’s documents that aren’t attached to a shipment yet. Click that count to jump to the trade’s documents. Click a row to open the shipment. The row’s menu offers Open shipment and Unlink from trade. Unlinking a vessel also unlinks its containers from this trade.

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Add a shipment to a trade

Shipments are usually created and linked for you to approve when a B/L or other shipping document is reviewed in the Inbox. See Matching documents to trades.

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The Shipments page

Shipments in the sidebar lists every cargo movement across your trades.

• Active and Completed tabs split in-flight movements from finished ones. Each tab shows its count.
• Map and List switch the Active tab between a route map of live vessel positions and a table. The map needs Vessel Tracking (see below).
• Search matches vessel, reference, port or deal.
• Type filters by vessel, container, truck, ITT or bulk. Break-bulk (no containers) picks vessels and bulk shipments that carry no containers.
• Needs review shows only shipments with something for you to check.
• Display groups the list by Vessel, Day (ETD), Type or None. Reset to default returns to the standard layout, and an admin can Set as workspace default for everyone.
• Refresh asks for fresh vessel positions now.

The list columns are Reference, Deal, Type, Status, Route, Qty, ETD (estimated departure), ETA (estimated arrival), Docs and Discrepancies. The Completed tab adds Delivered.

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Create a shipment

• New shipment opens a form for the reference, carrier, vessel name, voyage number, B/L number and date, type, status, ports, ETD and ETA.
• Upload B/L sends a bill of lading through document processing. Review it in the Inbox to create the shipment, even if it doesn’t match a trade yet.

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A shipment’s page

Open a shipment to see its tabs:

• Overview: the route map, the tracking line, and the cargo, route and delivery figures.
• Documents: the documents attached to the shipment.
• Discrepancies: differences between the shipment’s documents and the shipment record. For each one, choose Keep doc value or Keep shipment value.
• Cargo: what the shipment carries. For a vessel with containers, one row per Container with its type, seal, weight and whether it’s On packing list. For other shipments, the cargo facts as one line.

The panel on the right holds Details (reference, type, B/L number and date, quantity, carrier), Route (load and discharge ports, ETD, ETA, delivered date), Vessel (vessel name, voyage number, IMO and MMSI identifiers), Trades, and any custom fields your admin added to shipments. Link it to trades. In the Trades card, search for a trade to add, or remove one. A shipment can serve several trades. Change its status. Click the status pill to move the shipment along Planned, Loading, In transit, Arrived and Delivered. Mark delivered jumps straight to Delivered. Enter the delivered date in the panel afterward.

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Needs review

A shipment is flagged Needs review when something about it looks off. The reasons Mercora gives: You can dismiss a flag once you’ve checked it.

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Vessel tracking

Mercora follows each vessel’s AIS position. AIS (Automatic Identification System) is the signal ships broadcast with their position, speed and heading. Positions are refreshed on a schedule. On a shipment page, Refresh checks now. The tracking line under the map reads, for example: the time of the last position report, speed in knots, heading, the next port, and the ETA the vessel reports. Other states you may see:

• No AIS fix: no position is available for the vessel yet.
• Fix not matched to this B/L: a position exists, but the vessel appears to be on a different voyage, so Mercora doesn’t plot it.
• Not tracked · container B/L: containers and vessels carrying containers aren’t tracked individually.
• Tracking stopped · assumed delivered: see below.

Only positions Mercora trusts are drawn on the map. A shipment whose position can’t be confirmed simply doesn’t appear on it. Statuses from tracking. With Vessel Tracking on, Mercora can move a vessel’s status forward (to Loading, In transit, Arrived or Delivered) from its port calls. It never moves a status backward. When a voyage is long overdue and the vessel shows no sign of either port, the shipment can be marked Assumed delivered. Real arrival evidence later promotes it to Delivered, and you can always change the status yourself.

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Next steps