Freight and transit estimates
Freight is the line on a promotional quote most likely to be guessed at, and transit time is the number most likely to break a date. This Watch estimates both and flags the quotes and orders where the estimate and the paperwork disagree. In Settings → Workspace → Watches it sits under Supplier Integration as SI-7.
What it watches for
- A quote with no freight line at all, or one that disagrees with what the freight is likely to cost.
- An order whose transit time on the requested service will not make the in-hands date.
It is also the estimator the other date-and-margin Watches call, rather than each of them inventing its own freight number: SI-3 production delay, FI-3 the quote margin guard and SI-6 order-by date all use it.
Why it matters
A freight guess that is low comes out of the margin on the job. A transit guess that is optimistic comes out of the in-hands date, which is worse. Neither is a hard problem to get right — it just needs six pieces of information that live in six different places, every single time. This Watch gathers them.
It books as Avoided on the Found ledger.
What it needs connected
- Required: a mailbox — the quote and the ship-to address are read from your mail.
- Helpful: a supplier feed, your accounting system, a CRM. The supplier feed supplies the ship-from point and the packaging profile; accounting supplies what freight has actually cost you on this supplier's lane in the past.
How the estimate is built, and why it says how sure it is
Six inputs go into it: where the supplier ships from; the customer's ship-to postal code; the package profile (units per case, case weight and dimensions); the carrier and service; transit times for that origin and destination; and a rate basis — published rates, the supplier's own freight estimate, or what you have paid on that lane before. Three of those give transit days and three give cost.
The point reports its confidence by how many of the six it actually had. An estimate built on all six is worth acting on; an estimate built on two is worth a phone call. Scout tells you which one you are looking at instead of presenting both the same way.
What the point looks like
A point is one item Scout raises with the proof behind it. This one arrives in the Inbox as a recommendation:
The Whisker Creek Vet quote has no freight line — Whisker Creek Vet · in-hands Sept 26
480 units ship from the supplier's Wisconsin facility to the Whisker Creek ship-to in four cases. Ground freight on that lane has run between $54 and $61 on your last three orders with this supplier. The quote to Dr. Priya Lin carries no freight at all.
Evidence: the sent quote in Gmail · the supplier's ship-from point and packaging data · three past supplier invoices on the same lane · the estimate, with five of six inputs present.
The settings that tune it
None. Its settings block reads No adjustable thresholds.
When it arrives
This is a second-wave Watch. It is not raising points today — its row in Settings reads Coming soon. You can turn it on now; there is nothing else to configure. We do not publish a date for it.
Good to know
- An estimate is an estimate. Scout labels it as one and shows you what it was built from, so you can decide whether to quote from it or call the supplier.
- Supplier data stops at the moment the carrier takes the box. Delivery events after that are not something Scout reads today.
- Scout never books freight, never selects a service, and never changes a shipment.
- The learned part of the estimate improves quietly as your own supplier invoices accumulate — the more you ship on a lane, the better the number gets.