Upload the bill of lading, the packing list, and the commercial invoice for a shipment and get one tracked row: shipper, consignee, carrier, container and seal numbers, gross weight, port of loading, port of discharge, and the dates on each document. The freight file stops living across three email threads.
The app embedded on this page is the CSV Import Tool, a real Taskade Genesis build you can load rows into right now. A shipment tracker is a table of rows first, and this is the fastest way to get that table standing. Click "Use this app" to clone it in about ten seconds, add the carrier, container, and date columns, then put the upload form and the reading step in front of it.
Concretely, a Shipments Project holds one row per consignment and a Documents Project holds one row per paper, kept as connected records so a shipment with five documents stays one shipment. A published form takes the shipment reference, the document type, and a File field. The Convert File to Text step reads whatever arrives, and freight paperwork is exactly the mixed bag that justifies it: crisp carrier PDFs, faxed pages from an agent, and photographs taken at a counter. An Ask Agent step returns bill of lading number, shipper, consignee, notify party, carrier, vessel and voyage, container and seal numbers, number of packages, gross and net weight, freight terms, port of loading, port of discharge, and the issue date. Numbers that must match across documents are compared, and a mismatch is flagged before it becomes a customs problem.
The shipment picture renders where it is needed:
- Table view for the full shipment register with references and weights
- Board view to move consignments through Booked, In Transit, Cleared, and Delivered
- Calendar view for sailing, arrival, and clearance dates
- Plus List, Mind Map, Gantt, and Org Chart across the 7 project views
Automations keep freight moving. With Taskade automations, a shipment arriving within three days notifies the clearance agent, a document mismatch flags the coordinator with both values shown, and a missing document for a booked shipment is chased automatically. Across 100+ bidirectional integrations, Gmail pulls agent emails in while Slack and Google Sheets push the tracker out. The AI agents inside the app carry 34 built-in tools with persistent memory, so an agent can answer "which shipments are missing a packing list this week" from your own records.
Pick three numbers to cross-check and be strict about them: container number, gross weight, and package count. Those three catch most of the discrepancies that become clearance delays, and checking everything catches nothing because the noise buries the signal. Agree with your agents which document is authoritative when two disagree, and record that decision in the app rather than in an email thread. Load a month of completed shipments as a back-file before you go live. It gives the tracker a shape, and it usually surfaces one recurring mismatch that everybody had been quietly correcting by hand for years.
Clone the app, invite your logistics team and your agents, and the tracker, the documents, and the matching rules are yours.
See the reading step in Convert File to Text, the pattern in Build a Document Intake App, and the format list in Read Scanned Paperwork and Photos. Shape the tracker with Databases in Projects, browse live builds in the Community Gallery, or explore automations. Pair this with Log Deliveries From the Packing Slip in the Box for the receiving end, and Match Purchase Orders to the Invoices That Arrive for the commercial side.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can it compare numbers across the document set?
Yes, and that is where the value sits. Ask it to compare container number, weight, and package count across the bill of lading, the packing list, and the invoice, then flag any disagreement with both values shown. Customs problems usually start as a small mismatch nobody looked for.
Does it read faxed or photographed freight paperwork?
Yes. Faxes and photographs are images of a page, which is precisely what the reading step handles. Typed carrier PDFs are read straight through as text.
Can agents in other countries submit documents?
Share the published form link, or take documents through a webhook. Both carry a real stored file into the automation. Turn on app sign-in through App Users if you want each submission attached to a named agent.
What if a document uses different field names?
Freight paperwork varies by carrier and route. The extraction reads meaning rather than a fixed template, and anything genuinely absent comes back blank and flagged instead of guessed.
How do I track dates that matter?
Ask for issue date, sailing date, and estimated arrival as separate date fields, then read them in Calendar view. Automations then chase clearance ahead of arrival rather than on the day.
Are the original documents kept?
Yes. Every upload attaches to its document row and lands in your workspace Media tab, which is what you need when a carrier queries a figure.
Is there a size limit?
Keep scans and photos under 20 MB, the ceiling for reading words off an image. Typed PDFs and spreadsheets are read as text and are bounded by your plan upload size.
Can it handle shipments with multiple containers?
Yes. Ask for containers as a list and write them into a connected Project, so a consignment with six containers is one shipment with six container records rather than six confusing rows.
