> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.owlery.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Load Settings

> Set your on-time grace periods, control when loads can be created, and use one shipment ID throughout.

<Note>
  If you are an Enterprise customer with individual subsidiary organizations, remember that **shipper settings are organization specific**. Settings must be configured at the individual subsidiary organization level to ensure each subsidiary's operations work as expected.
</Note>

**Where to find it:** `Dashboard → Shipper Settings → Load`

A load is the shipment once it's real — a carrier is booked and the freight is moving. These settings control how you measure carrier performance, how loads get created, and how shipments are identified.

## On Time Performance

**What it does:** Sets how late a pickup or delivery can be and still count as on time. Two values, both in minutes:

* **Pick up grace period**: applies to pickups.
* **Drop off grace period**: applies to deliveries.

These are used to determine the on-time performance flags that show up on every load stop as well as in your [analytics dashboards](/shippers/dashboard-basics#on-time-performance).

**When you'd change it:** Match them to what you and your carriers consider acceptable. A 0-minute grace period marks almost every carrier late, which makes the metric useless for spotting who is genuinely underperforming. 15–60 minutes is common, and it's reasonable to be more forgiving on pickups than deliveries — your customer is waiting at the delivery end.

<Note>
  This changes how performance is displayed. It does not change the recorded pickup and delivery times themselves.
</Note>

## Load Without Carrier

**Value:** On / Off

**What it does:** Lets your team create a load before a carrier or broker has been chosen.

**When you'd turn it on:** If you need the load in Owlery before booking is settled — the freight is committed and your warehouse needs to prepare, while carrier selection is still in progress.

**When to leave it off:** If you'd rather loads only exist once they're properly booked, so none sit in limbo with no carrier attached.

<Note>
  This setting only appears if manual load creation is enabled for your account.
</Note>

## Universal Shipment ID

**Value:** On / Off

**What it does:** Uses one identifier — the quote's short ID — as the shipment's ID everywhere: on the tender, on the load, in emails, and in messages to connected systems.

**When you'd turn it on:** So everyone uses the same number for a shipment. Without it, the same shipment can be referred to by different identifiers at different stages, which makes tracing a problem across quote, tender, load, and invoice harder than it needs to be — for you, your carriers, and anyone reading an email thread later.