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.
Dashboard → Shipper Settings → Tendering
Tendering is the moment you stop shopping and start booking: you’ve picked a price, and now you formally offer the shipment to that carrier. These settings control what goes out with that offer, who gets told, and what carriers can see before they commit.
Tender Defaults
What it does: Sets which documents are sent when a shipment is tendered, and who receives them. The editor is a grid. Each row is a document, and the columns are the possible recipients:
The documents available are the Bill of Lading, packing list, shipping label, the order itself, and the rate confirmation, plus any custom templates you’ve turned on in Document Settings. Where a column doesn’t apply to a document, it reads Not applicable.
When you’d change it: Set this up once to match how your operation communicates. The usual pattern is BOL and rate confirmation to the carrier, BOL and packing list to the pickup facility.
These are your organization-wide defaults. Where a route has its own document settings, the route’s settings win and saving here won’t change them.
Two-Step Tendering
Value: On / Off What it does: Adds a confirmation step before a tender is final, rather than the tender being binding the moment it’s sent. When you’d turn it on: Normally used with direct LTL carrier relationships, where the carrier’s process expects a confirmation exchange rather than a single instruction. For what the extra step looks like in practice, see Two Step Tendering.Tender Acceptance Emails
Value: On / Off What it does: Emails the teammate who tendered the shipment when the carrier accepts it. When you’d turn it on: If your team needs to know a booking is confirmed without watching the screen. When to leave it off: If your team lives in Owlery all day and the extra email is noise.Carrier Chooses Mode
Value: On / Off What it does: On a direct tender, lets the carrier decide the final mode — LTL or full truckload. When you’d turn it on: If you have carriers who can move freight either way and are better placed than you to decide which is more efficient. It can produce better pricing and service; the trade-off is you give up control of that choice.Carrier Account Manager Notifications
Value: On / Off What it does: As well as your usual contacts, emails the carrier’s default account managers about quoting, tendering, and load updates. When you’d turn it on: If your carriers’ account managers want visibility of your shipments. It helps to have someone at the carrier who can chase an issue for you.Pre-Tender Reference Visibility
Value: On / Off What it does: Controls who can see your reference numbers — PO numbers, order numbers, and similar — before a shipment is tendered.- Off (the default): only a carrier you’ve actually tendered to can see them.
- On: every carrier you’re quoting with can see them, even ones you don’t book.