Contents

Basic definitions
BOFFIN/Open modules
BOFFIN/Open Freight Applications
National Traffic
Super Consol Air Exports
Break bulk Air Imports
Surface Exports
Surface Imports
Job Costing
Container Control
BOFFIN/Open Customs & Excise System

Basic definitions:

Boffin/Open contains more than 2,000 programs and 800 Reports (Oracle Forms and Reports).

The whole of the Boffin/Open is designed to run continuously, even through Financial Month-end and Financial year-end. In Boffin/Open documentation, Accounting Months are written in capital letters in the form JAN-2006 meaning 'The Accounting Month January 2006'. Operational and/or Statistical months are written in upper/lowercase in the form Jan-2006 and are EXACTLY in line with calendar months.

In the integral accounting system, the terms 'Nominal Ledger' and 'General ledger' are synonymous and Bishopstrade will use the term 'General ledger'.

Financial years can be any sequence of twelve consecutive Accounting Months (e.g. APR of one year to MAR of the following year or JAN to DEC of the same year). The delimiters of a Financial-year in any given installation can be changed after the installation has gone live; but the user should take time to consider the implications. Boffin/Open is designed to make it possible for the user to process two General Ledger years, simultaneously. The operational departments can be working and causing accounting transactions to be posted to the new Financial Year, whilst the accounts department are able to continue working with the old financial year AND the new financial year. The change in Financial Year is a relaxed thing, comprising of a normal Accounting Month change, but affected a few days late.

Accounting Months Changeover from one Accounting-Month to another is under the direct control of the user, but should be effected as early as possible on the first working day of the new calendar month; except when the Accounting-Month changeover is also the Financial Year changeover.

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BOFFIN/Open modules:

There are two distinct Boffin/Open modules.

The BOFFIN/Open Freight Application

The BOFFIN/Open Customs & Excise

The BOFFIN/Open Freight Application covers different sub-modules used by Freight Forwarders and Transporters.

NATIONAL TRAFFIC

By National Traffic, Bishopstrade mean door/door collections and deliveries all over the country but with no facilities for 'crossing national borders'. It allows for the logical setup of a National Network of Partner Agents, each of whom is responsible for collections and deliveries in his own area, as well a participating in the receiving of inbound groupages, the delivery of some inbound shipments and then the reconsolidation of those groupages with additional local collections before the dispatch of outgoing groupages to other cargo terminals.

Consider the situation where there are an increasing number of cargo terminals (depots), each of which is responsible for collections and deliveries in their own agreed area and for building and trunking outbound consolidations and breaking inbound units.

Customers can be invited to use a website in which there is a small HTML based program that will provide online, real-time quotations, using the sales tariff located on the Boffin/Open server. Regular and/or special customers would be able to have special discounts. Cargo bookings would be made on client-PCs attached to a Boffin/Open server on which the sales tariff and details of all customers would be available. Cargo booking would be based on a single client-PC screen image, pricing would be in local currency and automatic.

Cargo bookings starting their journey anywhere in the country can be booked initially into any of the cargo terminal sub-systems. The cargo booking can/will cause a collection note set to be printed. Copy or second-copy collection note sets can be printed, on demand from any cargo terminal in the network. Cargo received from other freight agents in the area can be booked for previously unknown shippers and consignees with the sales charges being charged to the freight agent who submitted the traffic.

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SUPER CONSOL AIR EXPORTS.

What is a Super-consol?

Consider a 'simple' air export consolidation; this will comprise of a Master booking (from which the MAWB is produced) for the consol as a whole and then an unlimited series of 'detail shipment bookings'; from which each HAWB is produced.
Usually the user would 'deliver the consolidation into the airline and obtain the Airline Buying Freight Rate applicable to the consol 'totals'.

Now consider the situation that there are (say) three consolidations leaving Hong Kong for Europe, say one consol for each of Frankfurt, Paris and London and the airline, offers to treat the three consolidations as one consol for the purposes of the Buying FREIGHT Rate.
The User could make an additional booking, which Bishopstrade call the Super Consol booking, which would show the gross aggregate totals of the three consolidations. A new additional MAWB would be produced, which we call the Super Consol MAWB.

The airline would charge the user against the Super-Consol and the very best airline freight buying rate negotiable for the sum of the three (in this case) consolidations.

The user would accept the airline charge against the Super-Consol cost-file. BOFFIN/Open includes a set of programs, which 'apportion' charges from super-consol master bookings across the constituent master bookings, thus neutralizing the charges on the super-consol cost file.

Then there is another similar program that apportions charges from the consol master bookings across the detail bookings of the consolidation; leaving no charges on the consolidation master.
Where the user knows that he operates or may have operates super-consol(s); and as part of the Operational Month-end process, usually operated between the last day of the old month and the 7th day of the following month, the user will run the 'Super Consol apportionment' program.
This program very quickly searches the air exports bookings table and locates each Super Consol Master cost-file. The program checks to determine if there is any net value on the file (including trading accruals if this is in play) and if there is a net value on the cost file (usually only costs), it creates a single general ledger journal, per super-consol master, to neutralize these charges on the super-consol Master, spreading the 'appropriate' values across the constituent consol master bookings that comprised the super-consol.

The user then runs a very similar 'Consolidation Apportionment' program, that quickly searches for all consolidation master cost-files and neutralizes these by creating a general ledger journal for each. This journal neutralizes the charges on the consolidation master file and spreads the value across the constituent detail cargo booking cost files.

It is appreciated that there is no 'fair' way to apportion super-consol or consolidation master charges across the constituent components; but a reasonable manner in the case described here is to apportion in the ration of the 'Chargeable Kilos'.
Notice that the apportionment exercise, even when super-consol is not operated, it allows us to get a better 'gross profit' per detail cargo booking.

BOFFIN/Open includes a 'Profit by' suite, which allows the user to monitor and aggregate the traffic that each customer is submitting, so as to arrive at a reasonable 'Profit per Customer Month'; amongst many other analyses that are possible. The manual for this optional software is being revised and will be made available shortly.

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· BREAKBULK AIR IMPORTS

The BOFFIN/Open application includes a specific module that supports an Air Import break-bulk department.

Such a department will receive any number of inbound air cargo consolidations from any number of origin points and allows the staff to process these, simultaneously or sequentially or any mix of the two.

Each inbound consolidation will include a single master shipment against which the Master Airway Bill (MAWB) and Manifest will be based and any number of individual shipments, each represented on the manifest and subject to a House Airway Bill (HAWB).

It will usually be the case that the inbound consolidation will contain shipments destined for a random mix of for third party Freight Agents and the users own Air Import Department.

Depending on the airport where the operation is based as to whether the user's break bulk department will make a charge for the hand-over of cargo to another agent or not.
In London Heathrow, where this application originally 'grew up', there were no hand-over charges levied, however a charge is now usual.

In terms of inbound collect charges, the system is designed to accept these in detail per HAWB and to ensure that all of the collect charges - in total - extracted from the manifest are passed on and the user's financial position regarding these charges, is protected.

A single human operator will handle each inbound consolidation and the keyboard task has been reduced to a minimum.The application is designed to allow the human operator to enter some consolidation totals from the inbound manifest and the MAWB followed by a single screen image booking per HAWB, which are stored in memory, until a all HAWB bookings have been keyed; in the same order as they are shown on the manifest.

The operator then selects PF'8 Totals at which time the system checks the aggregate of some of the keyed HAWB details with the MAWB/Manifest totals; keyed at the start. If there is an error, then there is a way of checking and correcting any errors and re-running the totaling routine.If there are no errors, then the system creates database bookings for each of the consolidation master (MAWB) and each detail consolidation shipment (HAWB).

Where the user is able to receive the inbound consolidation information in electronic means (FTP and/or EDIFACT etc.), this can be accommodated to remove the need for the majority of the keying work.

Once on the hard disk, database bookings have been made, then the application raises a single printed A4 HP-PCL5e (or later) document set for each HAWB booking.The HAWB document set raised, will either be a Hand-over document for bookings where there are no sales charges to be made or a combined sales invoice / hand-over document where sales charges (possible hand-over charge and possible collect charges) are to be rendered.

Where charges are being rendered, the online, real time ledgers (sales and general) are updated immediately and without any possible interruption by the human operator.

The inbound, total of collect charges is also accepted into the (purchase and general) ledgers, and are updated.

By definition, the Job Costing aspects of the system are updated, immediately.

It would now be possible for the module to send an email automatically to agents for whom shipment(s) are arriving, attached to which the Hand-over document or the combined hand-over and sales invoice document could be attached; saving delivery time and workload.

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SURFACE EXPORTS

This module and the equivalent Surface Import module are perhaps the most extensive operational modules in the entire system, mainly because the users that have and are using the BOFFIN/Open application have been the most energetic operators, all looking for 'margin' and angles to reduce 'office staff head-count'.

The transition was caused directly by the European Union and the great reduction in the number of Customs Entries that were required to traverse Europe.

The Customs Entry charges had been a traditional source of revenue for the Freight Forwarders and this diminished.

European freight rates became more competitive.

Freight Forwarding blended into the traditional Transport Operators domain and everyone concerned had to become more efficient.

The BOFFIN/Open system caters for all of the procedural and documentation requirements of the full load and the group age service operators.

Customer quotations are not supported, although they could be; the thought here is that 'real' freight forwarding requires a switched-on operations person to make the best out of each and every shipment processed; relying on a system of automatic and/or semi-automatic quoting would be the first step to the freight-forwarders not thinking about 'gross profit maximization'.

When one considers whether the computer system should cover the issuance of quotations or not, then it suggests that there are two main ways of operating.

The first way would be to build a sales charge tariff and operate the business using the tariff and fight to keep to the tariff.
The second way is to have a tariff as the basis for the services operated, but to make the forwarding clerk think about each shipment in detail, so as to take and maximize all revenue earning opportunities.
There is obviously room for both types of operation, but Bishopstrade have been mainly involved with the latter group.

Where a new BOFFIN/Open user wishes to setup a quotation-type operation, this could be readily effected, as all of the tariffs etc that would be involved are present in the application.The pre-booking of cargo is optional; the user is able to await the arrival of the cargo and shipping instructions and then book the cargo fully; thereby avoiding pre-booking altogether.The system although, offers the ability to pre-book shipments which involves the entry of the very minimum of operational details.From the pre-booking the user is able to arrange collection note and/or combined collection and delivery note printing.

When the cargo and documents arrive back at the export cargo terminal, the pre-booking will be amended into the full cargo booking with the results of the check weighing and measuring done on the cargo.

Once the pre-booking has been amended into a full booking, the pre-booking disappears.

The comprehensive “full cargo booking” program takes the human operator through a set of screen images in which the operational booking requirements are presented in a logical order and friendly manner.

Where booking questions are compulsory, the booking clerk is forced to complete the input there and then.
Where a booking field is optional, the key can be used to pass over the question without supplying an answer. Very many checks and controls are built into the cargo booking process, so as to ensure that all required information will be available 'downstream' for the various steps that may be required and calculations that will be made. Maximum use is made of 'standing data'.

The system includes a very strong and comprehensive sales tariff system, which Bishopstrade know as 'Super Rates'.

All calculations are automated but sales charges (actually charged) are still under the direct control of the human operator.

It is possible to operate the sales charging of FOB and Freight Rates, completely automatically, using the Super Rates, where the booking clerks cannot change the automated sales charges being made.

The BOFFIN/Open Super Rates are even able to handle 'three dimensional' sales tariffs, like the one that is used in Germany; 0-10 Kilos sent over 0 - 50 Kilometers at a rate of 9.99 per kilo with a minimum of 8.88 etc.The system includes the software, which can be called from within the cargo-booking program and/or from the menus, for building up the Export Customs Entry/Declaration.

The Customs Declaration work can be affected as part of the cargo booking - where the shipping instructions are comprehensive or left for later and completed separately.

The system includes a copy of the Harmonized Customs Tariff and a Tariff Index, which is normally supplied quite well populated and in a condition where the user can build up the content.
Customs Declarations can be printed to suit the local country where the BOFFIN/Open user is working.United Kingdom SAD declarations are already available and the BOFFIN/VS forerunner system was connected to most of the United Kingdom DTI schemes.

Bishopstrade have extensive knowledge and experience in the use of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and EDIFACT in particular.Although not used in this module, BOFFIN/Open includes facilities to accept incoming Shipping Company manifests and Customs Declarations using the EDIFACT CUSDEC message format, without any involvement by human operators.The application offers optional use of the Partial and Full Trading Accruals facilities and Closed cost-file accounting.

All operational documents are available, on demand and are printed on A4 Portrait or Landscape stationery, as appropriate. All A4 Portrait operational documents are automatically and immediately archived; so that perfect (customer copy) copy-documents can be printed later.

All currency conversions are automatic, as they are throughout the system.The BOFFIN/Open convention is that on the sales side of the business, the automatic currency conversions cannot be over-ridden by the human operator.

On the supplier side of the system, all currency conversions are automatic, but here, the results of the conversion are shown to the human operator, who is able to amend the converted amount to be used.

Prepaid charge Sales invoicing is effected for each groupage as a whole; all bookings in the unit are invoiced for the value of the prepaid charges in a single program run; so that none of the bookings can be accidentally left out.

While the surface export sales invoicing program is printing the pre-paid sales invoices, the ledgers are updated and the aggregate of any collect charges is assessed and then debited to the partner agent at the end of the invoicing run.

There is an option to invoice the collect charges on a booking-by-booking basis, instead of in bulk. Where a given shipment has no prepaid charges to cause a prepaid sales invoice to be printed, a zero value invoice (already in a 'paid' state) can be injected into the ledgers to show that the booking was not forgotten, but simply had nothing to be invoiced.

The system supports Bulk Sales Invoicing, where individual sales invoices are not raised per cargo booking, but a record is stored in a secret place to await weekly, fortnight or monthly Bulk Invoicing.

Under Bulk Invoicing, a manifest-like document and a sales invoice are prepared periodically, but the financial postings to the general ledger look exactly as they would from regular invoicing; the customer's statement shows a single invoice line.Multiple copies of export manifest(s) are produced as the groupage unit loading is completed. Waybills can be produced in place or as well as the Manifest(s).Export Bordereaux can be produced, which should be viewed as Multiple Waybills; the document looks like an export manifest but includes details per booking of collect charges.

Certificates of Shipment are available and if requested are printed with the prepaid sales invoices, so that they can be posted within the same envelop as the invoice.

Charges 'collect' are typically invoiced to the partner agent, but there are other options here that are under the user's control.Manifests, Bordereaux, Waybills, CMRs etc. are printed, as required.

All sales invoicing and supplementary invoicing feeds the online multi-currency financial ledgers, as each invoice is printed. All operational documents are archived, so that perfect copy documents can be printed, on demand.

An AMETA Control system can be updated, so as to act as a control list of what AMETA Profit Shares have yet to be processed.

Sales and Marketing records are issued to that sub-system. The application includes Tracking & Tracing, which can be 'data-published' to the user's website, from where customers can view and/or download it.

A Proof-of-Delivery (POD) control system is available.

A Shipper's COD control system is available and much more.

Where a link is required to the user's website for the 'data publication' of any facet of the surface export shipments, this can be accommodated.

Where Electronic Data Interchange is required (EDI), Bishopstrade preference is for EDIFACT, but other conventions can be accommodated.

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SURFACE IMPORTS

The BOFFIN/Open system includes a large and powerful module that offers all of the support for the user to process surface import shipments, both full loads and groupage units.

In the case of groupage units, there is no limit to the number of detail shipments that can be included within a single groupage.

Full loads are booked as a single booking.Groupage units are booked as a groupage master booking and then one booking for each house-bill.In the case of the groupage units, the incoming manifests can be split up and booked by any number of booking clerks simultaneously, to save time, after which the master booking is logically linked with all of it's detail house-bill bookings and an unloading manifest is printed.

Where there is a requirement, Bishopstrade have written software to accept incoming surface imports, electronically, where each incoming booking was represented by an EDI message, which was decoded, expanded and then used to create a cargo booking.

During the cargo booking process, all of the systems static or standing information is made available to the cargo booking clerks, so as to make the booking process faster, less effort and less errors.

The entire BOFFIN/Open system has a single way in which it allows this static or standing information to be accessed; which means that the staff soon become aware of how easy it is to search for and recall regularly used information.

It is also possible from within the booking process to view recent bookings for the same importer, so that where there is a query about the way he is (say) charged, it can be resolved.

Where the user has a regular collection/delivery sub-contractor, it is possible to send this company collection and/or delivery notes for new shipments, electronically.The application includes a powerful Customs Declaration build-up program, which can be called into play as part of the initial cargo booking process or called later from the menu; leaving the import clerk to decide when he would prefer to do the Import Entry build-up work.

A copy of the Harmonized Customs Tariff is usually supplied with the installation and a copy of the Tariff Index is provided as well.The user is able to maintain and expand these two sets of data. Where the local Customs & Excise offer Tariff updates, Bishopstrade can supply software to allow the user to accept the updates to the local tariff.

Bishopstrade have been deeply involved in the United Kingdom “Direct Trader Input “ (DTI) schemes, being connected to most of the Port Systems at one time or another.Import Customs Declaration printing is supplied to meet local requirements. Where the user wishes to have a DTI connection to his local Customs & Excise scheme, this would be developed as required, but Bishopstrade have extensive knowledge in this area and have even written the Customs & Excise system in one country.

The system is designed to be capable of producing all of the operational and accounting documents that are required to process surface import shipments; these documents are produced on demand, usually in A4 Portrait mode using HP PCL5e or later compliant printers.

All operational documents that are produced on A4 Portrait stationery are also immediately and automatically archived, so that perfect copy-documents can be produced at any later date.

The repertoire of existing import documents includes Advices of Arrival, Collection Notes, Delivery Notes, Insurance Reserve Letters, Shipper Instructions Acknowledgements, Sales invoices, Duty Invoices, Supplementary invoices and Credit Notes and many more; this is a summary!

Unlike the surface export system, the surface import system sales invoicing is effected on a booking-by-booking method, as each shipment is delivered.

Once again, very powerful sales tariffs are available in the form of BOFFIN/Open Super Rates.

These Super Rates allow the user to have basic sales tariffs for each route/service and then special separate but similar structured tariffs for all sorts of shipper/importer/route combinations.

Bulk Sales Invoicing is supported, by which individual sales invoicing per shipment is suppressed, but a record is stored by the sales invoicing programs on behalf of each shipment, from which a Bulk Sales Invoice can be produced later, perhaps at weekend, fortnight end or month end.

Where primary or supplementary or bulk invoices are produced, the financial ledgers are updated immediately.Duty/VAT invoicing is available, so that these potentially large amounts can be invoiced ahead of the user's main sales invoice for its own charges.

The system maintains a monitor on Duty Invoices and Duty/VAT Payments; which the user is able to use to make sure he spots any mistakes early, while there is time to correct the error(s).

The surface import module, like all of the other operational modules, offers support for Trading Accrual Accounting in both Partial and Full modes.Closed Cost-file accounting is also available.

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JOB COSTING

BOFFIN/Open is a truly integrated application, where the operational modules can be thought of as being wrapped around the centralized accounting system.

The real time, Sales, Bought and General ledgers are integrated, so that any posting to either the sales or bought ledger is by definition a posting to the General Ledger.

Data can, of course, be input to the General ledger, directly.

There is no limit to the number of sources of financial data that can be posted either manually or by application programs to the sales, bought and general ledgers, irrespective of what other regular system users are doing.

There is no practical limit to the number of open-item transactions that may be posted to the integrated ledgers; the 'largest' BOFFIN/Open installation was one in which the integrated ledgers contained more than 1.5 million postings.

It is also possible to process more than a single financial year simultaneously, so as to avoid the stress at accounting year-end; in fact the initial part of an accounting year-end is simple the accounting month-end.

The system optionally supports Trading Accruals and a closed cost-file method of accruing and closing operational files.
There are two methods of using the Trading Accrual Accounting; Bishopstrade call these the Full and Partial Accrual systems;the two systems can be mixed, with one operational department using one method and another using the other method.

It is worth highlighting that operational managers now view individual cost files on their client-PCs and make trading accruals directly to the system, as part of closing each cost file.

When the accounting system was originally built-up, the design was effected in conjunction with a large general, freight forwarder who (it was said) had all of the problems of the industry; very large turnover (if one includes Duty/VAT) and 'paper-thin' net profits;such that a very few operational mistakes and the net profit could easily be wiped out.
The company also experienced the industry problem of the fact that the aggregate gross profits declared by the operational managers were quite different from the financial equivalent value;the managers always felt they were making more gross profit than the 'bookkeepers' said they were making.

The worst part of this dilemma was that the company did not know where to look for the discrepancy and so affected internal audits by operating department in an attempt to locate the problem.
Enter Bishopstrade backed with a desire to build a powerful integrated accounting system with a customer who was desperate to have a system that would provide compatible 'manual' and financial profit returns; the user was also large enough to have a budget for the task.

Due to the background situation, great care was taken to design a system and lay down some rules that would 'guarantee' a successful outcome.

The accounting system had to be able to support all of the traditional functions as well as offer the basic data for a method of continuous job costing that would highlight the reason(s) for the departmental managers overstating their results.

A few of the important basics imposed were.

	Job numbers are structured and check-digit in nature
	All Trading items posted to the financial ledgers carry job numbers and all non-trading postings do not carry job numbers (- hindsight shows there is one exception to this which is very controlled).
	All accounting transactions were carefully controlled as to the accounting month in which they were posted and the validity of the job numbers they carried.
	Foreign currency conversions were monitored on a posting-by-posting so that any 'bad' conversions would be reported and would require correction; foreign currency financial postings stored within the bookkeeping system carry both the original currency amount and the local general ledger conversion, so as to provide additional information 'down-stream'.

The outcome of all of this early work is that BOFFIN/Open has now integrated, multi-currency financial ledgers and a very powerful job costing system with optional accrual accounting (sometimes known as closed-file accounting). The key to the whole job costing aspect is that BOFFIN/Open contains many summary and detail reports that show the Departmental Profit Reports agree with the Financial Profit/Loss of the company for the same period.

There is a lot more to tell, but we must leave that for those of you who elect to come with us.

We invite you to view the BOFFIN menus under “Presentations”, which will provide you with a short summary overview of its potentials.

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CONTAINER CONTROL

BOFFIN/Open includes a large operational module that is designed to provide real time, continuous running container control for a Container Base or a Sea Port.The application was run in the port of Beira (Mozambique) for more than two years.

The system is designed to cover all of the aspects of the control of the containers for imports, exports and transshipments.

There is no practical limit to the number of containers that can be processed and/or can be physically located within the container terminal at any one time.

Without change to the application software, containers can be stacked nine high. The application includes many desirable features and interfaces seamlessly with the other BOFFIN/Open modules.

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The BOFFIN/Open Customs & Excise System covers an automated revenue management system for National Revenue Authorities.

A summary of the System is available under “Our Customers” – Revenue Authorities

&

A Power Point Presentation is viewable under “Presentations” – Power Point on Customs & Excise System

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