Part 4 · Work your bids

By the end: every bid answered, a carrier booked, and loads flowing straight out of your TMS.

1. Accept, counter or reject

Every bid deserves an answer. There are only three, and all three are better than silence.

Accept

You book that carrier. The commitment is between you and them.

Counter

You name your number. They take it, counter back, or pass. If the gap is big, ask why in chat. Fuel, the crossing or timing usually explains it, and the answer often tells you something about the lane you did not know.

Reject

When it is not a fit, reject with a short note. Saying no fast, in writing, keeps that carrier bidding on your next posting. Saying nothing does the opposite.

2. After the match

Cargado makes the match. The load and the relationship are yours. What happens next:

1. Both teams get the match message, with the carrier, the rate and the next steps.
2. The carrier onboards through your own link. Your process, not ours.
3. You send your rate confirmation and dispatch.
4. You pay the carrier directly, on your terms. Cargado never touches the payment and takes no cut.

Matched on a Lane? The posting stays live for your next carrier. You do not need to repost.

3. Post from your TMS

If your team lives in a TMS, post from it. Loads sync out to Cargado, carriers bid, and nobody retypes a load. We connect to McLeod, Tai and Turvo today, and there is an API for your own system.

What is live today

• Load sync — loads flow out by your rules, and come off when covered.
• Your do-not-use list — send it to your success manager and those carriers never see your freight.
• Rates — Market Rates by API and through the Excel add-in.

Two things trip teams up

First: syncing is not posting. Freight syncs out automatically and lands on your board tagged TMS: Available, where it waits under Review to Post until someone posts it. Open the Posting tab, choose an owner, then press Post.

Second: on many integrations, a load only posts once your team marks it ready for coverage in the TMS. If your loads are syncing but not posting, check that box first.

Between them these two explain nearly every “my loads are not on Cargado” question we get, and neither one is a Cargado problem.

Common mistakes in part 4

• Leaving bids to go stale. Answer the same day, every time, even when the answer is no.
• Rejecting without a note. Thirty seconds of explanation is what keeps a carrier bidding next time.
• Reposting a matched Lane. It stays live — you can book more than one carrier off it.
• Assuming a synced load is a posted load. Check Review to Post in Cargado, and the ready-for-coverage box in your TMS.

That is the whole loop: set it up, price it, post it, work the bids. When you get stuck, email success@cargado.com or bring it to your success manager — a lane with no bids, a TMS to set up, a new teammate to train.