Container Demurrage Software Tanzania

What it does

Container & Demurrage Control

Demurrage is the most avoidable cost in Tanzanian importing and one of the least visible. It accrues quietly, per container, per day, while a document is waiting on someone's desk. By the time it appears on an invoice it is a fact. The information needed to prevent it — how many free days remain on which container, and what the exposure is in shillings — usually exists, spread across a shipping line portal, a spreadsheet and somebody's memory.

Container registry by number, vessel, bill of lading and consignee
Milestone tracking: vessel arrival, discharge, declaration, assessment, payment, release, gate-out
Free day configuration per shipping line and per contract
Live free-day countdown per container
Demurrage and port storage exposure calculated in shillings, today
Portfolio dashboard: safe, approaching and at-risk containers
Escalating alerts by WhatsApp, SMS and email as free days run down
Document checklist per container with who is holding what
Bottleneck reporting — where containers actually sit and for how long
Transporter allocation, trip status and gate-out confirmation
Empty container return tracking and detention exposure
Per-container cost sheet: duty, port, transport, demurrage, storage
Client-facing status so importers can see their own containers
Demurrage incurred versus avoided, by cause and by responsible party

Tanzania

Dar es Salaam port reality

Built around the real sequence — Milestones follow the actual clearing sequence at Dar es Salaam — arrival, discharge, TANCIS declaration, assessment, duty payment, release, transporter allocation and gate-out — not a generic international template.
Free days differ by line — Free day allowances are configured per shipping line and per negotiated contract, because using one blanket figure is how the countdown becomes wrong and therefore ignored.
Exposure in money — Alerts state shillings at risk, not just days remaining. A number in money is what actually moves a document off a desk.
Who caused it — Every demurrage charge is attributed to the stage where the delay occurred — client documents, funds, customs, transport or internal. Over a quarter this shows where the money is really going.
Works with what you have — Where line and port portals allow data extraction we integrate; where they do not, milestone updates are quick manual entries by the clearing team. The system does not require an integration that does not exist.

How we work

Scoped first, built in phases

We look at the process

Not a sales meeting. We sit with the people who do the work now and find where the time and money actually go.

You get a written scope

What will be built, what it costs, how long it takes, and what is explicitly out of scope. In writing, before anything starts.

Built in phases

The part that hurts most is delivered first and put into real use, so value arrives before the whole project is finished.

Trained and supported

Your staff are trained on the real system with real data, and support continues after go-live.

This complements PiCargo. PiCargo covers the wider clearing and forwarding operation. This is the demurrage exposure layer specifically — the single number a managing director wants on a screen every morning.

Frequently asked

Container & Demurrage Control — questions we get

How does it know how many free days a container has?

Free days are configured per shipping line and per contract, applied from the correct milestone. Where you have negotiated terms with a line, those are used rather than the published default.

Can it alert the client, not just us?

Yes. Importers can be given visibility of their own containers and can receive escalating alerts, which is often what finally releases funds or documents.

Does it integrate with TANCIS?

We track the TANCIS milestones as part of the container's timeline. Where automated extraction is possible we use it; otherwise entries are quick updates by the declarant, which takes seconds per container.

Can it show which client causes the most demurrage?

Yes. Delay is attributed by stage and by responsible party, so you can see which clients, which document types and which internal steps generate the charges.

We already use spreadsheets. Why change?

A spreadsheet cannot alert you at seven in the morning that four containers cross into demurrage today and the exposure is 6.2 million shillings. The value here is the countdown running by itself.

See demurrage before it is charged