The International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA) has announced that its digital FIATA Documents are now a reality. The Digitalisation Platform, powered by CargoDocs, has now been launched in the FIATA constituency. 

After testing the product through FIATA’s Association Membership, FIATA and essDOCS have agreed that the product was ready to be opened up to interested parties wanting to implement the system in their day-to-day business. “This is as close as you can get to plug-and-play in dealing with transport documents”, said Marco Sorgetti, director general of FIATA. 

The software is an entirely web-based system ready to power FIATA’s highly demanded Bill of Lading (FBL) through electronic distribution. It is easily accessible requiring users to simply register and then access the services through a bank-grade security token. 

Some of the benefits of adopting CargoDocs include reduced time for drafting and approving documents, no courier fees or delays, significant time and cost saving, minimised risk of fraudulent B/Ls and many more. “This is the natural evolution of our services, which are already well established in the commodities’ trade”, said Alex Goulandris of essDOCS. 

When FIATA and essDOCS first came together to provide CargoDocs, they were aware of the issues that could occur from stepping into “logistics cyberspace” as Sorgetti called it at that point in time. As such the organisation focused in the initial period as a testing phase to gather feedback from parties willing to test the CargoDocs software on the Fiata Multimodal Bill of Lading. This feedback was later analysed and incorporated back into the product to further customise and tailor CargoDocs for FIATA freight forwarding Members, FIATA said.