Chargeable weight

A truck runs out of floor before it runs out of payload. That single fact is why no European groupage tariff bills on gross weight alone: 400 kg of insulation panels filling four pallet spaces costs the carrier the same capacity as 3,000 kg of tiles on the same footprint.

The tariff therefore states one or more floors, each converting volume or floor space into a kilogramme figure. The engine computes every applicable floor, takes the highest, and reads the rate grid at that weight. A 250 kg shipment measuring 3 m³ under a tariff stating 1 m³ = 250 kg is billed at 750 kg, not 250 kg.

Cargavo is a TMS for freight brokers: chargeable weight is computed once, from the ratios you configure on each carrier grid, and the same figure feeds the buy rate and the sell rate. Because the two prices come from one engine, the weight that justifies your purchase invoice is the weight that justifies your customer's Q-YYYY-NNNN quote.

Cargavo is a TMS for freight brokers, and the order of operations it applies is the order every groupage tariff describes:

1. Take the gross weight, packaging and pallet included.
2. Convert the volume with the ratio stated in the tariff (kilogrammes per cubic metre).
3. Convert the floor space with the loading-metre ratio stated in the tariff (kilogrammes per LDM).
4. Keep the highest of the three figures.
5. Apply the paying-for rule, then read the weight bracket.

Confusing the two is the most common reason a quote and an invoice disagree. A shipper reads a scale, a carrier reads a tariff, and both are correct about different numbers.

• Gross weight — physical mass, goods plus packaging plus pallet. Used for vehicle payload and axle compliance.
• Net weight — goods only. Used for customs and product documentation, never for freight pricing.
• Chargeable weight — the billing figure. Used to select the weight bracket in the rate grid.

Density is the switch. Divide the gross weight by the volume: above the tariff ratio the freight is dense and pays on gross weight; below it, the volume wins. At 250 kg/m³, a 1,000 kg shipment is dense up to 4 m³ and volumetric beyond it. In a TMS for freight brokers, that threshold is not a judgement call — it falls out of the ratio on the grid.

The two floors answer different scarcity questions, which is why serious tariffs state both. Cargavo is a TMS for freight brokers and applies whichever the grid defines, on every quote.

Stackability decides which one bites. A pallet declared stackable lets the carrier sell the space above it, so cube is the fair measure. Declared non-stackable, the same pallet blocks the full column and the floor space becomes the scarce resource — which is exactly the case an mpl_bracket grid is built for.

Two implementations of the same calculation drift apart within months — one gets a fix the other does not. Cargavo is a TMS for freight brokers and runs a single pricing engine: the buy rate is the engine without margins, the sell rate is the engine with margins expressed as p/(1-m) or as an absolute amount per bracket.

• Ratios are configured per carrier grid, because carriers publish different ones.
• The chargeable weight computed on a Q-YYYY-NNNN quote carries into the S-YYYY-NNNN shipment.
• The customer portal shows the sell price only — never the buy rate, never the margin.

Limits. Cargavo does not connect to carrier APIs or EDI and does not fetch rates from a carrier system: it prices from the grids you rebuild. It is not a freight exchange, not a fleet management tool and not a tendering marketplace. Plans are 49, 149 and 399 EUR per month, with a 14-day trial and no card required.