Tracking car import containers, from payment to port

Two kinds of tracking not to mix up

The car has its own journey, which starts before the container and ends after it:

Car stage	What it means
Pending	Order placed, nothing committed yet
In transit	Money transferred to the supplier
Preparing paperwork	Export and import documents in progress
Out for delivery	The car is at sea
At the port	The car has reached the Algerian port
Customs	Customs clearance in progress
Delivered	Handed to the client or put in stock

The container only covers transport: loading, at sea, at the port. It moves its cars through the two transport stages (at sea, at the port) — never through money, paperwork or customs, which stay specific to each car.

Keeping a tracking log

Each transport event is logged with its date, place and, if needed, vessel and voyage:

• departure or transshipment: the container and its cars move to "at sea";
• arrival, discharge or release: they move to "at the port";
• new estimated arrival date: copied to every car.

A container never moves backwards: deleting an event doesn't roll the cars back.

The alerts that matter

Three situations deserve an immediate alert:

1. Paperwork ready, but no container: the car is waiting for a departure nobody has arranged.
2. Estimated arrival passed while the car isn't at the port yet.
3. More than 7 days at the port or in customs: storage charges may be building up.

Showroom213 groups these cars in an "attention" view and lets you add every car awaiting shipment to a container in one go.

Closing a container

Once every cost is known, close the container: each car's share is frozen and no more cars can be added. Each car's landed cost becomes final — see calculating the landed cost.

To see how this tracking fits into the whole showroom, read What is a car showroom operating system?.