Create a transport order
Enter a new order with its customer, consignments, stops and goods, and save it as accepted or as a request.
Updated 13 October 2026
A transport order is the request of a customer to move goods. It holds one or more consignments, and each consignment has its own stops (actions) and goods. Once the order is saved you can plan its consignments on trips.
Open the order form
You can start a new order in three ways:
- Click New transport order in the header (the button with the + icon).
- Open the side menu (☰, top right) and click New order at the top.
- Open the transport orders list (the orders icon in the header) and click + Create order.
The form opens in a panel on the right. Depending on your platform's settings, some fields may already be filled in from a default order template.
Fill in the order
- Choose the customer in Customer. Start typing to search your companies. If the company does not exist yet, choose Add "…" to create it.
- Enter a Name for the order, for example the customer's own order number.
- Optionally choose a Contract. Selecting a contract also selects its customer.
- Optionally enter a Reference description, such as the customer's reference.
- Check the delivery terms (Incoterms) in Select delivery terms. Your platform's default is preselected.
- Optionally choose a Team and, if your platform uses the financial module, an Administration.
- Add the consignments under Consignments. See Add consignments and goods.
- Click Save or Save as request.
Save creates the order with the status Accepted, so it is ready to plan. Save as request creates it with the status Requested, so someone can review and accept it first. See Accept, decline and plan a transport order.
Fields on the order form
| Field | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Customer | Required. The company that orders the transport. Pricing and contracts follow the customer. |
| Name | Required. How the order is shown in lists. Transportial also gives every order its own order number, shown as #number. |
| Contract | Links the order to a customer contract. Only contracts of the chosen customer are offered. |
| Reference description | Free text reference, shown on the order and on documents. |
| Delivery terms | Required. The Incoterm (EXW, FCA, FAS, FOB, CPT, CIP, CFR, CIF, DAP, DPU or DDP). |
| Team | The team responsible for the order. Consignments inherit it. |
| Administration | Financial module only. The administration used for quotes and invoices. You cannot change it after the order is first saved. |
| Description | Free text about the order. |
| Documents | Files that belong to the order. See Add documents to a transport order. |
| Cost elements | Financial module only. Costs and revenue lines for the order. See Prices, costs and invoices of a transport order. |
| Notes and Contact details | Internal notes and contact information for this order. |
| Spot Quote | Financial module only. Switch it on to build a price for this order directly in the form. |
The save buttons stay disabled until every required field is filled in. Your administrator can make more fields required, depending on your platform's settings.
Possible duplicate order
Transportial checks every new order against the orders created in the last days. By default it compares the Customer and the customer reference (the Reference description). As soon as both are filled in and match an existing order, a warning appears at the top of the form with the matching orders. Click an order number to open it in a new tab.
- Check the orders in the warning. If the order already exists, close the form or update the existing order instead.
- If it is really a new order, click Save. The window Possible duplicate order opens.
- Click Create anyway to create the order, or Back to return to the form.
When your platform blocks duplicates, the window says An order with the same details already exists, so this order cannot be created and only offers Back.
Set up the duplicate check
Users with access to the Environment tab of Settings set the check in the section Action Result Questionnaires, under Duplicate order warning:
- Check new orders for duplicates: on by default.
- Fields that identify a duplicate: all chosen fields must match. Choose from Customer, Customer reference, Container number, Booking reference, or type the name of an order reference. Customer alone is not enough: add at least one reference field.
- Look-back period (days): how far back to compare, counted from the day the existing orders were created. The default is 30.
- Per channel, choose Allow (no check), Warn or Block: Orders entered in the app, Orders from the customer portal, Orders through the API, Orders from integrations and imports, Orders created from documents (AI) and Orders created from e-mail. All are set to Warn by default.
The check only runs when an order is created, not when it is changed. Orders created by a recurring schedule, forwarded orders and templates are never checked. For automatic channels, Warn still creates the order, and Block skips it and reports it as a duplicate in the import result.
How the form looks
The form follows your personal interface settings (see Personal settings):
- With Type forms set to Dynamic, each consignment is a card. Click the card to open the consignment in its own panel.
- With the flat form type, the form opens full width and every consignment is edited on the same page.
- With Simplify forms switched on, the form hides the name, description, notes and contact details, and shows a single consignment directly.
Next steps
Plan the order on a trip from the plan board, or see Accept, decline and plan a transport order.