A ship chandler's day starts with email. A vessel due at Karachi Port or Port Qasim, or its agent, sends an enquiry with a list of items: provisions, deck and engine stores, spare parts, safety equipment, sometimes hundreds of lines. The quotation is wanted by tonight, the goods within days, and the paperwork must satisfy the chief officer, the agent and an owner's accounts office in another country. Most of this work happens in Excel, on paper and in long email threads, and that is where it goes wrong.
How a marine supplier's work runs
The cycle is much the same for a chandler, a marine spares supplier or a repair contractor. An enquiry arrives by email. The office prices it line by line, often asking several local vendors for the same items, and sends a quotation. The vessel or agent confirms part or all of it. Purchase orders go to the vendors; goods are collected or delivered to the godown, checked, packed and taken to the port with the delivery documents. Someone on board signs for what is received. An invoice follows, and payment is chased with the agent or owner, often weeks later and in a foreign currency.
The workflows that need one record
Each step produces a document that refers to the one before it. On paper the references break: the quotation number is not on the delivery note, the delivery note is not on the invoice, and the vessel's name is spelt three ways. One record per enquiry fixes this.
Log the enquiry
Capture the email, the vessel, the agent, the port and every line item as lines on the enquiry, even those that will never be quoted.
Price and quote
Enter each vendor's price against each line, choose one, apply the margin and send the quotation from the same record.
Confirm the order
Mark which lines were accepted and at what quantity; the rest stay as declined, so you can later see what you lose and why.
Buy from vendors
Raise purchase orders to the chosen vendors per line; record what arrives, what is short and what was substituted.
Deliver to the vessel
Print the delivery note, packing list and port documents from the order, in phases if the goods go in more than one trip, and file the signed copy against the phase.
Invoice and follow payment
Invoice what was delivered, not what was quoted; track payment in the agreed currency and chase by vessel and agent.
Documents per delivery
| Document | What it carries | Who needs it |
|---|---|---|
| Delivery note or challan | Lines, quantities and the order reference | Signed on board; your proof of delivery |
| Packing list | How the goods are packed and marked | The crew receiving the goods, and the gate |
| Port entry documents | Vehicle, driver and goods entering the port area | The port gate |
| Certificates and data sheets | For items that require them, such as safety equipment or chemicals | The chief officer and the owner's file |
| Invoice | Delivered lines, currency, tax where it applies, and payment terms | The agent or the owner's accounts office |
| Vendor invoices and receipts | What you paid for each line | Your own costing of the job |
What goes wrong on paper
- The quotation was for one quantity, the delivery for another and the invoice for a third, so the agent disputes it.
- A vendor delivered a substitute and nobody told the person preparing the delivery note.
- Some lines on a long enquiry were quoted from an old price list and sold at a loss.
- Deliveries over several days are not reconciled, so one trip's items are invoiced twice or not at all.
- Payment follow-up depends on one person's memory of which agent handles which vessel.
- The owner cannot say what any single vessel earned, because vendor costs sit in a different file from the invoice.
What marine procurement needs that general trading software may not
A standard trading ERP sells to one customer at a time. Marine supply has three parties on every job: the vessel, the agent and the owner, and each may be the one who orders, receives or pays. Enquiries carry many lines with a vendor comparison on each. Deliveries are in phases, and documents are per phase. Prices may be quoted in one currency and paid in another. A logistics ERP shares the job-file idea, and the import and export software guide covers landed cost when spares come from abroad. The Sea Keepers ERP runs that company's work from the first enquiry email to the final delivery documents, which is exactly this cycle.
Keep declined lines. A supplier that records only what it sold cannot see which items, vendors or agents it keeps losing on, and that is the report that changes next year's margin.
When a full ERP is too much
A supplier handling a few enquiries a month with short lists can run on a careful quotation template and a receivables sheet. The ERP earns its place when enquiries overlap, deliveries are in phases and more than one person touches each job. If that is where you are, see how we approach logistics businesses and the ERP software behind them, then book a demo with one real enquiry email. We will walk it through to the delivery documents on screen.
Questions people ask
Can the ERP read the enquiry email itself?
The enquiry and its attachment can be captured as the starting record, with the item lines entered or imported from the list the vessel sent. The point is that the vessel, agent, port and lines exist once, and every later document refers to them.
How are several vendors compared for one item?
Each line on the enquiry holds a price from each vendor asked, with the chosen one marked. The quotation uses the chosen price plus margin, and the purchase order goes to that vendor, so the comparison and the decision stay on the record.
Can deliveries be split across days?
Yes. Each delivery is a phase of the order with its own delivery note, packing list and signed copy. The invoice is raised on what the phases delivered, so a split delivery is never invoiced twice or missed.
Does it handle foreign currency invoices?
Invoices can be raised in the currency the agent or owner pays in, with the local cost recorded against the job, so the margin per vessel is visible. Tax treatment of exports and supplies to vessels varies; confirm it with your tax adviser.
Is this only for Karachi?
The work is the same at any port, and the system is used online, so a supplier at another port in Pakistan or in the Gulf can run it from Karachi-built software. On-site training is in Karachi; elsewhere it is done on a call.
