CharterWorks FAQs

Finally, it is all about money and managing risks. CharterWorks comes with an easy to use analysis module that allows you to get a fast overview of the performance of your team. Just pick the vessel, select a period and see the TCE and profit of your completed voyages.

You can also analyse a particular voyage and drill down planned versus final costs. This function is available for each available phase of a voyage (snapshots). This is especially interesting if you want to find out where money was lost and where you made more profit than originally expected. You can also download the data in Excel for further analysis.

CharterWorks eases the commercial controlling of your chartering and operations significantly.

CharterWorks comes with a Chartering and an Operations Module. So, users in Operations work with the same tool as their colleague in Chartering which eases the daily work as a team.

When a voyage is fixed, chartering hands it over to operations by a click on a button. During the execution of a voyage, the actual costs, ROBs, bunker events and port calls (ETA/ETD) are updated in the system by the user. Thanks to the snapshot functionality, you can always compare the planned voyage figures with the actual ones.

Even when a voyage is already in execution and the vessel is on the way, you can add new cargoes. Just revise the voyage to chartering again, add the cargo, fix it and hand it over back to operations. CharterWorks records all changes for later analysis in the analysis module.

While chartering and operations do their daily job, a lot of information is generated. Normally, most of the information is somehow spread in the team by email, Excel sheets or just on call. Especially, the hand-over between chartering and operations becomes much easier and faster by means of CharterWorks.

CharterWorks allows each user to enter remarks to voyages, cargoes and port calls directly when opening a voyage. All information is shown to all logged in users next to a voyage in chartering and operations. You can see who entered which remark and can comment if needed.

This annotation function eases the collaboration within the team, even if working from different locations or from home. All involved parties see at a glance the relevant information they need.

Yes. You can add as many cargoes to a voyage, adjust the order of port calls and improve your TCE performance. This function is especially interesting for parcelling of break bulk.

CharterWorks allows to calculate voyages to get an immediately freight estimate. To support parcelling, the tools comes with a cargo first approach.

In CharterWorks, a cargo is a an amount of goods to be transported from A to B. When receiving an inquiry, chartering enters a new cargo including quantity, loading and destination port and estimated port costs. CharterWorks comes with a route calculation and adds the route and distance from loading to discharging port automatically.

When calculating a voyage to get an estimate freight, you add a cargo to the voyage (or enter a new one on the fly). The fuel consumption is automatically taken into account by selecting a ship (type). The advantage of this approach: You can add the same cargo to several voyages with different ships, compare the results and pick the best choice.

Off course, you can also add several cargoes to one voyage. This is especially interesting for parcelling of break bulk.

Once all cargoes of a voyage are fixed, chartering hands over the voyage to operations for execution by a click on a button. Voyages can also be revised back to chartering to add more cargoes even during execution.

First in, first out (FIFO) is a popular method in shipping to take different bunker events at different prices into account. To calculate the price of the available fuel stock on board, bunkers are expected to be used in the order in which they were received on the vessel.

CharterWorks supports the FIFO calculation and always takes the bunker amount and price from the oldest to the latest bunker event for calculating the fuel costs.

Example

At the begin of a (short) voyage, the ship has 170 mt MDO:

• 20 mt MDO left from a bunker event on mid January (price $800/mt) and
• 150 mt MDO left from a bunker event on mid February (price $700/mt).

The voyage may require 50 mt MDO. 20 mt are taken from the first bunker, the rest (30 mt) from the latest bunker stock.

The fuel costs are in total $37,000:

• 20 mt x $800 = $16,000
• 30 mt x $700 = $21,000

CharterWorks supports voyage and time charters and comes with a Time Charter Module for chartering vessels to a third party (Time Charter Out). With the Time Charter Module, you can keep track of the different hire and off-hire periods. CharterWorks allows to monitor income and costs for each hire period. Off course, you can also record bunker at delivery and re-delivery. Time charters like voyage charters are taken into account for the FIFO calculation.

CharterWorks comes with an Operation Module where you can directly see the differences between the estimated and final costs and income at a glance. In addition, CharterWorks has an analysis module that allows to compare and drill down the different costs and incomes.

The operation module allows you to enter the FDAs (Final Disbursement Account) next to the PDAs (Proforma Disbursement Account). Also, the actual bunker costs are taken into account using the FIFO calculation. When chartering is calculating a voyage in CharterWorks, you enter the estimated bunker prices and port costs. After hand-over to operations, the bunker prices and port costs will be updated every day.

In the analyis module you can compare the different commercial outcomes of a voyage. Thanks to the built-in snapshot functionality, you keep track of the voyage’s history and you compare the original plan from chartering with the final result and TCE.

Theoretically, any number of users may work with the system in parallel. CharterWorks is a collaborative system, only requires an Internet connection and a modern web browser. The system has no restriction in terms of user accounts, you can register and manage as many users as you like in your CharterWorks system.

The power of collaboration grows with the number of people using the tool, therefore the CharterWorks license is not limited by the number of accounts. We encurage to give CharterWorks accounts to all involved persons to benefit from collaboration.

By means of the built-in snapshot functionality, you can keep track of profit and loss during the voyage estimation and execution.

Voyage calculations may change from day to day due to updated freights, port costs etc. To keep track of the development of a voyage, you can create snapshots at any time in CharterWorks. Each snapshot is a copy of the current cost and income figures and can be used for later analysis and print-outs/PDFs. With each hand-over of a voyage from chartering to operations and vice versa, a snapshot is automatically created. So, when adding an additional cargo to a voyage, the system keeps track of income and loss automatically.

CharterWorks supports up to 25 different currencies. The system automatically updates the exchange rates of all currencies from the European Central Bank on a daily basis. CharterWorks supports you to monitor losses due to fluctuating exchange rates.

In CharterWorks, you decide for one base currency (e.g. US Dollar) and a set of additional currencies you would like to work with (e.g. Euro and NOK). Each amount like FDAs and PDAs can be entered in different currencies. For example, the pilot costs in Rotterdam may be charged in Euros but your base currency is US Dollar. CharterWorks automatically converts the Euros into the base currency at the specified daily exchange rate. Thus, differences between FDAs and PDAs due to exchange rate fluctuations during a voyage are automatically taken into account.