That Covers Freight Without Calls.
Atlas TMS offers each load to the right carrier down your routing guide, waits out the response window, and rolls to the next option automatically, electronic tender, auto-accept, rollover, and EDI 204/990 so freight gets covered while your team works exceptions.
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Load tendering software offers each shipment to carriers electronically instead of by phone and email. It reads your routing guide, sends the load to the primary carrier for that lane, waits the agreed response window, and if there is no acceptance it rolls automatically to the next carrier in the sequence until the freight is covered.
Atlas TMS handles the full exchange over EDI 204 tender and 990 response, or by API for carriers that prefer it, and applies auto-accept rules so compliant tenders confirm without anyone watching the queue. The carriers it tenders to are the ones your carrier management software has already onboarded and scored, so awards follow the routing guide you actually negotiated.
The module is a tool you license and run, not a desk you hand off. Your planners keep control of the routing guide and the exceptions; the software removes the manual work of calling carriers one at a time. It covers every mode you move, from parcel and LTL to truckload freight, and feeds accepted loads straight into the rest of your transportation workflow, tendered at the numbers your rate management software holds for each lane.
90%+
Primary tender acceptance
0
Phone calls to cover a load
24h
Demo response
Six things the load tendering module does automatically so your planners cover freight by exception instead of by phone.
Establish EDI 204/990 or API links with the carriers you tender to.
Import lanes, carrier tiers, response windows, and auto-accept rules.
Run test tenders end to end and confirm responses post correctly.
Switch production loads to electronic tendering down the guide.
Review acceptance and rollover, then tune tiers and windows monthly.
Covering freight should not depend on how many calls a planner can make before cutoff. With electronic tendering down your routing guide, loads get offered, accepted, and rolled over on their own while your team handles only what falls through.
Atlas TMS turns load coverage from a scramble of phone calls into a controlled, measured, automatic workflow.
The module connects to your carriers over EDI 204 and 990 and through REST API for carriers that prefer real-time exchange, so tenders go out and responses come back without anyone rekeying a load into a carrier portal.
Accepted loads flow into the rest of Atlas TMS for tracking and settlement, and tender data ties back to the carrier records that drive scoring, so the load tendering software is one connected step rather than an island between planning and execution.
Who can edit the routing guide, change award rules, or override a tender is governed by role-based access, so the guide your team negotiated is not quietly altered by anyone with a login.
Every tender, response, override, and rollover carries a user stamp and timestamp, so the load tender record is an audit trail you can walk when a lane's coverage or a carrier's acceptance comes into question.
Load tendering software is a tool that offers your shipments to carriers electronically and manages their responses, replacing the phone-and-email routine planners otherwise use to cover freight. It reads your routing guide, sends each load to the primary carrier for that lane, waits the agreed response window, and rolls to the next carrier automatically if the first does not accept in time. Acceptances, declines, and conditional responses are processed and reflected on the load in real time. In Atlas TMS this is a module you license and run in house, so your planners keep control of the routing guide and the exceptions while the software removes the manual work of contacting carriers one at a time until a load is covered.
A managed desk hands coverage to a third party who plans and tenders your freight for you. Load tendering software instead gives your own team the engine to do it faster. You own the routing guide, the award rules, and the exception queue, and the software automates the mechanical part: sending tenders, waiting out response windows, and rolling over on timeout. The difference is control and transparency. You can see exactly why a load went to a given carrier and how far down the guide it traveled. Atlas TMS is the licensed tool on this page, not an outsourced service. Teams that want to keep planning in house license the module, while the automation handles the repetitive tendering work their planners would otherwise do by phone.
Your routing guide defines, for each lane and service level, which carrier gets the first offer and which carriers follow in order. When a load is ready, the software identifies the lane, selects the primary carrier, and sends an electronic tender with the stops, equipment, weight, and reference data the carrier needs to respond. It then waits the response window you set. If the carrier accepts, the load is awarded. If the carrier declines or the window expires, the tender rolls automatically to the second carrier, then the third, and so on down the tier. This keeps freight on the contract rates you negotiated for as long as possible before it reaches a spot or backup workflow, and it happens without a planner making a single call.
EDI 204 is the electronic load tender, the message that offers a shipment to a carrier with all its detail: origin, destination, stops, equipment type, weight, and reference numbers. EDI 990 is the carrier's response to that tender, either accepting or declining the load. Together they let a shipper and carrier exchange offers and answers automatically, without a phone call or a portal login. The load tendering module generates the 204 when it offers a load and processes the 990 the moment the carrier responds, updating the load status in real time. Carriers who prefer real-time API exchange can be connected that way instead, but 204 and 990 remain the common standard, and the module speaks both so you can tender to carriers on either connection from one workflow.
Auto-accept means a tender that comes back compliant with your rules is confirmed without a planner touching it. You define what compliant means, typically an acceptance from the correct carrier at the expected rate within the response window. Rollover handles the opposite case: if the carrier declines or the window expires, the load moves automatically to the next carrier in the routing guide tier. You set the response window per lane or carrier, so time-sensitive freight waits less than routine freight. The two rules together mean most loads are covered without human intervention: compliant tenders confirm on their own, and timeouts advance down the guide. Planners only get involved when the guide is exhausted or a tender comes back with a condition that needs a decision, which is where their judgment actually matters.
When every carrier in the routing guide has declined or timed out, the load drops into a spot or backup workflow rather than sitting silently uncovered. The software can issue a spot request to a defined set of carriers, fall back to a designated backup carrier, or escalate to a planner with an alert, depending on how you configure it. Uncovered-load alerts make sure a shipment that has run out of guide does not slip past cutoff unnoticed. The point is that exhausting the guide is treated as an event that demands attention, not a dead end. Your team steps in exactly when contract coverage has failed, which is the moment their judgment adds value, instead of babysitting tenders that the software could have handled automatically.
Yes. The module tenders parcel, LTL, truckload, and intermodal loads, applying the routing guide and carrier set appropriate to each mode. A truckload lane tenders to your contracted truckload carriers with equipment matching, while an LTL shipment routes to the LTL carriers you use for that lane and weight break. Because one tool covers every mode, planners work from a single tender board rather than switching between separate systems or carrier portals per mode. As you add carriers or lanes, you extend the routing guide and the same tender, accept, and rollover logic applies. This is much of the value of consolidating tendering into one module: coverage across your whole network runs on one consistent workflow instead of a patchwork of mode-specific processes.
The module connects to carriers over EDI 204 and 990 through your VAN or a direct link, and by REST API for carriers that support real-time exchange. On the internal side, loads ready to tender flow in from your order or planning process, and accepted loads flow out to tracking and settlement in the rest of Atlas TMS. Tender outcomes also feed the carrier records that drive scoring, so acceptance behavior is captured where it can inform the next bid. Common integrations cover major carrier EDI networks and TMS or ERP order feeds. Setup maps your carrier connections and load feed during onboarding, and because 204 and 990 are standard messages, most carrier links are configuration rather than custom development, which keeps the integration effort modest for a typical carrier base.
A tender workflow with a defined routing guide and carriers already live on EDI usually goes into production within three to five weeks. Expect about a week to confirm the 204 and 990 connections, a week to load lanes, tier order, and response windows, and a short parallel run of test tenders through the full accept-and-rollover cycle before real freight depends on it. Programs that still need to bring many carriers onto EDI, or that carry complex multi-tier guides across several modes, stretch to six or eight weeks. The pacing item is almost never the software; it is how fast each carrier can turn on its tender connection, so lining up carrier EDI early is what protects the schedule.
To tender accurately the module needs your routing guide, meaning the carriers, tier order, and award logic for each lane and service level; your carrier connection details for EDI or API; and your response window and auto-accept rules. It also needs a feed of loads ready to tender, whether from your planning process or an order management system. If your carriers are already onboarded and scored in Atlas TMS carrier management, the tender module draws on those records directly, so awards follow the carriers you have qualified. The cleaner your routing guide and lane data, the more loads cover on the primary tender, so guide accuracy gets the most attention during onboarding. We map all of this with you before running the first test tender against a live lane.
Security centers on protecting the routing guide and the award logic, since those represent negotiated commercial terms. Access is role based, so editing lanes, changing award rules, or overriding a tender are separate permissions granted to specific users rather than open to anyone with a login. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and every tender, response, override, and rollover carries a user identity and timestamp. That gives you an audit trail you can walk when a lane's coverage or a carrier's acceptance pattern comes into question, showing who changed what and when. Because the guide drives which carrier gets which freight at which rate, controlling and logging changes to it is a commercial safeguard as much as a technical one, and the module treats it that way.
Every tender outcome is data. When a carrier accepts a primary tender, declines it, or lets it time out, that behavior is captured and can flow into the carrier records that drive scoring. Over time this builds an objective picture of which carriers actually honor their primary commitments and which push freight down the guide, forcing you onto backups or the spot market. That evidence is far more useful at bid time than memory or anecdote. Because tendering and carrier management share data in Atlas TMS, acceptance performance is visible alongside on-time and other metrics, so a carrier's routing-guide reliability is part of how you evaluate them. Tendering is not just about covering today's freight; it generates the acceptance history that informs how you award lanes in the next cycle.
Yes. The module tenders any load you build, whether it is outbound freight leaving your dock or inbound freight you control on a routing-guide basis, such as vendor shipments moving on your carriers under a routed inbound program. In both cases the logic is the same: identify the lane, offer the load to the primary carrier, wait the response window, and roll over on timeout. Managing inbound and outbound through one tender workflow means your team works a single board and applies consistent award rules regardless of direction. For inbound programs this is especially useful, because routing vendor freight to your contracted carriers is exactly where a disciplined tender process keeps cost on contract. The routing guide simply defines the carrier sequence for each lane, and the direction of the freight does not change how the tender, accept, and rollover cycle runs.
Yes. Load tendering runs standalone whenever automating coverage is the immediate need, working against your carrier connections and routing guide on its own. It also slots into the wider Atlas TMS suite, drawing carrier data from carrier management and pricing from rate management, so each tender reflects both your qualified carriers and your current contract rates. Kept together, the modules spare you duplicate setup, because the carriers and rates the tender engine reads are the ones your team already maintains elsewhere. If tracking or settlement lives on a different platform, the tender module still hands accepted loads across to it. During the demo we map which modules match your operation, so you buy only what the workflow actually uses.
