An ERP for a logistics or transport company is the system that turns each job, shipment or trip into a costed, billable record: it captures what was agreed with the customer, what the move actually cost in fuel, driver time, subcontractors and tolls, and what was invoiced. It sits alongside, or includes, transport and warehouse systems, and feeds finance.
Most logistics businesses already run some software: a transport management system (TMS) for planning, a warehouse management system (WMS), a telematics feed from the trucks, an accounting package and a lot of spreadsheets in between. The ERP question is rarely "do we need software?" It is "where does the job live, and how do costs and invoices follow it without being re-keyed?"
What does an ERP do for a logistics company?
It connects operations to money. The ERP holds the customer contract and rate card, the job or shipment record, the costs attached to it, and the invoice, then posts everything to the general ledger so margin is visible per job, per customer, per lane and per vehicle.
Typical modules for a freight, haulage, courier or 3PL business:
| Area | What it covers | Usually in ERP, TMS or WMS? |
|---|---|---|
| Customer contracts and rate cards | Lanes, weight or pallet bands, surcharges, fuel adjustments, minimum charges | ERP (or TMS, if billing lives there) |
| Jobs and shipments | Booking, status, proof of delivery, exceptions | TMS, mirrored into ERP |
| Route planning and dispatch | Load building, routing, vehicle allocation | TMS |
| Warehouse operations | Receiving, putaway, picking, storage charges | WMS |
| Fleet costs | Fuel, maintenance, tyres, insurance, depreciation, leases | ERP |
| Subcontractor and carrier costs | Purchase orders, self-billing or supplier invoice matching | ERP |
| Customer billing | Invoices per job, consolidated or periodic billing, credit notes | ERP |
| Driver and workshop staff | Timesheets, allowances, payroll inputs | ERP or payroll system |
| Finance | Ledger, receivables, payables, cash, multi-entity consolidation | ERP |
If your planning and tracking already work well in a TMS, the ERP's job is to receive completed jobs, cost them and bill them. If they do not, the ERP project often includes building the job and dispatch layer too. Companies whose operation does not fit a packaged product can look at custom ERP software built around their own job model.
What is the difference between a TMS, a WMS and an ERP?
A TMS plans and executes movements, a WMS runs the warehouse, and an ERP runs the money and the resources behind both. The overlap causes most of the confusion.
- TMS: orders, routing, load planning, carrier selection, tracking, proof of delivery.
- WMS: inventory by location, receiving, picking, packing, cycle counts, storage billing data.
- ERP: finance, purchasing, fleet asset accounting, HR inputs, billing and reporting across the whole business.
Smaller operators often get by with one system that does light versions of all three. Larger operators usually keep a specialist TMS or WMS and integrate it. The decision rule is simple: keep the specialist tool where operations depend on depth you cannot easily rebuild (complex route optimisation, high-volume pick logic), and make the ERP the single place where jobs become money. Our guide to system integration approaches explains how to wire them together without double entry.
How should job and shipment costing work?
Every cost should land on a job, or be allocated to jobs by a rule the finance team agrees. Without that, you see revenue per customer but not margin per customer.
Costs fall into three groups:
- Direct job costs. Subcontractor charges, tolls, port or terminal fees, packaging, third-party handling. These arrive as supplier invoices or expense claims and should carry a job reference at entry.
- Vehicle and driver costs. Fuel, maintenance, tyres, driver wages and allowances. These are incurred per vehicle or per driver and allocated to the jobs that vehicle or driver ran, by distance, time or trip count.
- Overheads. Depot rent, planners, insurance not tied to a vehicle. Usually allocated at a summary level, not per job.
Illustrative example: one trip, three customers
A truck runs a multi-drop trip carrying pallets for three customers. The trip costs are fuel, the driver's day, a toll and the vehicle's daily standing cost. A distance-based rule allocates those costs to the three deliveries; a pallet-based rule would give a different answer. Neither is wrong, but the rule must be written down, applied consistently and visible in the margin report. A good ERP lets finance change the rule and re-run the analysis without editing invoices.
What does customer billing need to handle?
Logistics billing is rarely one invoice per order. The ERP should support the patterns your customers actually ask for:
- Per-job invoices raised automatically when proof of delivery is confirmed
- Periodic consolidated invoices (weekly or monthly) with a job-level breakdown attached
- Accessorial charges added after the event: waiting time, failed delivery, extra handling, storage
- Fuel surcharges calculated from a published index or an agreed table
- Credit notes linked to the original job, with a reason code
- Customer-specific invoice formats or electronic submission where large shippers require it
The most common leak is unbilled extras. Waiting time recorded by the driver never reaches the invoice because nobody re-keyed it. A driver app that captures the event, and a billing rule that turns it into a charge line for review, closes that gap.
Do drivers need a mobile app connected to the ERP?
If proof of delivery, waiting time, fuel receipts or vehicle checks are still on paper, yes. The app is where operational data is born, so it decides how clean the ERP data is.
A driver app typically handles: job list for the day, navigation hand-off, status updates, photo and signature proof of delivery, exception reasons, fuel and expense capture with a receipt photo, and daily vehicle checks. It must work offline in poor coverage and sync when back in signal. See our page on employee and field apps for how we build these.
Which integrations matter most for logistics ERP?
The integrations that carry jobs and costs. In order of usual value:
| Integration | Direction | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| TMS to ERP | Completed jobs, charges, POD status into ERP | Billing and job costing without re-keying |
| WMS to ERP | Storage, handling activity and stock movements | Warehouse billing and inventory valuation |
| Telematics and fuel cards | Distance, hours, fuel transactions into ERP | Vehicle cost allocation |
| Customer portals or EDI | Orders in, status and invoices out | Large shippers often require it |
| Carrier and subcontractor systems | Rates, bookings, invoices | Cost accrual before the supplier invoice arrives |
| Payroll | Driver hours and allowances | Accurate pay and labour cost per job |
Our ERP integration services page covers how we connect these without making the ERP fragile.
What about cross-border and multi-entity operations?
Freight forwarders and haulage groups that operate across borders often trade through several companies, in several currencies, with recharges between them. The ERP should handle inter-company jobs (one entity sells, another performs), multi-currency costs and revenue on the same job, and consolidation without manual journals. Customs and duty data usually comes from a specialist system or broker; the ERP needs the resulting charges and disbursements so they are recovered from the customer.
Logistics ERP selection scorecard
Score each option from 0 (cannot do it) to 3 (does it well out of the box or by configuration). Weight the rows that matter most to your operation.
| Requirement | Weight (1 to 3) | Option A | Option B |
|---|---|---|---|
| Job or shipment as the central record, with costs attached | |||
| Rate cards with lanes, bands, surcharges and minimums | |||
| Cost allocation rules for vehicles and drivers | |||
| Accessorial charges captured in the field and billed | |||
| Consolidated and per-job billing in the same system | |||
| Offline-capable driver app | |||
| TMS, WMS and telematics integration | |||
| Multi-entity and multi-currency (cross-border operators) | |||
| Margin reporting per job, customer, lane and vehicle | |||
| Data export and ownership of your records |
When is custom ERP not the right choice for a logistics company?
Custom work is not always the answer. A packaged product is usually the better fit when:
- Your operation matches a standard model (for example, a straightforward parcel or pallet network) and a logistics-specific package already handles your billing patterns.
- You have a TMS that already does billing well, and you only need an accounting system behind it.
- You do not have someone inside the business who can own requirements and test the system. A custom build needs a decision-maker.
Custom ERP tends to win when the job model, billing rules or cost allocation are what differentiate you, when you have outgrown spreadsheet glue between three or four tools, or when the packages you tested force you into workarounds in exactly the areas that drive margin. For the wider trade-off, see ERP vs custom development.
Implementation checklist for a logistics ERP
- Define what a "job" is in your business, including multi-leg and multi-drop cases
- List every charge type you bill today, including the ones you forget to bill
- Agree cost allocation rules with finance before configuration starts
- Map which system owns which data: customer, rate, job, vehicle, driver
- Decide whether billing lives in the TMS or the ERP, not both
- Pilot the driver app with a small group of drivers before rollout
- Migrate open jobs and unbilled work, not years of closed history
- Build the margin report first, then check every upstream process feeds it
How to start
Write a short brief that covers your job types, charge types, current systems and the reports you cannot produce today. Our software requirements brief template gives you a structure. Add a sample month of jobs and invoices, because real data exposes edge cases faster than any workshop.
When you are ready, discuss the project with us. Timeline Digital builds 2 to 3 key modules as a free pilot before the full project starts, so you can test job costing or billing on your own data before committing. If you also hold stock for customers, see our guide to ERP for distribution companies.