Integrations / Freight forwarding / CarLo
CarLo integration
Dispatch knows.
The warehouse
keeps its own list.
In a freight forwarder the truth lives in the transport management system: order, tour, vehicle, status. But the warehouse keeps its own lists, the customer phones to ask where the shipment is, and the pallet accounts live in Excel. An interface to CarLo ends the double entry.
What CarLo offers
CarLo is the transport management system by Soloplan, widely used by forwarders in the German-speaking market. It covers the route from order entry through dispatch to invoicing. According to the vendor it provides open interfaces for exchanging data with third-party systems web-based or file-based, plus EDI connections and standard links to freight exchanges and transport platforms such as TIMOCOM, Trans.eu and Transporeon.
Which of these routes are licensed and enabled in your installation differs from company to company. Clarifying that is step one.
What companies use it for
01
CarLo ↔ warehouse
The transport order knows the shipment, the warehouse knows the pallet. Connected, the ramp knows what is coming and dispatch knows what is loaded.
02
Status for customers
Shipment status and proof of delivery in a customer portal instead of on the phone. Dispatch gets its day back.
03
Orders by email
Transport orders that arrive as an email or PDF are read by AI and prepared for entry — checked instead of retyped.
04
Pallet accounts & returns
Load-carrier exchange and returns written forward from tour data, instead of reconstructed at month end.
05
Reporting
Utilisation, empty kilometres, margin per lane: tour data in a data warehouse, analysed without loading the production system.
06
AI dispatch
An AI that proposes tours and flags bottlenecks first needs to see the real data. The interface is step one.
My rule: read-only first
The TMS is the heart of a forwarder. So every CarLo connection starts strictly read-only: data is fetched, nothing in CarLo is changed. That already delivers the portal, the warehouse reconciliation and the reporting — with zero risk to dispatch and invoicing. A write path comes only after the read path has proven, in daily use, that it is right.
The dispatch and returns modules I built are in daily use at a working forwarder. The method behind every connection is the one from the sequence: observe first, act later. If the interface documentation is on the table, nothing stands in the way.
No API access enabled?
There is still a route: scheduled exports, reports by email, status mails to customers. Anything CarLo already outputs can be read in dependably. See the full list of routes.
How I go about it
01
Read what the system offers
Which data lives where, who needs it when, and which route the system genuinely provides. The output is a one-page interface sheet, not a concept paper.
02
Prototype on real data
Within days the first real record travels from A to B. Only then do the actual problems show up: formats, edge cases, permissions.
03
Run it properly
On monitored servers, with retries, a log and explicit failure handling. Not a script on a forgotten office PC.
04
Let AI watch it
A delivery that does not arrive, a format that changes, a total that drifts — the integration reports it before accounting or the warehouse notices.
Questions I get asked
Do we have to order something from Soloplan?
That depends on which interfaces your CarLo installation already has licensed. If the right access exists, your IT simply enables it. If not, we work out whether the licence is worth it or whether a file-based route does the same job.
Can the connection disturb our dispatch?
No. It starts read-only and polls at a rate that does not load the production system. Nothing is written or changed in CarLo.
We use a different TMS — does this still apply?
Yes. The approach is vendor-independent. What matters is which routes your system offers: API, EDI, export or email.
Other integrations
ERP
SAP
Deliveries, stock, advice notes and master data out of SAP — via IDoc, BAPI, OData or a plain file export.
Payments
Stripe
The payment arrives — invoice, warehouse and accounting know immediately. Fees and payouts included.
Payments
PayPal
PayPal transactions matched to the order and booked automatically — instead of a CSV export at month end.
Next step
Where does your
forwarder enter
things twice?
Between dispatch and warehouse, between TMS and customer, between tour and pallet account — describe the spot and I will show you the route.
CarLo is a trademark of Soloplan GmbH. TIMOCOM, Trans.eu and Transporeon are trademarks of their respective owners. I work independently and have no partnership or affiliation with the companies named. Names are used only to describe the technical connection. · Auf Deutsch: CarLo bei Monster Intelligenz