Most small importers and forwarders run shipment tracking out of someone’s inbox, which works until two shipments are late in the same week and nobody remembers which carrier has which tracking number. A single log fixes that.
What’s in the spreadsheet
- 50 pre-formatted rows: shipment ID, date, carrier, origin, destination, tracking number, mode, status, weight, cost
- Status is a dropdown (Booked, Picked Up, In Transit, Out for Delivery, Delivered, Exception), not free text, so filtering actually works
- Live counts for shipments still in transit and shipments delivered
- A running total of freight cost across every row logged
Why a dropdown status column matters
Free-text status fields drift. One person types “in transit,” another types “In-Transit,” a third types “on the way,” and now a COUNTIF across the column misses two-thirds of your shipments. Locking the Status column to a fixed list keeps every summary formula in the sheet accurate without anyone having to remember the exact spelling.
Once a shipment’s delivered, the cost column in this log feeds straight into the freight forwarding dashboard if you want revenue and margin tracked on top of status.