Straight answers to the questions freight people search for.

The EDI 204 is the Motor Carrier Load Tender: the electronic message a shipper sends a carrier to offer a load. It carries the pickup and delivery stops, dates, commodity, hazmat notes and the rate. A 204 that nobody answers inside the shipper's window is usually re-tendered to the next carrier automatically.

The 990 is the Response to a Load Tender: Accept or Decline, sent back to the shipper for the specific 204. FlowLine builds and sends the 990 the moment you tap Accept or Decline, and declines automatically at the deadline so no tender sits unanswered.

The 214 is the Transportation Carrier Shipment Status message: pickup, in transit, delivered, and the exceptions in between. Shippers use it to feed their own tracking screens. FlowLine sends 214 events from the load status and the driver's location pings.

The 210 is the Motor Carrier Freight Invoice. It must match the rate confirmation, bill of lading and proof of delivery or it will be rejected or short-paid. FlowLine's pre-billing check holds the invoice until all four documents agree.

The time a shipper gives a carrier to answer a 204, commonly 15 minutes to 2 hours. Miss it and the load goes to the next carrier on the routing guide. Repeated misses lower your tender acceptance score and your position in the guide.

The share of tenders a carrier accepts. Shippers track it per carrier and use it to rank the routing guide. A carrier that declines or ignores too many tenders gets fewer of them. The fix is not to accept everything; it is to answer everything on time.

A shipper's ranked list of carriers per lane. The first carrier gets the tender; if they decline or time out, it moves to the second, and so on. Falling down the guide is how a carrier loses a shipper without ever losing a load.

A four-digit number assigned by the United Nations to a hazardous material or group of materials, such as UN1263 for paint or UN1993 for flammable liquid n.o.s. It is the one hazmat identifier accepted worldwide and must appear on the shipping paper and the package.

The H endorsement on a commercial driver's license, which requires a written test and a TSA background check. A driver without it cannot haul placarded loads. It is the main reason hazmat freight pays more: fewer drivers can take it.

From LIVE Global Logistics' own loads, the hazmat premium over dry van on the same distance band has run about 23 percent since 2023, roughly double what it was before. The exact figure by class and distance is in the rate calculator.

A status check on a moving load: where is the truck, is it on time. Traditionally a phone call from dispatch to the driver every few hours. FlowLine replaces most of them with a text link the driver opens once, and flags any load that goes quiet past its window.

The share of a carrier's loads with automatic location tracking, which brokers and shippers put on carrier scorecards. Loads tracked by phone call count as zero. FlowLine shows yours first because it is what the customer sees.

The document a broker or shipper sends confirming the agreed rate, stops and terms for a load. It is the contract. If the invoice does not match it, you will be short-paid.

The BOL is the legal shipping document issued at pickup: shipper, consignee, commodity, piece count, weight and, for hazmat, the proper shipping name, UN number, class and packing group. Signed at delivery it becomes the proof of delivery.

The POD is the delivery receipt, usually the signed BOL, showing the consignee received the freight. No POD, no payment, on most shipper and factoring contracts.

An independent sales and operations person who books freight under a larger carrier's or broker's authority and insurance, for a split of the revenue. LIVE Global Logistics ran its hazmat business as an agent for 15 years, which is the model FlowLine was built around.

A transportation management system: the software that holds loads, customers, carriers, rates, documents and invoices in one place. FlowLine is a TMS built around the problems that lose a small carrier its shippers: tenders missed, loads gone quiet, paperwork that does not match.

The 204 lands in the tender queue with its own countdown, set to the shipper's window. Accept or Decline builds and sends the 990. Anything still open at the deadline is declined automatically so the shipper always gets an answer and your acceptance score never takes a hit for silence.

No. The driver gets a text with a link, opens it once, and the phone shares location for that load. No download, no login, no password reset at 2 a.m.

Ian Brown, owner and CEO of LIVE Global Logistics in Dallas, Texas, a hazmat carrier and brokerage. He built it alone after losing a major shipper to tenders that reached his team too late, so no one else would have to go through that.