Freight

Freight is Fraught with Frustration

Many designers would agree with the above statement because dealing with freight can take up an inordinate amount of time. While DesignSmart can't eliminate all the hassles associated with freight, it does include various features to make the process manageable.

What makes freight challenging is that there are two aspects to it. First is the process of determining the freight amount that will appear on proposals. Most firms will estimate freight either by estimating it for each item or by entering one estimated freight amount for all of the items on the proposal. Others will use actual freight quotes. Some firms don't estimate freight but tell their clients they will be billed the actual freight amount separately  once the freight bills are received.

Second, there is the issue of how to enter the actual freight amount when the freight bill is received. DesignSmart offers two different ways to enter the freight and the method you choose will depend on how you want the freight to appear on your invoices. We'll cover this later in this section.

Then there are the lucky design firms for whom freight is not fraught with frustration. These firms simply charge enough in their markup to cover the freight charge. Since they don't spend any time tracking freight details we call these the Freight Frustration Free Firms!