Top Ways Digital Smart Contracts Can Take Global Trade to the Next Level

Per shipment, there are distinct shipping, legal, and trade-related documents involved. Crucial information like tracking numbers, requested amendments, and drafts can easily get lost in transit. Hence, integrating a smart supply chain tool like Timber Exchange can minimize manual checks and ensure that everything goes smoothly without any hiccups on the way.

In global trade, contract compliance and accountability throughout the shipment life-cycle are arguably two most sensitive challenges faced by industrial companies with global supply chains. A smart contract can be defined as a digital contract copy that stores crucial data such as the counterparties, delivery terms, payment terms and conditions for shipping documents. This process is specifically known as a ‘smart’ contract within the Timber Exchange platform because it is linked to the real-world events occurring across the supply chain in ports, shipping lines, authorities, couriers, and other aspects of the supply chain.

Through this platform, you can complete a deal in the best way while keeping everyone involved in the loop by automating sales, logistics and compliance processes with smart tools covering all steps from inquiry until cargo arrives at POD, thereby saving significant time and resources for the business.

Features of the Timber Exchange Smart Contracts Tool

The Timber Exchange smart contracts tool is an advanced supply chain management feature that provides you the option of getting every detail regarding the deal in a single centralized location. To make sure your goals are clear and reachable, Timber Exchange provides specific, measurable, achievable & relevant solutions. Some of the most important features of the smart contract are:

• Milestone Tracking: As part of the smart supply chain calendar, you can keep track of milestones such as goods ready in the mill, Date of Delivery To Port, ETS of Vessel, ETA of Vessel, ETA of Courier, Payment Date, Last Date of Shipment, Tasks, and Schedules from a single location. The milestones can also be tracked under the process tab, active deals section where the clients can follow the steps and check which ones are completed or delayed.
• Shipment Tracking: Depending on the cargo type (bulk vessel and containers), you can add your shipping details such as B/L numbers (for containers) and Vessel Name (for bulk) to track the movement of your shipments. Timber Exchange, for instance, is currently connected with 60 container lines, 18000 bulk vessels, and 10 carrier companies for real-time tracking.
• Compliant Documents: Managing and drafting documents digitally in a smarter way reduces lead times, expedites decision making, approvals and prevents costly errors. The Timber Exchange platform ensures that you are maintaining compliance with the requirements of customs authorities, contracting parties, and the shipping line through documents such a B/L (Bill of Lading), Certificate of Origin, EUR1, Phytosanitary certifications, among others. When both the counterparties agree to buy/sell products, the contract can be automatically generated and sent to them for immediate document filing with distributing workflow, thereby saving a lot of time.

  This process follows country-specific rules to ensure the Timber Exchange platform intimates you regarding which documents you would need to follow through with the deal. For example, if you want to carry on transactions to and from Egypt, the platform is integrated with NAFEZA (to help the importer) and CargoX (for the exporter) so that you can be the best player in the global marketplace. This also ensures that you have an ACI number (Advance Cargo Information) before moving ahead in a contract with Egyptian counterparties. The steps are easily broken down and simplified throughout the entire process starting from verifying the ACID number to drafting compliance documents, custom fillings, and tracking the deadline. Once the contract gets fulfilled, it can be verified & digitally signed off speeding up the transaction process between the parties.

• Warnings & Deadline Tracking: You start getting document related, process-related, and deadline related warnings within the platform. The performance actions are recorded following the smart supply chain calendar. Based on the different milestones, all the quantitative works are kept aligned so that the next levels can progress as planned. The system stores information within the platform to signal warnings and show where and how delays in the delivery process can be managed through effective participation in system-generated tasks of the counterparties in one centralized location.
• Central Source of Truth: Our dashboard allows you to see data related to all your deals and transactions in one place. From there, you can see their status, vessel performance, container line performance, warnings, and can access the smart supply chain calendar as well. Under the active deals tab, if you visit a particular listing, you can find all data related to that in one place, making them easy to access.

Smart contracts are an effort-efficient feature designed to bring an exemplary change in your supply chain management system as you digitize it all in a single platform without any external enforcement mechanism in every sector, taking global trade to the next level. It is intended to automatically execute, control, manage, and simplify the way you do your business, globally.

Timber Exchange is a cloud-based enterprise solution for the global timber industry to work together in one place. It is a combination of supply chain management tools, a B2B marketplace, and a constantly updated market data hub to support the forestry industry. It also covers the operational blind spots by complementing the existing ERP and business systems.

If you’re willing to know more, feel free to reach out to https://www.timber.exchange.