One record, not five separate tools
Desks end up with a separate spreadsheet for each task because their tools do not share data. Here, when an open ship becomes a fixture (an agreed deal), it keeps the same ship, charterer and dates all the way to the laytime sheet. Nobody types the ship name again, and the laycan (the dates the ship can load) is the same in every place.
The ship register is included
Most chartering software expects you to know the ship already. Neptune Atlas comes with the world merchant fleet and who owns each ship, so a cargo gives you a list of possible ships to work from. The four ownership roles are kept separate, because the registered owner, the beneficial owner, the commercial manager and the technical manager are often four different companies.
The five features
- Position listsOpen ships with the date and area where each will be free, read from the ship lists that arrive by e-mail, so you do not type them in by hand.
- Vessel registerThe world merchant fleet with ship details and the four ownership roles, searchable by the fields brokers actually filter on.
- Laytime and demurrageLaytime is the time allowed to load or unload, and demurrage is the fee for going over it. Enter the port times once and the demurrage is calculated for you.
- Voyage estimatorFreight income against fuel, port costs and canal fees over real sea distances, with several ships compared side by side.
- MarketplaceCargo and open ships posted for every desk to see, on every plan including the free one. A post is a copy, so your private records stay private.
There are also four free tools that need no account: an IMO number checker, a sea distance calculator, a laytime calculator and a TCE calculator.