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Ship broker software vs spreadsheets

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Ship broker software keeps vessel details, open ships (tonnage), cargo enquiries and fixtures (agreed deals) in one record, linked to a ship identity that stays the same when the ship is renamed or sold. A spreadsheet does the same job well, for a while. Almost every broking desk starts on Excel and e-mail, and for a desk of one or two people that is the right choice. It stops being the right choice at a point you can predict. So the useful question is not which tool is better, but whether your desk has reached that point.

The short version

Here are six areas of daily work, and what changes in each when a desk moves off a spreadsheet. Every figure in the right-hand column is measured against the Neptune Atlas register, with sources in the sections below.

Operational areaOn a spreadsheetOn a vessel record
A shared position list Two brokers edit the same file and end up with two files. The desk works from whichever one was open. One list, one current version, and a history of who changed what.
Vessel identity A row says TAISHO 31. So do several other real ships. Linked to the IMO number, which stays with the hull for its whole life.
Renaming A ship that is sold and renamed becomes a second row, and the first row goes out of date. A name history, so a line-up that prints the old name still finds the ship.
Ownership One “Owner” column, filled with whichever of five companies someone happened to know. Four roles kept separate, so the chartering e-mail goes to the company that answers it.
Positions against AIS Where the ship is and when it is free end up in the same column. Separate records, because they answer different questions.
Laytime A calculation that gives a number nobody can rebuild six months later. A calculation worked against the statement of facts, line by line.

What a spreadsheet is actually good at

A position list in Excel is fast and flexible, needs no training and costs nothing. It can take any shape without asking anyone, which is exactly what a small desk needs while it works out how it trades. Nobody should replace it just on principle, and a desk that works comfortably in a spreadsheet is not doing anything wrong.

Software is worth buying when the spreadsheet stops working, not earlier because a vendor says so.

The four things that break, in order

1. Two people editing the same file

The first real failure is not a missing feature but two versions of one file. Two brokers who work the same list of ships end up with two lists, and the desk starts working from whichever one was open. No error appears. The cost is offering a ship that was withdrawn yesterday, and the broker who does it looks unprepared in front of a client.

2. The ship in the sheet is not the ship you mean

Many ships share names. In the Neptune Atlas register of 101,900 hulls that carry an IMO number, 5,027 names are carried by more than one hull, covering 14,252 ships. A row that says TAISHO 31 cannot tell apart the several real ships with that name, and it has no deadweight to rank them by unless someone typed one in.

Any serious system uses the IMO number, which is issued once per hull, never reused, and stays the same after renaming, a change of flag, or a sale. The free IMO number checker tells you whether a number in your sheet is a valid one.

3. Ships get renamed and the sheet does not know

Renaming is common. 11,869 hulls in the Port State Control inspection records Neptune Atlas holds have been inspected under more than one name, out of 44,764 hulls with any inspection history at all. A port line-up prints whatever name the port authority uses, often a name the ship stopped using when it was sold years ago. Matching on the current name only creates a duplicate instead of finding the ship, and the duplicate is then the row that gets updated next time.

4. Laytime stops being arithmetic

Laytime is the time allowed for loading and discharging. A demurrage calculation (the charge for going over that time) is worked across a statement of facts with exclusions. In a spreadsheet, that calculation may not be wrong, but nobody can check it. When a claim is disputed six months later, the question is not what the number was but how it was reached: which stoppage was excluded, under what wording, from which line of the statement of facts. A cell with a total cannot answer that. The claim is then usually lost because the records are missing, not because the facts are wrong.

What to actually look for

If a desk decides to move, these questions show the difference between a real vessel database and a list with a search box, and they are deliberately questions you can ask about this product too.

On price

The established platforms in this market do not publish prices. They sell annual contracts with a setup project, costing tens or hundreds of thousands a year. That suits a large owner or a trading house, but it is not a purchase a broking desk of three people can make. If you cannot try a tool without going through a sales process, it was built for larger companies.

So when does a desk outgrow the spreadsheet?

Not at a number of staff, and not at a revenue figure. It happens when the specific things below start to happen. They are useful signs because you can see them happen, so there is nothing to argue about:

One of these is normal. Three at once means the spreadsheet is costing the desk money through mistakes, and those mistakes cost more than a licence fee would. That is the time to move. Before then, moving is not worth it.

When the spreadsheet stops being trusted, see the best ship chartering software for small desks, or the comparisons with AXSMarine, ShipNext and Kpler.

References

Position list vs AIS vs port line-upThree things people often mix up in chartering: where a ship is, when it is free next, and what the port authority expects at the berth. Who owns a shipA ship has up to five companies behind it, and they are not the same. Only one of them answers a chartering e-mail. How to calculate laytime and demurrageWhen the clock starts, what stops it, how the demurrage figure is worked out, and why most claims fail on the paperwork, not on whether they were right. What a ship broker doesThe job itself: two lists nobody publishes, a market with no price screen, and a commission paid only when a deal is done.

Neptune Atlas

Neptune Atlas is built as described above: one vessel record keyed on IMO number with a name history, four ownership roles rather than an Owner column, positions held separately from AIS fixes, and laytime worked against a statement of facts you can audit line by line. It states what it does not know on every result, which is the part a spreadsheet cannot do for you. Every paid plan starts with 7 free days. A card is needed to start them, and cancelling before they end costs nothing.

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