U.S. Cooler is now leasing walk-ins

Buying a walk-in cooler or freezer is a large expense for any business and not all companies have the cash flow available to purchase a walk-in outright. U.S. Cooler has another option for our customers. Leasing.

By leasing your walk-in, you avoid having to come up with the complete purchase price necessary to buy it outright. Instead, with leasing, the cost is spread out comfortably over a fixed period of time, and only a small initial down payment is required. Leasing removes the need for equity financing. It also allows you to acquire and use an asset without having to make a substantial down payment. Thus, minimizing the affect on your cash flow and working capital.

U.S. Cooler has partnered with Advantage Leasing to provide our customers with a financing program for their walk-in equipment. For more information on the program visit the leasing program page on our website or contact Advantage Leasing for details.

Sharpen Your Bill of Lading, Pay Less in Freight

It used to seem like motor carriers would “look the other way” when it came to the way shippers filled out their bill of ladings.  As long as the freight class that went along with the description was “close“ to what they were shipping, the carriers never bothered with it.  However, now there is too much of an extra revenue source for the carriers to ignore these poorly filled out descriptions and have incentivized dock workers to capitalize on shippers who do not fill this out the proper way.

The biggest mistake people make when filling out a bill of lading is they simply put a basic description of the product like “plastic figurines”.  The problem is that plastic figurines are a density item according to the NMFC and can be classified at any class from a 70 to a 400 (which is a difference of about 250% in price).

Without a classification number, the carriers have every right to bill out at a class 400 if “plastic figurines” is all they are given.  The proper way to describe this item on a bill of lading is to write a description which includes the NMFC issued number.  This is a perfect way to describe this item “Plastic Articles, NMFC #157320 Sub 8, Class 85.”

Elizabeth LaFleur, freight auditor for Logistics Management, Inc., says shippers will cut down on a lot of headaches if they followed this simple process.  LaFleur says, “When a carrier see’s a poor description, they red flag it and can classify it at a much higher class.  If the description on the bill of lading is vague, a lot of times there is nothing that can be done to fight it.  However, if the item number is on the bill of lading then there, is no problem.”

Not only can this be a hassle, the cost can be significant to a shipper.  The way it is nowadays in the freight world is if a shipper does not fill out their bill of lading accurately they get nailed not only with the difference in the freight class but also with a “Weight & Inspection” fee which can be as high as $30.00.

What a Bill of Lading Should NOT Look Like

Recently I visited a prospect that was getting overwhelmed with Weight & Inspections from carriers.  They pulled their bill of ladings for me and on them was the description for “tools”.  There was two problems with this description.  First, “tools” is too vague of a description and second, they were actually shipping drive shafts and other engine parts for race cars.

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