Port Agency Software for High-Volume Agencies
For agencies running many port calls at once: shared templates, roles and a timeline on every call. What Agent does for a large team, and what it does not.
Who this is for
- Your agency handles a high volume of port calls in one or more busy ports
- Operations and finance staff work on many multi-principal calls in parallel
- Principals expect disbursement accounts promptly and ask detailed questions about them
- Different teams use different DA templates, and handovers lose information
- You want one place to see what is live and what happened on each call
In a busy port, one agency office can have dozens of calls open at the same time, with operations, finance, documentation, husbandry and crew change work running in parallel.
At that scale the problem is less the individual agent than the way the team works together: shared templates, handovers between people, finance working from the same figures as operations, and a record of what happened on each call. Many agencies still patch this together with an older agency system, spreadsheet exports and shared folders.
SupaMaritime Agent gives a larger team a shared structure: organisation-wide service types, statuses, DA sections and email templates, roles with a permission matrix, a live dashboard and operations board, and a timeline on every port call. It is a web app without a public API or multi-office consolidation, and this page says where it stops.
Where the day breaks down
Every desk has its own DA template
The tanker desk uses one spreadsheet, the bulk desk another. When a vessel changes desk or a junior moves between teams, the differences have to be translated by hand.
Deadlines slip on busy weeks
Principals expect a PDA before arrival and an FDA soon after sailing. Manual steps, such as hunting for templates and supplier invoices, are what push those accounts late.
Senior agents are the bottleneck
Juniors are not trusted with multi-principal accounts, so senior agents end up reviewing everything, and their holidays become a risk.
Finance works from exports
Operations close calls in spreadsheets and finance pulls the figures later. Month-end becomes a reconciliation exercise.
No single view of live port calls
Management cannot see today's live calls without asking each desk.
Reconstructing a call takes digging
Audits and principal queries mean rebuilding what happened on a port call from email threads and personal folders.
Built around the workflow, not bolted on top
SupaMaritime Agent gives everyone in the agency the same structure: one record per port call, the same service types and DA sections, the same email templates, and roles that decide who can see and change what. Finance works from the DA lines, invoices and payments that operations record, and every change is on the call's timeline.
Organisation-wide templates
Define service types with a default sell price, service statuses, DA sections and email templates in five languages once for the whole agency. Everyone creates services and accounts from the same catalogue.
Live dashboard and operations board
The dashboard shows active port calls, vessels in port, arrivals in the next seven days and the balance receivable from principals. The operations board lists services, tasks and deliveries grouped by port call and updates as colleagues make changes.
Multi-principal port calls
Attach several principals to one call with their shares, split DA lines between them and produce the PDA or FDA per principal or combined. PDA and FDA emails sent from the call are logged.
Roles, permissions and timeline
Admin, manager, member and viewer roles with a permission matrix per resource, multi-factor authentication, and a timeline on every port call that records what changed.
AIS port radar (Pro)
On the Pro plan, see vessels approaching your ports within a radius you set, AIS positions on port calls, a vessel tracker and port visit history. Not included in Starter.
Hand-off to accounting
Generate Italian FatturaPA XML from the final DA and export FDA disbursements to CSV as journal entries (debit principal, credit supplier). Agent has no API or direct connector to SAP, NetSuite or Oracle.
Illustrative example: a busy day at a large agency
A hypothetical case, not a customer story. An agency has around forty port calls open across its container, tanker and bulk teams. Three vessels share costs between several principals, the finance director needs figures for a board meeting, and new staff start this week.
Before SupaMaritime
After SupaMaritime
The operations head goes desk by desk each morning to find out what is happening.
The operations head opens the dashboard and the operations board to see live calls, upcoming arrivals and open services in one place.
Each team keeps its own DA template, so a handover between teams means reformatting.
All teams use the same service types and DA sections defined for the organisation.
The shared-cost calls are split in a separate spreadsheet, with shares typed in by hand.
Each shared-cost call has its principals attached with their shares; DA lines are split between them and each receives their own PDA and FDA.
Finance asks for receivables by principal and someone starts pulling exports together.
The dashboard shows the outstanding balance receivable from principals, and each port call holds its invoices and payments.
New staff learn one team's template and cannot easily help another team.
New staff learn one way of working, with roles that limit what they can change while they learn.
A principal queries an old FDA and the answer has to be rebuilt from email.
For the old FDA query, the port call's timeline, documents and email archive show what was sent and when.
Facts you can check
Monthly availability target in our terms. It is a target, not a guarantee; service credits apply only if your order form includes them.
We aim to respond within one business day, by email and in the app, on Spanish business days from 09:00 to 18:00 CET.
Export your data at any time, and your files in their original format, with no export fee.
Admin, manager, member and viewer, with a permission matrix per resource and multi-factor authentication.
What a large agency should expect from cloud agency software
Many agency systems in use today were designed for on-premise servers and a small group of power users. A cloud web app changes what the agency has to run itself: no servers to maintain, updates without an upgrade project, and access from any browser.
SupaMaritime Agent is a cloud web app only; there is no on-premise version. Application servers are in Paris and the Agent database is in London (UK, covered by an EU adequacy decision). Data is encrypted in transit and at rest by the providers, databases are backed up daily and kept for seven days, and a GDPR Data Processing Agreement is part of the terms.
It is worth being clear about what is not there: Agent has no public API, no webhooks and no direct connectors to ERPs or port community systems. Data leaves Agent as PDF documents, FatturaPA XML, the CSV accounting export and full exports in CSV, JSON or XLSX.
Standardisation without losing desk-level expertise
Large agencies worry that a common template will flatten what each team knows. The alternative most have today, a separate spreadsheet per desk, is harder to reconcile and harder to hand over.
In Agent, standardisation happens through the organisation's catalogue: service types with default sell prices, service statuses, DA sections, appointment types (full, husbandry or protective agency) and email templates. Teams can add the service types they need, for example a specific survey or cleaning service, and everyone sees the same list.
Agent does not have a separate structure for desks or vessel-type templates. A team member moving from tanker to bulk work uses the same screens and the same catalogue, so the knowledge sits in the shared configuration rather than in one person's spreadsheet.
Meeting principals' deadlines for disbursement accounts
Principals judge agencies by how quickly and accurately they send disbursement accounts and answer queries. Deadlines are usually missed because of manual steps: finding the right template, waiting for a senior agent to check, searching inboxes for a supplier invoice.
Agent removes some of those steps: services come from the shared catalogue, PDA lines are copied into the FDA, amounts in other currencies use the ECB rate, and the PDA or FDA is emailed from the port call with a log of what was sent to whom.
Agent does not track deadlines per principal or measure the time to PDA and FDA. The dashboard shows upcoming arrivals and the operations board shows open services, and that is where the team sees what needs doing next.
Rolling Agent out at a larger agency
We do not quote standard implementation times: how long a rollout takes depends on your data and your team. What the work involves is predictable: master data (ports, principals, vendors, vessels), the service and DA catalogue, roles and permissions, and the company details that appear on your PDFs.
Many agencies start with one team on live port calls before extending to the others. Onboarding, data migration and training are provided only when your order form includes them; support is by email and in the app on Spanish business days, and we aim to respond within one business day.
There are also limits to weigh at hub scale. Agent works as one organisation: it has no multi-office consolidation or group reporting, and no API to feed a data warehouse. If you need those, raise them during the demo so you can judge the fit.
How this compares to the alternatives
Long-established port agency software vendor.
Port agency ERP software.
Many hub agencies run locally developed or regional agency software; it is worth comparing on the same criteria.
Ship management software suite, aimed mainly at shipowners and ship managers.
Frequently asked questions
What is port agency ERP software?
How is hub-agency software different from small-agency software?
Can SupaMaritime Agent handle thousands of port calls a year?
How do large agencies meet principals' deadlines for disbursement accounts?
Does SupaMaritime Agent integrate with SAP, NetSuite or Oracle?
How can a large agency reduce the risk when a senior agent leaves?
Can several offices work in one SupaMaritime Agent account?
What pricing applies to large agencies?
See it in your workflow, not a generic demo
We'll walk through built for hub-port agencies.
Agent has no free plan and no public price list. Starter, Pro (with AIS features) and Enterprise are quoted on request: book a demo and we will send you a quote.