Submitting a Booking Note
How to Submit a Booking Note
Submitting sends a booking note to the Freight Forwarding Agent for a decision. It is the point at which a Shipper hands over control.
Before submitting
Submitting is not easily undone. A Shipper cannot edit a booking note after submitting it, and cannot withdraw it. Check the following first:
- Freight Forwarding Agent — the field that decides who receives the booking note. Where an organization works with more than one agent, confirm it.
- Ports — Port of Loading and Port of Discharge, checked by code rather than city name.
- Dates — Cargo Ready Date and Latest Shipping Date, and any warnings shown against them.
- Extracted values — on a booking note created from a document or email, checked against the source panel beside the form.
- Dangerous goods — the classification on each cargo entry, against the declaration.
How to submit
- Open the booking note.
- Complete the form. See the What Each Field Means for what is required.
- Select Submit at the bottom right.
If everything is valid, the booking note moves to Pending Review and appears in the Freight Forwarder's queue.
Saving without submitting
Save & Exit keeps the work and returns to the Requests list. The booking note stays in Draft and remains editable. Use it whenever the note is not ready to hand over — waiting on a weight, a PO number, a dangerous goods declaration.
There is no penalty for leaving a booking note in Draft. It can be reopened from the Requests list once the missing details are available.
If Submit does not work
Submission is blocked when the form is not valid. The form shows which fields need attention. The usual causes:
| Cause | Fix |
|---|---|
| A mandatory field is empty | Fill it in. Mandatory fields are marked with a red asterisk |
| A cargo entry is marked as dangerous goods without IMDG Class or UN Number | Complete both on that entry |
| Package Type without Package Amount, or the reverse | Give both, or clear both |
| A mandatory field is empty in a collapsed section | Expand every section and check |
The last one catches people out. Sections collapse, and a missing field in a collapsed Cargo entry stays invisible until the section is expanded.
Warnings are different from errors. A warning about an implausible date asks for a value to be confirmed but does not block submission. See Errors and Warnings.
After submitting
The booking note moves to Pending Review and a notification is raised. See Notifications.
🧭 Role difference
As a Shipper, the booking note becomes read-only. Its progress can be tracked from the Overview and the Requests list, but it cannot be changed. Corrections have to go through the Freight Forwarding Agent directly.
As a Freight Forwarder, a booking note submitted by the same organization lands in its own review queue and remains editable. See How to Review and Approve.
If a submitted booking note turns out to be wrong and cannot be corrected, the practical route is to duplicate it, fix the duplicate, and submit that as a new booking note. See Using the Requests List.