What a forwarder working in or with Turkey should expect from its software: multi-currency files, CBRT exchange rates, Turkish e-invoicing, English documents and data kept in the country.
Freight forwarding in Turkey looks like forwarding anywhere else: quotes, bookings, house and master documents, costs from carriers and agents, and invoices to customers. The difference is in the local layer underneath. Invoices are issued through the Turkish e-document system, most jobs involve at least two currencies, and the lira equivalent of every foreign-currency amount matters for tax and for the books.
A forwarding system built for another market can handle the operational side. It usually struggles with the local side. This article lists what a forwarder operating in Turkey, or a foreign company working with a Turkish partner, should check before choosing software.
One file for the whole shipment
A forwarding file should hold everything about a shipment: parties, routing, mode of transport, containers or pieces, dates, documents, and every cost and revenue line. Sea (FCL and LCL), air, rail and road jobs should live in the same system, so that a door-to-door move with a sea leg and a road leg does not end up split across two programs.
Check that the file screen adapts to the job. A domestic haulage job does not need Incoterms or customs fields; an import FCL job does. When every field is shown on every file, people stop filling them in properly.
Quotes that become files
Most forwarders still price in spreadsheets. The problem starts when the quote is accepted and someone retypes it into the operations system. Look for software where a quote is built line by line, with buy and sell prices per line, and turns into a file in one step. Buy prices from carriers and agents often come in a different currency from the sell price, so the quote must handle both.
Multi-currency work and CBRT rates
In Turkey, ocean and air freight are usually priced in US dollars or euros, while local charges and many customer invoices are in Turkish lira. Accounting records need the lira value of each foreign-currency amount, and the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT, or TCMB in Turkish) publishes the reference rates that are commonly used for this.
Good forwarding software for Turkey should:
- load CBRT rates automatically every day,
- store each invoice and payment with its own rate,
- let you close a foreign-currency invoice with a lira payment and calculate the exchange difference,
- report profit per file using the rates of the actual records, not today's rate.
Exchange differences are a normal part of the business here. Software that ignores them shows a profit figure that does not match the accounts.
Turkish e-invoicing
Turkey runs an electronic invoicing system managed by the Revenue Administration (Gelir İdaresi Başkanlığı, GİB). Depending on the recipient, an invoice is issued as an e-Fatura (e-Invoice) or an e-Arşiv Fatura (e-Archive invoice). Companies do not usually connect to the system directly; they use an accounting service or an approved integrator that handles the transmission.
For a forwarder, the practical requirement is simple: invoices prepared in the operations system should reach the e-invoicing service without being typed again. If your software cannot pass invoices to the service you use, someone will retype every invoice, and mistakes will follow. We cover the basics in more detail in our guide to e-Invoice, e-Archive and e-Waybill in Turkey.
Documents in English
A Turkish forwarder works with overseas agents, carriers and customers every day. House bills of lading, house air waybills, CMR consignment notes, pre-alerts and invoices often need to be in English. Two details matter in practice:
- Documents should be generated from the file data, so the shipper, consignee, marks and weights are the same on every document.
- Turkish characters (ı, ş, ğ, İ) should be converted for English documents. Many carrier and customs systems abroad expect plain capital letters, and a name printed with Turkish characters may not match the booking.
For an overview of the main transport documents, see our practical guide to CMR, B/L and AWB in Turkey.
Customs details and the customs broker
In Turkey, customs declarations are typically filed by licensed customs brokers (gümrük müşaviri). A forwarder's software does not need to file declarations, but it should keep the details that the broker and the operations team need: EORI number, summary declaration reference, temporary storage location and the documents received. Keeping these on the file saves a lot of phone calls.
Consolidation and agent accounts
LCL and air consolidations create a master shipment with several houses. The software should distribute master costs across houses without rounding losses, and keep a running account with each overseas agent, including profit share and debit and credit notes. Collect freight should be invoiced to the right party once, not twice.
Where the data lives
Turkey's personal data protection law (KVKK) sets rules for processing and transferring personal data. Shipment files contain names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of contacts, so many Turkish companies prefer their business data to stay on servers in Turkey. Ask the vendor where the servers are, whether your data is kept separate from other customers, and how backups are made.
A short checklist
- Sea, air, rail and road files in one system
- Line-by-line quotes that become files
- Daily CBRT rates and exchange-difference handling
- Invoices passed to your Turkish e-invoicing service
- House B/L, house AWB, CMR and pre-alerts in English
- Master and house consolidation with agent accounts
- Profit per file, expected and actual
- Servers in Turkey and a separate database per company
How TMSdeck fits
TMSdeck is a transport management system built for road carriers and freight forwarders in Turkey. Each company gets its own installation and database on servers in Istanbul, with backups every other day. The interface is in Turkish; documents such as CMR, house B/L, house AWB, pre-alerts and invoices can be produced in English. Invoices are passed to Paraşüt and sent from there as e-Invoice or e-Archive.
TMSdeck does not file customs declarations and does not include GPS tracking. See the freight forwarding module or the full feature list, and request a demo if you would like to see it with files like yours.