The catalog holds the shared reference data the rest of the system points at. When you pick a port on a quotation, a warehouse on a shipment or a container type on a cargo line, you are choosing from the catalog.
It is worth understanding one thing about it: catalog records are referenced, not copied. Correcting a port's name fixes it everywhere it appears. Creating a second port for the same place splits your history in two, permanently, and no report will ever tell you it happened.
What is in it
| Entity | What it is |
|---|---|
| Ports | Seaports and airports. |
| Agents | Overseas partners, with their offices and addresses. |
| Storage companies | Operators of storage facilities. |
| Warehouses | Individual facilities, belonging to a storage company and attached to a port. |
| Container types | 20GP, 40HC, reefer — with internal dimensions and capacity. |
| Physical containers | Actual boxes, by container number. |
| Containers | A physical container as used on a specific movement, with seal, weights and cargo detail. |
| Master bills of lading | Master-level B/L records. |
| Vessels | Ships, with IMO and SCAC. |
| Voyages | Specific sailings of a vessel. |
| Shipping lines | Ocean carriers. |
| Airlines | Air carriers. |
| Master shipments | Consolidations. |
| Contacts | People at companies and customer profiles — see Contacts. |
Most of these are covered in detail in Ports, agents and carriers and Containers, vessels and voyages.
Active and inactive
Most catalog entities carry a status of active or inactive. This is the mechanism that keeps the list usable over time.
Deactivate rather than delete. A port you no longer call at, a carrier you no longer use, a warehouse that has closed — set them inactive. They disappear from the dropdowns operators pick from, while every historic quotation, shipment and invoice that referenced them stays readable. Deleting a record that has been used leaves the history pointing at nothing.
The discipline that keeps a catalog usable
Reference data decays quietly. Four habits prevent most of it:
- Search before creating. The single most common failure is a duplicate created because someone searched for
Jebel Aliand the existing record was typedJebel Ali Port. Search on a fragment, not the full name. - Agree on a naming convention and write it down. Ports by their common name; carriers by their trading name, not their legal one; warehouses by their operational name. Consistency matters more than which convention you pick.
- Give the catalog an owner. Reference data with no responsible person drifts. Where everyone can create records, someone should be reviewing them.
- Fix, do not fork. A record with a wrong detail should be corrected. Creating a second, correct record and leaving the wrong one alive is how you end up with two of everything.
Permissions
Creating and editing catalog entries is permissioned per entity — a role can be given read access to ports without the ability to change them. In most businesses, operators read the catalog and a small number of people maintain it. That is the right shape: catalog errors are expensive and quiet.
Load type
Several catalog entities carry a load type — FCL, LCL or air. It narrows where a record is offered: a warehouse marked LCL appears when working on groupage and not otherwise. Set it accurately; an unset or wrong load type either hides a record from the people who need it, or offers it to people who do not.
Last updated 15 September 2026