Great TMS

I just started my business a year ago at that time I was looking for the best TMS for a small start up company that would fit my needs and I have found Ascend TMS to fit my needs. Customer servie rep was very helpful assisting me with setting up branches.

Pros

Ascend is very user friendly and cost effective

Cons

The shipper directory could use an update

Best choice!!

We started our brokerage in February 2019 -- and as we were growing, we needed a TMS system, excel spreadsheets were just not cutting it. We were able to really increase our capacity and use our time more wisely!

Pros

I love its customizability and their customer service! We were able to structure the load board how we wanted it. Also, they are really great about listening to their clients. I've had some suggestions that I provided them and they actually implemented them! It's great to see a company actually give you what you are looking for in a program. I know they have a lot in the works and I look forward to growing with them! Also -- with them being partnered with TriumphPay - it was been a lifesaver and timesaver for us. and the price is really great - as a start up -- it's a little tight with revenue and expenses. I really appreciate that as well.

Cons

I'm great! I really have nothing to complain about. Only thing that would be great to have is the bill payment communication to Quickbooks. But that is super minor.

CEO

As an owner of a 3PL I have to use software that keeps track of all my top line revenue, gross margin, and commissions for my sales team. Ascend does a great job of all of that. The board itself where I keep track of the companies shipments is very easy and simple to view. It has to be when you're moving a high volume of loads and need to stay organized. Overall great product.

Pros

1. In the cloud. 2. UI is great. 3. Easy to add users, delete users. 4. Great reporting.

Cons

Nothing. They continue to improve their software every month adding new integrations and add ons.

Feature-rich, but somewhat clunky and time-consuming.

Since the software integrates with other offerings, I ended up signing up with Triumph Business Capital for factoring (because they were integrated) and Triumph has been great.

Pros

Ascend tries to be many things, with a host of integrations from DAT load board to Triumph Business Capital for factoring. There is a lot going on and for the most part, the software does its job. The address auto-populate feature is very helpful when entering new addresses. That is sort of where the positives stop for me.

Cons

There are simply too many steps to go through to enter and dispatch a single load. Instead of having everything on one screen to be entered quickly, you have to fill out one screen, click to go to the next screen, click to go to the next screen, all for one load. It simply took me too much time. I ended up switching over to Trucking Office (I am a smaller operation) and the difference in time spent dispatching was very noticeable. All in all, it was not bad software, just did not work out for me. There are also minor glitches with the formatting of the website interface that bugged me, like text running outside of a box, just little aesthetic touches that were distracting.

Does great for us!

The software is great for keeping docs and notes organized on our carriers and reporting functions have been very helpful to streamline our SOP's.

Pros

I enjoy the document organization and archiving functions for keeping files on our preferred carriers. Also the reporting functions give us great insight into areas of improvement internally.

Cons

Occasionally adding a new carrier finding a carrier with a newer MC number can be frustrating but out side of that no problems!