Introduction
Quick Start Guide
A practitioner's guide to FreightMath — proven workflows, diagnostic habits, and the sequences that surface results fastest. Each step builds on the last, from your first triage session through full operational refinement.
Work the guide in order. Step 0 explains what drives the numbers; Steps 1 through 4 move from a five-minute triage to the scenario modeling that turns findings into pricing, dispatch, and network decisions. Expand any card for the full walkthrough and pro tips.
Step 0 — How the Cost Model Works
Foundation — understanding what drives the numbers before you analyze them: the mechanics behind every OR figure in FreightMath.
FreightMath is an Activity-Based Costing (ABC) model. Every dollar from your GL is distributed to individual loads using actual activity drivers — miles, hours under power, and load-specific charges. Understanding how that distribution works — and the special cost treatments for certain operations — makes every OR figure you see more interpretable.
Step 1 — Quick Triage
Get your bearings in 5 minutes — identify the biggest cost and revenue signals before going deep.
Begin every FreightMath session here. Unfamiliar with a metric? The FreightMath Glossary has definitions for every term used across the platform. Quick Triage surfaces the highest-priority items across your network so you know exactly where to focus your analysis time.
Step 2 — Baseline Review
Establish your cost structure foundation before drawing any conclusions from variance.
With triage complete, move into Baseline Review to understand the structural story behind your numbers — who's performing, who's costing you, and where the operational gaps live.
Step 3 — Trend Exploration
Track movement over time to separate structural problems from noise.
Trend Exploration is where patterns emerge. These three pages collectively answer the question every operator needs answered: what changed, where, and why?
Step 4 — Operational Refinement
Translate findings into decisions — pricing, dispatch, customer strategy, and network design.
This is where FreightMath analysis converts to action. The tools in this step bring data integrity, revenue clarity, and forward-looking scenario planning together into one final loop.