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Freight quotes and reports drafted by AI, checked by your team

With QuoteCloud's MCP service, your AI assistant can be set up to draft a lane quote from a customer's request and your rate tables, or a quarterly report from your shipment data.

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QuoteCloud's MCP service, on Essentials and up, lets an AI assistant work with QuoteCloud. A freight business can set it up to draft lane quotes from customer requests and its rate tables, or service reports from its TMS shipment export. It creates drafts for a person to review; approvals still apply and nothing is sent without your team.

Last reviewed by the QuoteCloud team

A drawing of three systems as blocks on one ground plane: a customer's request as an envelope, Wexmoor's rate tables with the long-haul row lit ($0.31 a kg, $160 minimum), and a stack of sheets for the shipment export from its transport management system. A live route joins them to a QuoteCloud platform, labelled MCP service, where a draft document stands with a 'Draft · for review' stamp. Beside it the spot quote card for Coldwater Fresh Co., WF-Q-4836: the request is read, the rates are read (read only), a draft is created from the spot template with chilled linehaul $702.00, fuel surcharge $129.87, delivery before 6 am $45.00 and a suggested 6% discount, and it waits for Callan Mercer, the pricing desk lead, with the discount In Review.

Three freight jobs an assistant can be set up to draft

Each one turns data you already hold in other systems into a QuoteCloud document. The assistant prepares; your pricing desk and account managers check, change and send.

A spot quote from an email

Customer email to the pricing desk

Marcus Abara, Coldwater Fresh Co.

Can you price 4 chilled pallets from Lakeview to Port Ellery, picking up Thursday evening and there before 6 am Friday? About 450 kg each.

What the assistant may read

  • Your chilled rate tablesRead only
  • Coldwater's account in QuoteCloudRead only
  • Your spot quote templateCreate drafts
  1. Finds the customer and the templateColdwater's details and your chilled spot quote template, with its conditions of carriage.
  2. Prices it from your rate tables1,800 kg chargeable at your chilled rate, this month's fuel surcharge and the before-6-am fee.
  3. Creates a draft quoteLines added from your price list, the temperature logger report as an option to tick, valid 48 hours.
  4. Your pricing desk reviews itThe 6% returning-customer discount it suggests waits for Callan's approval.
  5. A person sends itMarcus ticks the logger report, accepts and signs online.

What it leaves in QuoteCloud

Draft · awaiting reviewCallan Mercer, pricing desk

A quarterly service report

Scheduled for the first week of each quarter

Ines Okoye, account manager

Draft Bramblewood's Q3 service review from the shipment export: consignments, on-time delivery by lane against our 95% target, claims, and options for the peak.

What the assistant may read

  • Shipment export from your TMSRead only
  • Last quarter's review in QuoteCloudRead only
  • Your service report templateCreate drafts
  1. Reads the quarter's shipments1,284 consignments from the export, grouped by lane.
  2. Works out the numbers you reportOn-time delivery against your target, pallets moved, damage claims.
  3. Drafts the reportTiles and lane bars filled in, commentary drafted and flagged for review.
  4. Ines checks and edits itShe rewrites the Ashcombe note and adds the peak options as lines to tick.
  5. Sophie acknowledges itShe ticks two options and acknowledges the review online.

What it leaves in QuoteCloud

Draft · for reviewInes Okoye, account manager

Next year's rate schedules

Asked by the account team, 60 days before year end

Ines Okoye, account manager

Draft 2027 schedules for every contract customer whose rates end in the next 60 days, at the new card rates, with this year's rates beside them.

What the assistant may read

  • Expiring Soon list in QuoteCloudRead only
  • Your 2027 rate cardRead only
  • Your rate schedule templateCreate drafts
  1. Finds the schedules ending soonFour contract customers whose rates end by mid-January.
  2. Reads each customer's current ratesZones, minimums and any negotiated discount from this year's signed schedule.
  3. Creates four draft schedulesNew rates beside this year's, struck through, in your template's wording.
  4. Flags the ones below your cardBramblewood's 6% discount needs Callan and Helen's approval before it can go.
  5. The team reviews and sendsInes checks each one, then sends them one at a time or with bulk send.

What it leaves in QuoteCloud

4 drafts · for reviewInes Okoye, account manager
  • It creates drafts. A person reviews every quote, report and schedule.
  • Your approval rules still apply to anything it prepares.
  • Nothing goes to a customer until someone on your team sends it.
  • It reads only the systems and records you allow.

Illustrative: with QuoteCloud's MCP service (Essentials and up) your AI assistant can be set up to do jobs like these. The steps describe what an implementation can do, not named QuoteCloud tools. Rates, shipment data and targets stay in your own systems; QuoteCloud doesn't track shipments, measure service levels, or book or invoice freight.

What changes on the pricing desk and the account team

The same documents, the same people deciding. The copy-and-calculate in between is what moves to the assistant.

The jobTodayWith an assistant set up through MCP
A rate request by email Someone reads it, opens the rate spreadsheet, works out the cubic weight and retypes every figure into a quote. A draft quote priced from your rate tables, showing the weight, rate and surcharge it used. The desk checks it and sends it.
The quarterly service review An account manager exports the quarter's shipments and builds charts and tables by hand, customer by customer. A draft report with your figures and lane bars filled in, so the account manager's time goes on the commentary and the options to tick.
Next year's rate schedules A renewal spreadsheet, last year's PDFs and a new schedule typed out for each contract customer. Draft schedules from your template, with this year's rates beside the new ones, for every schedule on the Expiring Soon list.
A discount the customer asks for Agreed on the phone and checked afterwards, if at all. Anything past your limit waits In Review for your approvers, whoever drafted it (approval workflow, Business).
Knowing what went out Searching sent emails and shared drives for the latest version. Every quote, report and schedule is a QuoteCloud document with its tracking, history and signatures.

Boundaries you set before it drafts anything

QuoteCloud's own advice is to give an assistant the minimum access a workflow needs. For a freight business that looks like this.

  • What it may read

    Only what you allow: your rate tables, the shipment export from your transport management system and the customer records the job needs, read only.

  • What it may do

    Find the customer and the template, add lines from your price list, write a draft section and create a draft document in QuoteCloud.

  • What it's set up not to do

    Send a document, approve its own discount, change a signed schedule or book freight. People on your team do those.

  • Who stays in charge

    Your pricing desk and account managers review every draft, change what they need and decide whether it goes.

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It can suggest a discount. It can't approve one.

Coldwater is a returning customer, so the draft carries a 6% discount. Wexmoor's rule says anything over 5% needs the pricing desk lead, so the quote waits In Review until Callan approves it, and only then can someone send it.

Approval rules trigger on a discount percentage or a total value. They apply to the document, so an assistant's draft goes through the same check as a quote typed by your newest starter.

  • Triggers: discount % or total value
  • In Review until every approver agrees
  • Then a person sends it

Approval workflow: Business plan · MCP service: Essentials and up

Pricing approvals & margins
Wexmoor Freight & LogisticsSpot quote · draft WF-Q-4836 Draft · fictional business
A semi-trailer truck on an open highway under heavy cloud, in black and white

Spot quote · draft

Chilled pallets, Lakeview to Port Ellery

Prepared for Coldwater Fresh Co. · Marcus Abara · Wed 4 Nov 2026 · Valid 48 hours

Four chilled pallets collected Thursday evening from Lakeview, delivered to Port Ellery by 6 am Friday.

Document workflow

In Review

Triggered when Discount percentage greater than 5%

  • Callan MercerPricing desk leadWaiting

Must be approved before it can be sent.

  1. Draft created by the AI assistant, 6% returning-customer discount suggested
  2. Approval requested

Approval workflow · Business plan

When an MCP setup isn't worth it yet

QuoteCloud's own article on when and why to implement an MCP AI service says to start from a workflow, not an AI strategy: a repeated job, with reliable data behind it, that people do by hand today. Spot quotes from email and quarterly service reports often fit. It may not be worth it yet if:

  • You only want help with writing. The AI Co-Worker in the QuoteCloud editor (Business) may be all you need.
  • You send a handful of quotes a week and each one is bespoke.
  • Your rates live in several spreadsheets that disagree. Bring them into one rate calculator first.
  • Your shipment data needs cleaning by hand before anyone can report on it.

Setting it up, one workflow at a time

A sensible order for a freight business. The timing is yours; QuoteCloud's team can help with the setup.

  1. Pick one job

    Spot quotes from email, or quarterly service reports: one workflow with clear inputs.

  2. Tidy what it reads

    One rate table, one shipment export, and your templates and price list in QuoteCloud.

  3. Set the boundaries

    Which systems and customers it may read, and that it creates drafts only.

  4. Connect it through MCP

    Your assistant connects to QuoteCloud through the MCP service, on Essentials and up.

  5. Test with real requests

    Compare each draft with what your desk would send, fix the template, then widen.

AI and MCP questions from freight teams

Which plan includes QuoteCloud's MCP service?

The MCP service is on Essentials and up. It lets an AI assistant work with QuoteCloud; what it can do depends on how it is set up, and documents it creates are drafts for your team to review and send.

Can the assistant send a quote to our customer by itself?

It shouldn't, and the setup we describe doesn't let it: the assistant creates drafts, approval rules still apply to them, and a person on your team sends each quote, report or rate schedule.

Does the assistant know our freight rates?

Only if you let it read them. In the setup we describe it reads your own rate tables, read only, and the draft shows the chargeable weight, rate and fuel surcharge it used so your desk can check them. QuoteCloud doesn't fetch carrier rates or fuel indexes.

Which AI assistant do we need?

One that supports MCP, the Model Context Protocol, a standard way for AI applications to connect to tools and data. Connecting through MCP keeps your QuoteCloud setup separate from the assistant, so you can change AI platforms later without rebuilding your templates.

Can it draft our quarterly service reports?

It can be set up to: it reads the quarter's shipment export from your transport management system, fills your service report template with the figures and drafts the commentary for your account manager to check. The figures are your own records; QuoteCloud doesn't track shipments.

How is MCP different from QuoteCloud's AI Co-Worker?

The AI Co-Worker, on the Business plan, helps your staff inside the QuoteCloud editor, and what it writes is flagged until someone accepts it. The MCP service, on Essentials and up, lets an AI assistant you already use work with QuoteCloud and the systems around it.

More questions from freight and 3PL teams

More for freight & 3PL teams

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