For Port Agents & PDA Teams

Port Agency Software for Every Vessel Call

Run your whole agency from one dashboard. Every vessel, every principal, every charge, every document on the same port call record. Base is the port call management system your agents already use, built for the pace of real port operations. No spreadsheet ping-pong. No inbox chase. No end-of-month reconciliation marathon.

Agency Dashboard · Today
14 active port calls
ON SCHEDULE
Vessel · PortPrincipalStatusPDA
MV Atlantic · Santos N.A. Cargo ALONGSIDE $14.2K
MV Helios · Rotterdam Offshore Energy FDA APPR $8.9K
MV Nordic · Houston Bulk Charter PDA $11.4K
MV Meridian · Singapore Container Line NOM ·
Today
14
port calls
This Week
41
vessels served
WIP
$1.2M
in charges

What port agents give up when they run on spreadsheets and email.

Every port agent knows this shape of day. These are the six places the spreadsheet-and-email workflow quietly drops value. Base replaces each one.

Stop re-typing the same port call into four tools.

Spreadsheet for charges. Email for principals. Accounting for invoices. Reporting for finance. Four versions of the same truth, none of them in sync.

Stop losing documents in email threads.

Customs declarations, vendor receipts, SOF scans, NOR, pilot slips. Attached to the forwarded email, not to the vessel and port call they belong to.

Stop the end-of-week status chase.

Principal emails asking for an update. Ops emails the agent. Agent replies when the vessel is back alongside. Two days lost on a simple question.

Stop missing compliance deadlines.

License renewals, sanctions re-screens, insurance expirations. Tracked in one ops lead’s head and no one else can see the clock.

Stop the billing lag.

PDA sent last week. FDA generated last month. Invoice approved last Tuesday. Payment collected when someone remembers to follow up.

Stop flying blind on margins.

Job cost in accounting. Port call in a spreadsheet. Principal sees neither. Nobody knows what the port call earned until month-end close.

The Port Agent Day, Two Ways

Same Tuesday, same three vessels alongside, same five principals waiting for updates. Here is what the day looks like on spreadsheets versus on Base.

Today
With Base
Build a new spreadsheet for every port call, re-type 20 charge lines.
Port call record goes live in under a minute from a template.
Email PDAs as PDF attachments, wait for principals to reply with edits.
Principals approve line items inside the port call record.
Hunt for SOF timestamps in inbox attachments and WhatsApp messages.
SOF lives on the port call next to the charges it justifies.
Re-type approved charges into QuickBooks at month-end close.
Every approved charge syncs to accounting the moment it clears.
Explain to the principal why charge line 47 exists, six weeks after the port call.
Principal sees the same audit trail you do, in real time.
Reconcile bank statements against four open job spreadsheets.
Every payment matches to a port call automatically.

The port agency record that runs the whole job.

Every charge, every document, every vendor, every SOF timestamp, every principal approval attaches to the same port call record. When a reviewer asks a question three weeks later, the answer is on the record. When accounting asks what the job earned, the answer is on the record. When the principal logs in, they see exactly what you see. Built for how port call operations actually run.

Agency Job Record
PA-2418 · MV Atlantic · Santos
ALONGSIDE
Charges
23
Docs
14
Vendors
7
Approvals
11/23
Recent activity
Pilot dispatch logged · 14:02
Tug A invoice attached · 3 charges matched
Principal approved bunker charge · $4,800
Crew launch service · booked for 22:00

What to look for in port agent software.

Live dashboard across port calls

You should see every active vessel call in one place with status, charges, and principal approvals at a glance. If you are still toggling between vessels to see their state, the tool is not doing its job.

Real-time collaboration with principals

Principals should see what you see, scoped to their vessels and their charges. No forwarded PDFs, no email chains, no version confusion between what you sent and what they saw.

Auto-generated documents

PDAs, FDAs, invoices, statements of facts. Generated from the port call record, not re-typed. The document and the record should always agree because they are the same thing.

Integrated financial tracking

Charges, currency, tax rates, and accounting sync built in. No parallel bookkeeping. No “I will update the spreadsheet later.” If you can log a charge once and have it flow to invoicing and accounting, you are ahead of 90 percent of port agencies.

Configurable per client

Each principal may want different fields, different approval stages, different reports. The tool has to flex without a custom build. Base supports per-client custom fields and workflow rules out of the box.

Vendor and compliance management

Pilot, tug, launch, linesmen, customs broker records with license and compliance status attached. Sanctions screening on every charge. License expiration surfacing before it bites.

Principal View · Scoped
Offshore Energy Ops
GUEST
Principal approval queue
MV Helios · bunker chargeAPPROVED
MV Helios · agency feeAPPROVED
MV Helios · OT launchQUERY
MV Atlantic · pilotagePENDING
Access scope
Offshore Energy vessels only · their charges · their approvals
No seat license · no full tenant access

Every principal on the port call, scoped to their vessels.

A new principal joins your book of business. Instead of setting up a shared folder, a new inbox alias, or another reporting deck, you give them scoped guest access to Base. They see the vessels they are paying for. They see the charges you are logging. They see the PDAs waiting for their approval. They cannot see the rest of your agency book. They cannot edit your records. But they can approve a charge, query a line, or export a statement. No seat license. No training. See Base Connect for the full principal-agent collaboration pattern, and invoice approval workflow for the approval stage setup.

What port agencies running Base actually see.

Port calls closed faster

Agencies running Base typically close port calls in four days instead of the ten to twelve days a spreadsheet workflow requires. Cleaner close-outs, faster invoicing, faster payment.

Fewer billing errors

Charges attach to the port call when they happen. Nothing gets re-typed, nothing gets dropped. Month-end reconciliation stops surfacing charges that went sideways three weeks earlier.

Tighter principal relationships

Principal questions get answered from the record in real time. Disputes drop. Month-end explain-the-variance calls get shorter because the variance was already visible on the port call.

More port calls per agent

The same ops lead can run more vessels because the tool absorbs the coordination overhead. No tool-switching, no data re-entry, no waiting on three different people for three different answers.

Cleaner compliance posture

Sanctions, license, and insurance checks run against every vendor charge automatically. Issues surface before they reach the audit, not during it.

Actual margin visibility

What did this port call earn? Finance can answer in seconds because the cost and the revenue lived on the same record from the start. No waiting for month-end.

$1B+

in port call charges tracked

19,940+

records synced to accounting

15

currencies captured per port call

62,595

PDAs and FDAs generated

What port agencies ask before switching.

"We run 200 port calls a month on spreadsheets. Will a new system actually scale?"

Base is built for agencies running dozens to hundreds of port calls a month. Templates absorb the repetitive setup work. Bulk operations handle the busy days. The tool gets faster as you run more vessels, not slower, because the patterns compound.

"Our agents are used to the spreadsheet. They will not adopt another tool."

Agents adopt Base within a week because the port call template is faster than copying last week’s spreadsheet. The tool has to be faster than the workaround it replaces. On most teams, the longest-tenured agent is the first one to stop opening the spreadsheet.

"Will our principals actually log in to approve charges?"

Base gives principals scoped guest access with no seat license. Most principal reviewers are approving line items within ten minutes of their first login. No training, no onboarding. They log in when there is an approval waiting, not every day.

"How does this connect to our accounting system?"

Approved charges sync to QuickBooks or Xero the moment the principal signs off. Your accountant never logs in to Base. Your agents never touch the accounting system. The two systems stay in sync without double entry.

SEE A PORT CALL IN ACTION

Run a real port call in your demo.

Bring a real vessel call. One you are prepping for next week, one you just closed, or one that went sideways and you want to replay. We will set up the port call record, walk you through the PDA to FDA workflow, and show you what the principal sees, live, in your own tenant. No prep required.

See how Base runs your port agency workflow

Stop running your port agency from spreadsheets.

Move the nomination, the PDA, the charges, the documents, and the FDA into one port call record your whole team reads from. See how Base runs the workflow from vessel nomination to final invoice.

Frequently Asked Questions

Port agency software is the system a ship agent or port agency uses to manage every vessel call from nomination to final disbursement. It captures the vessel, port, berth window, charges, documents, vendor invoices, statement of facts, and principal approvals in one port call record. Good port agency software replaces the spreadsheet and email workflow with a shared record every stakeholder reads from, including the principal or charterer who is paying.
In practice they are the same category. “Port agent” is the person who runs the port call on behalf of the vessel. “Port agency” is the business that employs port agents. The software supports both: individual agents running their day and agency managers overseeing the full book of active vessel calls. Base fits both roles with the same port call record as the core unit of work.
Six things: a live dashboard across every active port call, real-time collaboration with principals, auto-generated PDAs and FDAs, integrated accounting sync, configurable per-client fields and workflows, and vendor plus compliance management with sanctions and license tracking. Anything less than this leaves gaps that spreadsheets will fill back in.
Yes. Each principal can have its own custom fields, approval stages, reporting format, and scoped visibility. Principals only see the vessels and charges that belong to them. Your agency data stays separate per principal. This is the difference between port agency software and a generic job-tracking tool.
Yes. When a charge is approved, it syncs to your accounting system with the vendor, rate, currency, tax, and port call reference intact. The sync triggers on approval, so nothing reaches accounting until the principal has signed off. See QuickBooks integration and Xero integration.
Base runs sanctions screening on every vendor and every charge. License expirations surface on the port call record before they bite. See sanctions screening and vendor compliance software for the full check flow.
Most port agencies run their first real port call in Base within a week. You import your vessel and vendor list, pick the templates you use for the most common call types, connect accounting, and invite principals to guest access. Full roll-out to the whole agency usually finishes in two to four weeks.
Yes. See port call software for the port call workflow view, and ship agency software for the ship agent workflow view. They are the same platform framed for different seats in the agency.
Port operations are managed at two layers. The physical layer handles vessel movements, cargo operations, crew changes, and port authority coordination. The commercial layer handles the PDA, the vendor invoices, the charges, the FDA, and the principal approvals. A port agency runs the commercial layer on behalf of the vessel, which is the layer Base is built for. The physical layer coordinates through the port authority, the vessel master, and the agent on scene.
A port agent handles everything a vessel needs while calling at a port on behalf of the owner or charterer. That includes arranging pilotage and tug services, coordinating with port authorities and customs, organizing crew movements and husbandry, generating the PDA so the principal can pre-fund the call, logging every charge as it happens, reconciling the FDA at the end, and collecting payment from the principal. The job is coordination-heavy and document-heavy, which is why port agency software exists.

Ready to get started?

See how Base works for your operation.