Surestaria tracks free time on every container, calculates demurrage and detention against the carrier tariff that actually applies, and checks each D&D invoice before you pay it. Built for African trade lanes, where free time is short, tariffs change by port, and the terminal often has no signal.
Demurrage is rarely one big failure. It is a hundred small ones: a clock nobody was watching, a tariff nobody re-read, an invoice nobody recalculated.
Demurrage and detention accrue on separate clocks, from different trigger events. Surestaria starts both automatically from discharge and gate-out, per container, per carrier contract.
A warning the day the charge lands is an accounting entry. A warning 72 hours out is a decision. Thresholds are set per lane and per customer.
Progressive tiers, container type, reefer premiums, weekend rules. The grid that applied on the accrual date is the grid used for the calculation, not today's.
Every carrier D&D invoice is recomputed line by line. Discrepancies come with the underlying arithmetic, so a dispute is backed by evidence.
USD, EUR, CDF, AOA, XAF and XOF with dated exchange rates. An invoice issued yesterday keeps yesterday's rate.
Operators scan and time-stamp container moves on the quay with no network. Data syncs when coverage returns.
B/L, declarations, certificates of origin and supplier invoices sit on the container they belong to, which is where an auditor will look for them.
Demurrage absorbed versus demurrage rebilled, by customer and by lane. This is the number that tells you whether the process is working.
Multi-tenant architecture with PostgreSQL row-level security. Each office has its own workspace with per-user permissions.
Free time on an African lane is often shorter than the global standard, terminal dwell is longer, and the tariff grid differs by port. Generic D&D tools priced for Rotterdam do not model any of that.
Tema terminal workflows and GRA clearance steps. Charges billed in USD and cedi, with the transit corridor to Burkina Faso tracked end to end.
The lane where terminal congestion turns free time into a real cost. Demurrage and detention clocks tracked separately through extended dwell.
KPA and KRA steps, the Northern Corridor to Uganda and Rwanda, and the ICD Nairobi leg where detention usually accrues.
TPA workflows and the Central Corridor toward Zambia, the DRC copperbelt and Burundi. Interface available in Kiswahili for terminal teams.
Transnet terminal steps, rand billing, and the long inland haul to Gauteng where detention builds up quietly.
Port Autonome d'Abidjan procedures, XOF billing, and the northbound corridors to Mali and Burkina Faso.
DGDA, OCC and OGEFREM regimes, dual CDF and USD invoicing required by the central bank, and the Matadi to Kinshasa corridor.
AGT compatibility, kwanza and USD billing, and the Lobito corridor now carrying copper traffic out of the DRC and Zambia.
Douala and Kribi terminal steps, XAF billing, and transit tracking through to Chad and the Central African Republic.
How each part of the platform works, in detail.
Free time clocks, carrier tariff tiers, automatic calculation and invoice audit for MSC, Maersk, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd.
Every move time-stamped from discharge to empty return, which is what makes a D&D calculation defensible.
Terminal scanning with no network, so the clock data is captured at the moment the move happens.
Declarations, B/L, certificates and supplier invoices attached to the container they belong to.
Dated exchange rates and dual-currency billing where the local regulator requires it.
The full picture for an office clearing through Matadi, Boma and Kinshasa.
Surestaria is configured and deployed by our team, not sold as a self-service signup. Volume, users, ports of operation and integrations shape the quote.
Bring a month of real container data. We will show you what the D&D engine finds in it.
Or reach us directly on WhatsApp:
+244 924 252 612
📧 contact@surestaria.com
The ones that come up in the first call.
Demurrage accrues while the container is still inside the terminal beyond its free time. Detention, often billed as per diem, accrues after the container has left the terminal and before it is returned empty. Two clocks, two tariff grids, two different people who can act on them. Detention is usually the more punitive of the two, because an unreturned container blocks the carrier's rotation. Surestaria tracks both independently, which is the only way to know which one is actually costing you money.
Most transport management systems record that a container arrived and that a charge was received. They do not model free time by contract, they do not hold historical carrier tariff grids, and they do not recompute an invoice to tell you it is wrong. That is a specialised job, and it is the one this software does.
When a carrier D&D invoice arrives, Surestaria rebuilds the calculation from the container's own timeline: discharge date, gate-out, empty return, container type, and the tariff grid in force on each of those dates. If the result differs from the invoice, you get both figures and the arithmetic between them. That is what turns a dispute into a document rather than a phone call.
Yes, and this is not an edge case on African quays. The mobile scanner holds container lists and workflows locally. Operators scan and time-stamp moves offline, and the data syncs on its own once they are back in coverage. Since the timestamps drive the D&D clocks, capturing them at the moment of the move matters.
MSC, Maersk, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd cover most African calls, and their grids ship configured. Any other carrier can be added: a tariff is a set of tiers, a free time allowance and a container type matrix, all of which are editable per port and per contract.
Yes. USD, EUR, CDF, AOA, XAF and XOF are handled natively with dated exchange rates, so an invoice issued yesterday keeps yesterday's rate. Where a central bank requires dual-currency invoicing, as in DR Congo, both figures appear on the same document.
Yes. The architecture is multi-tenant with PostgreSQL row-level security, so isolation is enforced by the database on every query rather than by application code that could be bypassed. Hosting is on Supabase with TLS in transit and daily backups.
It depends on how clean your reference data is. Our team configures the organisation, imports clients, suppliers, customs codes and carrier tariff grids, sets up your workflows and trains both office and terminal staff. You are not left to configure a blank system on your own.
Bring real container data to the demo. We will run it through the engine on the call.
Request a demo