An off-dock terminal earns its money in the hours between the bonded container leaving the quay and the consignee's truck leaving your gate. STOS is the off dock terminal management system that records every one of those hours, reports each movement to customs and the line as it happens, and turns the same data into the invoice.
Containers are discharged at the seaport and moved out under customs bond so the berth stays clear. Everything slow then happens at your facility: de-stuffing LCL consignments, customs examination, storage, delivery and the empty return. That is a different business from running a berth, and it needs software built around it.
They want the box back, empty, quickly, and they want the movement in their own system without a phone call. Every gate event you record in STOS becomes a CODECO message telling the line the container was gated in or out, and the empty gate-out and empty container gate pass close the loop on the box itself.
They want delivery on the day the Goods Declaration clears, and an invoice that matches the tariff they were quoted. STOS keys import work by IGM and index, so a clearing agent chasing one Bill of Lading is looking at the same record your tally clerk and your billing clerk are looking at.
Bonded cargo means every movement is reportable at the moment it happens: gate-in, the yard position after grounding, the per-index detail from de-stuffing, examination outcomes and the final gate-out. In STOS those reports are EDI messages generated by the operational step, not a separate end-of-day data entry job.
This is the flow that defines an off-dock terminal: LCL cargo arriving in a bonded box, coming out piecemeal, and leaving on a dozen different trucks. STOS runs it as one continuous record rather than ten disconnected registers.
The vessel arrival is recorded from customs and the containers and indexes are created against the IGM, carrying Bill of Lading, packages, weight, seal and line. Handling codes, for example examination, are attached at this point rather than discovered later.
The bonded container arrives from the seaport terminal and is registered at your gate. Automated vehicle and container identification using OCR and RFID scanning removes the manual read, and the gate-in is reported straight to customs.
The container is placed in a yard slot and the position is recorded, then reported to customs. Grounding status across the yard is visible to the operations supervisor, so nobody hunts for a box that a driver moved an hour ago.
The tally clerk strips the container and the tally sheet plus the per-index detail is reported to customs. This is where LCL terminals lose arguments months later, so the count lives in the system with the index it belongs to.
The emptied container is returned to the line under its own gate pass, and the movement goes out as a CODECO message. Your yard gets the space back and the line gets its box.
Weights and CBM are captured at the weighbridge. STOS separates CFS weighment, CY weighment and container weighment, because the operator standing at the bridge is doing three different jobs depending on what rolled on to it.
Examination charges and handling codes attach to the index, and the release is recorded against it. Cargo that is never cleared eventually becomes auction cargo, and the ageing that leads there is visible long before it gets that far.
The Delivery Order arrives from the shipping line and the invoice is raised: storage, handling, port charges, seal, special handling and sales tax, against the tariff configured for that customer. Payment is received and settled by the cashier.
The gate pass is printed, the indexed cargo is gated out and the gate-out is reported to customs. The consignment is closed with a complete, time-stamped history from vessel to truck.
Very few off-dock terminals in Karachi handle one cargo type. STOS manages containerised and non-containerised cargo side by side in the same system, so the gate, the yard and the billing stay consistent whichever flow a box is on.
The container is de-stuffed and the cargo inside becomes the unit that is tracked, stored, weighed and delivered.
The same journey without de-stuffing. The whole box is grounded, released, invoiced and gated out as a single unit.
Cargo passing through, not for local delivery. Stuffing confirmation, pre gate-out and TP containers out, moving on under bond.
Break bulk is not an exception either. Non-containerised cargo runs the same receiving, grounding and delivery lifecycle, so it appears in the same dashboards and the same reports.
WeBOC is Pakistan Customs' national Web Based One Customs platform, and PSW is the Pakistan Single Window. For a bonded off-dock facility, being able to report a movement the moment it happens is not a nice-to-have, it is the licence to operate.
STOS generates EDI messages from the operational step itself. Gate-in, grounding, de-stuffing detail, service completion and gate-out all raise their message as the clerk completes the screen, which is why the documentation officer's job in STOS is monitoring rather than re-keying.
When something does fail, it fails visibly. Each partner has an integration status panel, failed messages are queued for retry, and the message log lets an officer check before resending so the terminal does not push a duplicate into a customs system.
An off-dock terminal bills for time and for handling. Both are only as accurate as the movement record underneath them, which is why billing in STOS is built from operational events rather than from a clerk's notebook.
Storage charged from the recorded gate-in, against a storage tariff and a customer tariff that finance controls, not the gate.
Handling, port charges, seal and special handling all capture as billable operations at the point the work is done.
Discounts and charges billed to the shipping line instead of the consignee are explicit, permissioned actions with a name attached.
Cheque receipt, amounts received, refunds, credit allowed and settlement close the loop into receivables and the ledgers.
The tariff administrator owns tariff heads, tariff charges, agent tariff, storage tariff, sales tax, exchange rate and port charges. The billing clerk raises, prints or cancels invoices and applies examination charges. The cashier settles. Management sees ageing, daily sales and collection reports without asking any of them for a spreadsheet.
Because roles and permissions are granular and unlimited, the separation is real: a gate clerk in Port Qasim never touches a tariff, and a customer with restricted external access sees only their own tariff information.
Modules can be enabled incrementally, and the order matters. Gate and cargo first, because everything downstream is built on accurate movement records.
Company and customer records, then the customer tariff, then roles, permissions and users. Confirm tariffs before go-live rather than after the first disputed invoice.
Connect cameras, RFID readers, barriers and driver displays, and start recording gate-in and gate-out. These are the events customs and the lines are waiting on.
Define yard areas by cargo type, switch on grounding and grounding status, then de-stuffing, tally and weighment. Now the operational record is complete.
Raise invoices from the movements already recorded, move the cashier on to the system, then turn on dashboards and scheduled reports once the data is trusted.
Each role sees only the screens its job requires, which keeps training short and audit trails honest.
Off dock terminal software is a terminal operating system for a bonded facility outside the seaport perimeter that receives containers moved out of the quay under customs bond. It has to run gate-in against the IGM and index, grounding, CFS de-stuffing with a tally sheet, weighment, receipts, invoicing and gate-out, and report each of those movements to customs and to the shipping line. STOS by Ciphertronix covers that whole sequence in one platform.
Start with the data the rest of the terminal depends on. Load company and customer records, confirm the tariff per customer, then set roles, permissions and users. Bring the gate live next, because gate-in and gate-out are the events customs and the shipping lines are waiting for. Add yard grounding and the CFS de-stuffing and weighment steps, then switch billing over so invoices are raised from the movements the system already recorded. Analytics comes last, once the operational data is trustworthy. STOS modules can be enabled incrementally in that order.
Yes. STOS handles a mixed operation rather than a single cargo type. CFS containers are de-stuffed and the cargo inside becomes the tracked unit, passing through de-stuffing, grounded index and weighment. CY containers stay whole and are grounded, released, invoiced and gated out as a single box. Transhipment cargo runs its own flow of stuffing confirmation, pre gate-out and TP containers out. Break bulk moves through the same receiving, grounding and delivery lifecycle.
STOS exchanges EDI messages with Pakistan Customs, PCS PSW, Maersk, Hapag Lloyd, CODECO and weighbridge systems. WeBOC is Pakistan Customs' national Web Based One Customs clearance platform, and CODECO is the standard message that tells a shipping line a container was gated in or out. Failed messages are queued for retry and each partner has an integration status panel, so the documentation officer can see what has and has not been reported.
By raising the invoice from the movements the system already recorded rather than from a clerk's notes. In STOS the import invoice is built from storage, handling, port charges, seal, special handling and sales tax, against a tariff configured per customer. Waivers, bill-to-line and customer credit are explicit, permissioned actions, and the cashier side covers cheque receipt, amounts received, refunds, credit allowed and settlement, so every discount has a name against it.
Yes. STOS offers deployment flexibility with both cloud-based and on-premises options, device-agnostic access and unlimited users and roles, so gate clerks, tally clerks, weighbridge operators, billing staff and management can all be on the system without a per-seat calculation. Workflows can be customised where a terminal has a niche requirement.
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