You already know the problem. You live it every day.
The Bill of Lading is sitting in a FedEx envelope somewhere between Hamburg and Mumbai. The cargo has arrived. The vessel is waiting. And your phone is ringing.
See how this gets fixedSound familiar?
The things that go wrong
on every single shipment.
These are not rare problems. They happen on routine shipments, processed by experienced teams, every week of the year.
The documents don't match.
The name on the Bill of Lading says "ACME Trading Ltd." The Letter of Credit says "Acme Trading Limited." The bank rejects the presentation. You call the shipper. The shipper calls the carrier. Three days pass. The cargo sits. Demurrage starts.
Someone has to type it all in, again.
The shipper enters the shipment details into their system. Then someone types the same details into the BL. Then into the invoice. Then into the customs declaration. Four people typing the same address four times. One typo stops everything.
The original is still in the air.
You need three original signed Bills of Lading. They are physical originals. They travel by courier. The cargo arrives in three days. The documents take seven. The container sits at the port accruing demurrage charges every single day until the originals show up.
Then and Now
The same shipment.
A completely different experience.
Nothing about the cargo changes. The vessel, the port, the goods, all the same. What changes is what happens to the documents.
Today, how it works
Manual, sequential, slow
Details entered manually into the shipping system. Same information typed again into the BL draft.
Draft emailed back and forth. Corrections made. Mismatches between BL, invoice, and LC noticed, more corrections.
Three physical copies printed, signed by the carrier, couriered to the shipper. $150 overnight express.
The cargo arrived yesterday. The documents are still flying. Demurrage clock started at Day 5.
Bank finds a discrepancy. Name on BL doesn't match LC exactly. Documents sent back. Starts again.
After corrections, re-submission, and approval. 6 days of demurrage at $250/day = $1,500 lost.
With DocuShield
Digital, automatic, instant
The shipping team fills in the document form in DocuShield. Fields like vessel, port, and shipper are pre-filled from the previous shipment. No retyping.
The document is locked and sent digitally to the buyer, bank, and carrier simultaneously, in four minutes. No printer. No courier. No email chain.
The bank opens the document link and verifies it in 5 seconds. The name, the amounts, the terms, all match perfectly because it was filled once, not four times.
Bank approves the presentation. Funds move. The shipper gets paid the same day the cargo ships, not 11 days later.
The consignee already has the digital document. They present it at the port. The carrier sees the confirmed transfer. Cargo released immediately.
No courier cost. No bank discrepancy. No retyping. No delay. The same shipment, handled in hours instead of days.
Illustrative best case. Bank review times vary.
11 days → same day.
That is the difference. Not in theory. On every shipment, every month, every year.
The real cost
“Time lost is money.”
Here's the number.
Demurrage is the daily charge a shipping line levies when a container is not collected on time. It is one of the most avoidable costs in logistics, and one of the most common.
Most document delays are not caused by bad teams. They are caused by documents traveling slower than cargo. When the document arrives late, the container waits, and the clock runs.
Use the calculator to put a real number on what the current process is costing you. Then ask whether that cost is worth keeping.
Your numbers
What is the delay putting at risk?
Drag the sliders to match your operation. These are real costs, demurrage, storage, and idle vessel time, that shrink when documents move instantly instead of by courier.
Industry average is about $150 to $500 per container per day.
Monthly demurrage exposure
$5,400
Annual demurrage exposure
$64,800
Directional estimate of demurrage exposure, the share that document delay puts at risk. Moving documents instantly reduces the document-delay portion; it does not remove demurrage caused by congestion, customs, or financing. Excludes courier costs, staff hours, and late-presentation fines.
The problem, by the numbers
Why the delay costs you.
5 to 10 days
Traditional BL transit time
McKinsey
Up to 50
Documents per shipment, across ~30 parties
TFG / DCSA
60 to 80%
LC documents rejected on first presentation
ICC Banking Commission
~89%
Of bills of lading are not yet digital
DCSA, mid-2025
How DocuShield works
Three steps.
No jargon.
You do not need to know anything about blockchain or digital technology. If you can fill in a form and click send, you can use DocuShield.
You fill in the form.
Same information you already enter today, shipper, consignee, goods description, port details, vessel name. The difference is you type it once. DocuShield uses that one entry to create every document automatically. No copy-pasting. No retyping for the bank, for customs, for the carrier.
We lock it and send it.
When you click issue, DocuShield creates a document that cannot be changed by anyone, not by you, not by the buyer, not by the bank. It is like a sealed envelope that anyone can see inside, but no one can tamper with. The buyer, the bank, and the carrier all get it at the same moment.
Anyone can check it, instantly.
The bank does not need a DocuShield account. They open a link, and in five seconds they can confirm the document is real, unmodified, and issued by you. No phone calls to verify authenticity. No waiting for originals. No discrepancies because the information was entered once.
That is it.
The cargo gets released. The bank gets paid. Your client does not call angry. You go home on time.
Who uses DocuShield
Built for the people who actually handle the documents.
Not for the IT department. For the operations manager, the documentation coordinator, and the logistics director who are on the phone with the port at 6pm on a Friday.
The problem today
You spend half your day chasing document status across email chains and WhatsApp groups. You know exactly which shipments are going to be a problem before they happen, but you can do nothing about the delay.
With DocuShield
Every document is tracked in one place. You see the status of every BL, every certificate, every invoice in real time. No chasing. No guessing.
The problem today
You are the one who types the same consignee name into five different documents and then gets blamed when one of them has a typo. You did not make the mistake. The process did.
With DocuShield
Fill the information once. DocuShield creates every document from that single entry. If the consignee name changes, you change it in one place. Everything else updates automatically.
The problem today
Your clients judge you on delivery performance. But the delays they complain about are not caused by vessels or ports, they are caused by slow documents. You are losing clients to a problem that is entirely solvable.
With DocuShield
Offer your clients same-day digital document delivery as a differentiator. Track demurrage eliminated per client per month. Show the numbers at the next board meeting.
Curious enough to see it live?
We will show you a real shipment processed in under 10 minutes, your document types, your fields, your workflow. No slides. No theory. Just the thing working.
For those who want to know, the technology behind it
TradeTrust
Singapore Government open standard
MLETR
UNCITRAL, UN standard, adopted in UK, Singapore, France, ADGM + more
XDC Network
Trade finance blockchain
UCC Article 7
US documents-of-title basis, with E-SIGN and UETA
eUCP v2.0
ICC documentary credit standard
Document Coverage
Start with eBL. More on request.
The electronic Bill of Lading is our core product. All other KTDDE document types, certificates, invoices, permits, and financial instruments, are available on request for teams that need them.
Need custom document types?
Use our API to define custom schemas and issue any structured document on the blockchain.