How to extract lane rates from a PDF rate confirmation?
To extract lane rates from a PDF rate confirmation, upload the PDF to a rate sheet parser that reads the document and maps the origin, destination, equipment, and rate into structured fields — a manual read-and-retype approach costs 1–2 hours of labor per document.
What a rate confirmation contains
A rate confirmation (rate con) typically lists the agreed lane (origin/destination), equipment type, the confirmed rate, and sometimes accessorial charges or a validity date for a specific load or lane agreement. The layout varies by carrier — some are dense single-page PDFs, others are multi-page documents with fine print.
Extraction approach
- Parse the PDF text (or OCR for scanned documents) to locate the lane, equipment, and rate fields.
- Normalize origin/destination into a consistent lane key so the rate can be compared against other carriers’ confirmations for the same lane.
- Validate the extracted rate against expected formats (numeric, currency) before storing it — malformed extractions should be flagged rather than silently stored as partial data.
RateParse’s extraction path
RateParse parses PDF rate sheets and confirmations through a server-side extraction step, validates the output against a fixed schema (origin, destination, equipment, rate, rate basis, validity window, accessorials, fuel surcharge), and on a validation failure retries once before flagging the row for manual review instead of storing a bad extraction.
Frequently asked questions
What happens if the PDF extraction fails validation?
A well-built parser retries extraction once; if it still fails schema validation, the sheet is marked as failed with a per-row error summary instead of silently storing incorrect or partial rate data.
Can extracted rate confirmations be compared across carriers?
Yes, once normalized into a common lane key (origin, destination, equipment), rates from different carriers’ confirmations for the same lane can be compared side by side and ranked cheapest-first.