A chartering firm where no two fixtures were alike and a person read every clause by hand
Built a clause-review assistant that reads a full fixture file, cross-checks the clauses, and returns a structured synthesis sheet in minutes, sitting on one platform that holds every client, vessel, and fixture file as a single source of truth across teams that used to work in separate tools.
No two fixtures are the same. One file is a single dry-cargo voyage, the next is a long-term time charter on a specialized vessel, the next is a layered sub-charter with three counterparties. Each one is governed by strict professional standards, and the firm is inspected by an external regulatory body. The principal signs every settlement personally and is accountable for every dollar that moves, so a wrong clause or a missing one is not a formatting issue, it is a liability.
For years the only safeguard was a senior person reading each file end to end: opening the charter party, cross-checking the clauses, confirming the right form was used, and catching the error that was sometimes a wrong clause and sometimes the absence of one. A heavy fixture could mean hundreds of pages and days of a skilled person's attention. Meanwhile the firm ran several disconnected systems, one for accounting, one for payments, one for the chartering work itself, with manual re-entry and double-entry between them, and a stack of documents that were digitized but still carried hand-signed pages and handwritten clauses.
We started with the foundation: one platform as the single source of truth. Every client, every vessel, and every fixture file in one place, a structured intake so the same data is entered once at the right spot, the parties on each file, role-based access, and a dashboard showing the status of every fixture at a glance. That alone removed the re-entry and double-entry between the systems that had never talked to each other.
On top of it sits the flagship: a clause-review assistant. You drop in the fixture file, even when it carries scanned and handwritten pages, and in minutes it returns a structured synthesis sheet, the clauses extracted and cross-checked, the form confirmed, and the gaps flagged where an expected clause is missing. The extraction is AI-driven with a deterministic fallback behind it, so it produces a usable sheet even when the documents are messy and never simply fails. It does not sign anything. It hands a senior person a reviewed file so their judgment goes to the hard calls, not to reading every page to find the one that is wrong.
The read-through that used to take a skilled person days on a heavy fixture now starts from a synthesis sheet produced in minutes, cutting roughly two days of expert attention off each large file. The same senior staff cover more fixtures without the firm adding headcount, and the work left for a person is the judgment the regulator and the principal are accountable for, validating clauses and catching the subtle call, not turning pages.
The firm also stopped reconciling the same fixture across three systems by hand. There is one source now, the status of every file is visible in one view, and a new hire finds their way around in days instead of weeks. The personal accountability the principal would never give up stayed exactly where it belongs, on a person, now spent where it matters.
“There is no such thing as a standard fixture here, and the principal signs every settlement personally. The slow part was never the deal. It was one experienced person reading every clause, because sometimes the error is the clause that should be there and isn't.”
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