Dutch technology start-up Unafix has unveiled a new charter management tool after two years of software development.
The Eemshaven-based company is opening up to shipbrokers, owners, charterers and agents after a series of trials.
Unafix said the aim is to save them time by taking the drudgery out of handling charter documents and bills of lading.
“Maritime professionals often experience documentary tasks such as charterparty drafting as time-consuming and cumbersome”, Unafix founder and maritime legal counsel Jeroen Wolthuis said.
“To remedy this, we have delivered a tailored software solution that allows users to use their familiar charterparty and bill of lading forms in a user-friendly interface that automates as many tasks as possible.”
Sander de Jong, Unafix’s user-experience engineer, said a lot of effort had gone into creating an intuitive experience for users.
“One of our goals was to make the charterparty editing software so easy to use that anyone could use it immediately after signing up without any form of training being required,” he said.
Unafix views charterparties as relatively complex documents.
Johannes Elzinga, lead software developer, said: “To develop a document management solution that can efficiently handle these complex documents meant a large workload on the development team.”
The company has a licence to use standard forms developed by shipowners’ organisation Bimco.
Standardised forms
“Besides being proud of the development team for delivering an outstanding product, we are also very grateful to Bimco,” Wolthuis said.
He added that owners, brokers and charterers often rely on standardised forms such as Gencon 1994, Baltime 1939, as revised in 2001, and Congenbill 1994 in their day-to-day operations.
In 2020, Unafix started a procurement portal for shipping agents, lawyers and surveyors.
Its first transaction was with Holwerda Shipmanagement.
