The typical starting point
Each tender is priced by hand. Building a full P&L for a bid takes days, the true margin per lane is unknown, and responses are either late or priced too low.
How I would build it
I would build a multi-modal cost model with one tab per mode (road, rail, sea, air) and a master lane table. Each lane gets a cost build-up: line haul, handling, documentation, insurance and last mile. Power Query ingests fuel and labour cost tables that change weekly. Scenario analysis shows margin per lane in every mode, a contract pricing calculator handles volume discounts and committed volumes, and a tender template produces a full P&L from the same inputs.
What it is designed to deliver
The commercial team can see margin before they bid, respond to tenders from one model instead of rebuilding a spreadsheet each time, and update costs in one place.
