DTDC Franchise Profit per Consignment: How to Calculate It

Every CN has two prices

A DTDC franchise sits between two bills. DTDC bills you for each booking. You bill your client for the same booking, at your own rates. The two are calculated in completely different ways, which is why the margin is not obvious from either bill alone.

The margin you actually keep is the gap between the two. Everything that follows is about measuring that gap per consignment instead of guessing it from monthly totals.

How DTDC's cost for one CN is built

DTDC's charge for a booking starts with DSR_AMT, the service amount in your booking export. Then:

1. Fuel: 35% of DSR_AMT. It is charged on the service amount only.
2. COD fee (COD shipments only): 1.5% of the COD amount, the cash collected from the consignee. It is not charged on the declared goods value.
3. GST: 18% on the total of the three.

DTDC before GST = DSR_AMT + 35% × DSR_AMT + 1.5% × COD amount DTDC cost = DTDC before GST × 1.18

How your client price is built

Your side comes from the rate card you agreed with the client. The destination decides the lane (Local, Within State, Metro and so on), the chargeable weight decides the slab, and the slab gives the freight. Your fuel surcharge percentage for that card and lane is added on the freight, and on a COD shipment your COD charge is added too. GST is not part of the line: it is added once on the whole invoice.

Client price (before GST) = freight + fuel surcharge + COD charge

Worked example: a prepaid parcel

Worked example: a COD parcel

COD changes the picture because both sides add a charge on the collected amount, at different rates.

Notice the COD lines. DTDC takes 1.5% of the collected amount, plus GST on it. If you charge the client less than that, you lose money on the COD part of every such parcel, however good your freight rate is. The COD charges guide has a break-even table.

Where franchise margin usually leaks

• Wrong lane. A town that DTDC treats as Within State but your rate card bills as Local undercharges every parcel to it. See DTDC zones explained.
• Actual weight instead of chargeable weight. A light, bulky parcel is charged by its volume. Courier Billing uses the highest of actual weight, volumetric weight and the export's chargeable weight.
• COD below DTDC's fee. A client on 1% COD with no minimum costs you money on every COD parcel.
• Missing DTDC amounts. A CN with DSR_AMT empty looks like pure profit until you fill it in.
• CNs never billed. A booking that was never assigned to a client is DTDC cost with no revenue. Filter Booking Data by unassigned before you invoice.
• Unpriced CNs. A card or lane with no rate shows “No price”. The app never borrows a rate from another lane, so add the missing row.

Seeing profit per CN in Courier Billing

When you assign consignments to a client, the assignment table shows each CN's client price beside a DTDC (+GST) column computed with the formula above. Rows without a DTDC amount show an “Add DTDC amount” chip. After you invoice, Analytics reports revenue, DTDC cost, profit and margin per client and per month from the same per-line amounts, so the dashboard and the invoice never disagree.

To start, upload your DTDC booking export, set the client's rate card, and open Create Invoice. The live demo has sample data with all of this filled in.