TL;DR — Key Takeaways
In Digitoll, a transport represents the journey itself — the truck, its route, driver, and arrival time. A master consignment (MC) groups shipments under one contract of carriage (like a Master Waybill or CMR) and sits inside the transport. A house consignment (HC) is the most granular level — the specific individual shipment going to the final consignee. An HC can sit under an MC, or directly under the transport (a direct consignment). Both levels must be filed correctly for border clearance.
The Transport, Master, and House Hierarchy
The simplest way to understand the Digitoll data structure is a three-level hierarchy.
The transport is the truck itself — it represents the journey from origin to the Norwegian border. It carries information about the vehicle, driver, route, and estimated arrival time. Think of the transport as the physical truck rolling towards the crossing point.
A master consignment (MC) is a grouping of shipments inside that truck, tied together by a single main contract of carriage (such as a Master Waybill or a CMR). One transport can carry one or more master consignments — like boxes packed inside the truck.
A house consignment (HC) is the most granular level — it represents a specific, individual shipment going to a specific receiver (consignee). Each HC has its own sender, receiver, goods description, and weight. House consignments are typically placed under a master consignment.
A house consignment can be placed under a master consignment, or directly under the transport (known as a direct consignment). Direct consignments are common when a single shipper fills an entire truck and there is no grouping needed.
Who Is Responsible for What?
In most cross-border operations, the responsibilities split like this:
• The carrier (transportør) is responsible for the transport-level data (vehicle, route, driver, arrival time) and typically also for the master consignment data (contract of carriage reference, total piece count).
• The freight forwarder (speditør) or shipper is responsible for providing house consignment data: goods descriptions, weights, sender/receiver details, and customs references.
In practice, this means the carrier needs a way to receive house consignment data from their partners and attach it under the correct master consignment as part of the overall Digitoll submission. This is where collaboration tools become critical.
How Digitoll Structures the Data
Digitoll expects a hierarchical data structure:
1. Transport: The journey itself — vehicle details, border crossing point, estimated arrival time.
2. Master Consignment: Grouped under the transport — carrier details, total piece count, overall contract of carriage reference.
3. House Consignment: Grouped under a master consignment — individual shipment details including consignor (sender), consignee (receiver), goods items, and weight.
Each level has required fields that must be accurate and complete. Missing or incorrect data at any level will cause the submission to fail validation.
Odin Customs pre-validates all data at every level before submission, catching errors early so you don't discover them at the border.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
The most frequent errors we see in consignment data:
• Mixing up master and house levels — filing individual shipment data at the master level or vice versa.
• Missing consignee details — the receiver's name, address, and identification number are required at the house level.
• Incorrect weight aggregation — the master consignment's total weight should equal the sum of all house consignments underneath it.
• No goods description — generic entries like 'goods' or 'cargo' will fail validation. Each house consignment needs a meaningful description.
Structure Your Consignments Correctly
Odin Customs handles the master/house hierarchy for you with built-in validation and partner collaboration.
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