“A client was charged for an extra workday, but he couldn’t verify it because the invoice was sent at the end of summer.”
Digital aquaculture platform Aquafacts has unveiled “Historical Track”, a feature designed to aid salmon companies in verifying invoices from vessel firms.
This tool enables users to track the historical movement of nearly 2000 vessels including well-boats and feed carriers operating in regions from Norway to Canada, according to co-founder Hanus Samró.
“We are tracking nearly 2000 well-boats, workboats, live fish carriers, harvest vessels, and feed carriers in Norway, Iceland, the UK, Chile, Canada, and the Faroe Islands via satellite AIS and terrestrial antennas. But we never thought that historical track would be relevant for the aquaculture industry,” Samró told SalmonBusiness.
Originally developed for the fisheries domain, the adaptation of the “Historical Track” to the aquaculture sector stemmed from a need for verification in invoicing processes, according to Samró.
The AquaFacts boss highlighted an instance where a client contested an invoice due to an alleged extra workday charge,
“I was surprised when a client asked for assistance with an invoice from a vessel company, said Samro. “They were charged for an extra workday, but he couldn’t verify it because the invoice was sent at the end of summer, while the work had taken place at the beginning of the summer.”
The feature gives access to historical automatic identification system (AIS) data for all registered vessels dating back to January 2022, and in certain cases, data is retrievable from as early as January 2021.
“If there’s a human error in the invoice, and the salmon company is unwilling to pay, both parties suffer. We want to make this process more transparent,” said Samró.
Vessel companies can use historical track for documentation purposes, while salmon companies can use the tool to verify the vessel’s arrival, departure, and hours spent at specific locations.
