Dangerous Goods Compliance Software for Freight Forwarders

A freight forwarder's biggest dangerous goods risk arrives at the acceptance counter: a consignment you did not pack, declared by someone else, that you are about to put your name on by accepting it. If it is misclassified, mislabeled or misdeclared and you accept it, the liability follows the shipment down the chain. A dangerous goods compliance check for freight forwarders is, at its core, a fast way to catch those problems before acceptance — and that is exactly what DG Inspector is built to do.

One note on honesty: DG Inspector is a young product, and it is the same product across every use case — there are no forwarder-only features hidden behind this page. What changes for a forwarder is the framing: you are verifying other people's shipments at high volume, against multiple regulations, under time pressure at the counter.

The acceptance counter is where errors get expensive

Manual DG acceptance means a trained specialist takes the package and the shipper's paperwork, opens the relevant regulation, and works through a checklist before signing. That is the right process, but it has two failure modes a busy forwarder knows well: it is slow when volume spikes, and it gets variable when the specialist is rushed or the entry is unusual. The misdeclared lithium battery shipment and the mislabeled class diamond are the classic ones — see the hazmat mistakes that draw $25,000+ fines for the patterns auditors find most.

Verify a consignment from a photo

With DG Inspector, the acceptance check starts with a photo. The model proposes the UN number, proper shipping name, hazard class and packing group, then checks that classification against the regulation for the mode the shipment is travelling on. You confirm the result — it is a co-pilot, not an autopilot — and you have a structured, time-stamped record of the decision. The lookup work that used to be the bulk of the acceptance time collapses into seconds.

Multi-regulation, because forwarders are multimodal

Forwarders rarely live in a single rulebook. The same office accepts shipments moving by air, sea and road, and each leg has its own requirements. DG Inspector checks against all four major frameworks:

• IATA DGR for air freight — the strictest mode, tightest quantity limits.
• IMDG Code for ocean and containerised freight.
• 49 CFR for US domestic road and rail.
• ADR for European road transport.

If you need to decide which set of rules governs a given leg, our comparison of IATA vs IMDG vs 49 CFR vs ADR lays out where they diverge.

Catch misdeclared and mislabeled consignments early

Because the check is fast and consistent, you can run it on more of what comes in rather than spot-checking. A misdeclared UN number, a packing group that does not match the entry, a missing subsidiary risk label — these are precisely the things a photo-based classification check is good at surfacing. Catching them at the counter keeps a bad consignment out of your operation instead of discovering it in transit or in a PHMSA / operator audit. The structural background, if your team needs a refresher, is in the complete guide to UN numbers and hazard classes.

Speed up acceptance without dropping rigour

The goal is not to remove the human from acceptance — it is to remove the lookup grind so the specialist spends their time on judgement calls and final sign-off. Higher throughput at the counter, a consistent record on every decision, and the regulation citation attached to each result for when the audit comes. For the team's own preparation, the step-by-step hazmat shipping guide covers the full process a compliant shipment should have followed before it reached you.

What it does and does not do

To set expectations honestly: DG Inspector classifies a package from a photo (UN number, hazard class, packing group), checks it against IATA DGR, IMDG, 49 CFR and ADR, flags problems, and generates the inspection result, shipping paper, DG declaration and transport document. It does not book carriers, manage your TMS, or sell packaging, and it does not replace a trained DG specialist's sign-off. It is the verification layer at the point where a forwarder most needs one — the acceptance counter.