For a port agent, the disbursement account is the product. The principal doesn't see the phone calls to the terminal or the 6 a.m. boarding — they see the PDA you sent before the call and the FDA you sent after it. If those two documents are fast, accurate, and consistent with each other, you look like a professional operation. If they aren't, you look like a risk.
The PDA: your first impression
The proforma disbursement account is the cost estimate you issue before the port call — port dues, pilotage, towage, agency fee, and every other line the principal should expect to pay. Two things decide whether your PDA wins the appointment:
- Speed. Operators often send the same inquiry to several agents. The first credible PDA usually gets the nomination.
- Credibility. An estimate built on current tariffs, with the vessel's actual GT/NT and the terminal's actual charges, beats a copy-paste from last year's call.
Agents who keep port tariffs in a system — rather than in scattered PDFs — can produce a tariff-accurate PDA in minutes instead of hours.
The FDA: where trust is won or lost
The final disbursement account reconciles the estimate against reality: actual invoices from the port, pilots, tugs, launch services, and any owner's-account extras that came up during the call. Principals judge the FDA on three questions:
- Does every line have a supporting voucher?
- How far did it drift from the PDA, and is the drift explained?
- How quickly after sailing did it arrive?
A clean FDA with vouchers attached, sent days (not weeks) after departure, is the single strongest argument for your next nomination.
Common failure modes
Most disbursement disputes are self-inflicted:
- PDA built from outdated tariffs, so the FDA lands 20% higher
- Expenses recorded in a spreadsheet and vouchers in an inbox, so reconciliation is archaeology
- Advance payments from the principal not tracked against the account
- Multi-currency charges converted at whatever rate was handy that day
Each of these erodes the principal's confidence — and slows down your own cash collection.
Running port calls on one system
MazuApp's ship agency module ties the whole cycle together: port tariffs feed the PDA, the PDA converts into a live disbursement account during the call, expenses and vouchers attach to their lines as they happen, and the FDA is generated from what was actually recorded — in the account's currency, with the differences against the proforma made explicit.
The result is the thing every principal is really buying from an agent: no surprises.