The Route Files are used primarily to provide fleet (truck) and customer delivery information to DirectRoute. While directions for creating these files are covered in the following section (Creating Route Files), below is a brief description of each of the files used. 

• Account Master File: The Account Master File, sometimes referred to as the Customer File, is an Excel spreadsheet, a .xls file, with all of the standard information about each of your customers, and their locations. This is not an order file, but more of a contact list, with static information that does not change with each order received by the customer (i.e. point of contact, address, account number, etc.). Each location you deliver to for each customer will have a record entry in the spreadsheet, containing all permanent information about the customer location; address, Lat/Long coordinates, time windows, time at the stops, and any other pertinent info necessary for delivery to each location. The data for this file is usually exported from an Order Management/Host system (OMS) or ERP/WMS and copied into or formatted as a .xls spreadsheet. Each location will have a record entry in the spreadsheet, containing all permanent information about the customer location; address, Lat/Long coordinates, time windows, time at the stops, and any other pertinent info necessary for delivery to each location. 
• Stop File (Daily Order File): The Daily Order File, also referred to as the Stop File, is used in the extract process, along with the Customer Master File, to correctly set up orders to Route. It too is normally extracted from an Order Management/Host system (OMS) and copied into or formatted as a .xls spreadsheet. It may come out of the OMS as a tab-delimited text file, with a .xls extension, or a comma-delimited file with a .csv file extension. It is not as detailed as the Customer Master File and will only contain the current order info (order quantities, loading instructions, etc.) for each customer that will be used to create routes for the day. 
• Truck File: The Truck File is a spreadsheet that will contain all the information about each truck in your fleet, and the drivers to whom routes will be assigned. In the Truck File, every row represents one Truck/Driver combination to which stops can be assigned/loaded. The key fields in the Truck File are truck availability, driver availability, vehicle start time and end times, truck capacity, variable cost factors, and work rules for both the trucks and drivers.
• Distance File: The Distance File contains a record of distance and drive times between the pickup point and every city in the Stop File, and/or pick up every Stop, including from, to, and in between. When a Distance File is used in the routing process, DirectRoute will calculate the distances and times between each stop location based on the entries in this file. If a Distance File is not used, DirectRoute will calculate distance and drive times using an adjusted straight-line distance between locations.