Abstract: Shipping costs may be prorated in advance of accepting the reservation for transporting cargo, such as by determining whether the cargo is profitable for the LMS client, The proration may he performed according to a special prorate agreement (SPA). A method for calculating the prorated amounts may include receiving a segment and a carrier for shipping cargo, determining if a special prorate agreement (SPA) exists for the segment, and calculating, when the SPA exists, a proration amount for the segment based, at least in part, on the SPA. A decision may be made to accept the reservation or not based on whether the reservation is profitable by comparing the calculated amount to a hurdle rate.