Questions brokers ask
CharterDesk is a set of AI agents for yacht charter brokers, priced for each office. It reads your mail read only, drafts the work and sends nothing without you. Below are the questions brokers ask most, with straight answers.
- Does it ever send anything for me?
- No. Every reply, proposal, availability request and payment email waits on the deal until you read it and press send. That is CharterDesk’s one rule.
- What does it do to my mailbox?
- Nothing. It reads Outlook or Gmail read only, through Microsoft’s or Google’s own sign-in. It never moves, sends or deletes anything there. Folders and people you mark Keep private are not read at all.
- Does it work with WhatsApp?
- Yes, with a WhatsApp Business number. Messages arrive on the deal like email, and a message goes out only when you press send.
- Who can see my clients?
- Only you and anyone you invite to your office. Each office has its own database; no other broker sees your clients, and we never sell or share them.
- Where is my data kept?
- On a server in Frankfurt, Germany, with each office in its own database, backed up every night. The privacy page says exactly what is kept and for how long.
- What does it cost?
- Priced for your office. Tell us how many brokers you are and we’ll come back with a price the same day.
- Are taxes included?
- No. VAT or sales tax is added at checkout where it applies, based on your billing address. A business in the EU with a VAT number is charged no VAT; the reverse charge applies.
- Is AI included in the price?
- Yes. Each office has a monthly allowance of AI use, set in Settings, and the assistant only runs when you click. The allowance is the cap: once it is used, CharterDesk carries on without AI, on its plain rules, until the next month. There is nothing extra to buy.
- How long does it take to start?
- Sign up, open the link we email, make your passkey and connect your mailbox. Most brokers are reading their mail in it within the hour.
- Is AI reading my clients’ passports?
- Never. Identity documents are kept apart from everything else, only a few people in your office can open them, and AI never reads them.
- Which AI does it use, and is my data used to train it?
- Claude, made by Anthropic. Under Anthropic’s commercial terms what we send is not used to train its models.
- Does it know the yachts I work with?
- It works from your own book: the yachts you add, with their rates, photos and central agents. It shortlists from those, not from a list of its own.
- Can my client see the proposal on a phone?
- Yes. A proposal is a page in your logo and colours that opens on any phone or computer, with no sign-in. They tap the yacht they like and you see it.
- Does it handle MYBA contracts?
- It follows every step of a MYBA contract, a DocuSign one or a plain one, from agreed terms to both signatures. The contract itself comes from the central agent as always.
- Does it work out VAT and APA?
- Yes. The calculator works out fee, VAT for the cruising area and APA as you type. VAT rules change, so check the figure before it goes into a contract.
- Does it take payments?
- No. Payments go to your bank as they do now. Finance sets the due dates and matches each payment when the bank says it arrived.
- Can the captain see the itinerary?
- You can share it. Each day has a note for the client and a note for the captain, and the client’s page never shows the captain’s.
- Who gets the newsletter?
- Only people who said yes to hearing from you. Each copy has its own unsubscribe link that works at once and for good.