nikosophia

Systems

Nikosophia is a governance system for shipowners and the fiduciaries who act for them. We run it for you as a hosted service, or install it in your own environment.

The parties you are accountable to You, the owner, at the centre, accountable to six groups, each receiving something different from the same records: regulators and governments, filings and certificates; lenders and financiers, covenant certificates; P&I clubs and hull underwriters, evidence the conditions of cover are met; charterers and operating partners, emissions figures and records; class societies and vetting organisations, survey and inspection records; parent companies and families, where the company stands. You the owner Regulators and governments filings and certificates Lenders and financiers covenant certificates P&I clubs and hull underwriters evidence the conditions of cover are met Charterers and operating partners emissions figures and records Class societies and vetting organisations survey and inspection records Parent companies and families where the company stands The parties you are accountable to You, the owner, at the centre, accountable to six groups, each receiving something different from the same records: regulators and governments, filings and certificates; lenders and financiers, covenant certificates; P&I clubs and hull underwriters, evidence the conditions of cover are met; charterers and operating partners, emissions figures and records; class societies and vetting organisations, survey and inspection records; parent companies and families, where the company stands. You the owner Regulators and governments filings and certificates Lenders and financiers covenant certificates P&I clubs and hull underwriters evidence the conditions of cover are met Charterers and operating partners emissions figures and records Class societies and vetting organisations survey and inspection records Parent companies and families where the company stands

What Nikosophia covers

Scope

Nikosophia holds the duties that regulations place on your company. These cover safety management, certificates and surveys, crew, emissions, environmental records and sanctions. We keep them up to date as the regulations change.

The duties that apply to your fleet are in place from the first day. Duties under your loans, insurance and charters are added when you want them. So are any standards you have adopted.

Safety and security
The ISM Code and ISPS: the safety management system, the Document of Compliance and Safety Management Certificate, audits, the Designated Person Ashore and the ship security plan.
Certificates and surveys
The statutory certificates every ship carries, and their survey windows.
Crew
MLC 2006 and STCW: employment agreements, hours of rest, certificates of competency and their revalidation.
Emissions and fuel
EU-ETS, FuelEU Maritime and EU MRV, CII and SEEMP Part III, and IMO DCS.
Environmental records
The Inventory of Hazardous Materials, and port reception facility records.
Sanctions
Sanctions and counterparty screening.
Lenders, P&I clubs and hull underwriters
Covenant certificates under your loan agreements, and the conditions of your cover.
Charterers
Duties under your charters, undertakings given during vetting, and your RightShip and SIRE standing.
Board and family
A regular report of where the company stands.

Visibility

You can see every duty your company has. You see who it is owed to and when it is next due. For each duty, you see how it is being met and who is responsible.

You also see the evidence gathered so far. Every figure leads back to the document it came from. When something falls behind, you see it straight away. You see how long it has been late and who is dealing with it.

A ship's bridge at night, its navigation consoles lit

Control

With our analysts, you or your fiduciaries set down how your business is run. That covers the fleet, and each ship's flag, manager and class. It also covers the regulations that apply, how each duty is met and who is responsible.

Each change is shown as a page of what it adds, removes and moves. It takes effect when it is signed.

From these rules, Nikosophia writes the policies and procedures manual your managers and crews work to. Some operational software takes a configuration file. Nikosophia writes that file from your rules too.

When a rule changes, Nikosophia issues a new manual and a new file. It records who approved the change and when.

The stern of a ship riding high in calm water, its rudder clear of the surface

Reporting

Each party you answer to wants something different. Regulators want filings. Lenders want covenant certificates.

P&I clubs and hull underwriters want evidence that the conditions of cover are met. Your board and family want to know where the company stands.

Each filing, certificate and report is made in the systems you already use. Where you have none, Nikosophia makes it. Nikosophia holds them all against one set of company records. The emissions figure in your filing therefore matches your charterer's invoice and your lender's certificate.

Each filing is signed by the person responsible for it. You can require a second signature on any filing.

A woman presenting charts on a large screen to colleagues at a meeting table

Sovereignty

The owners decide what the company is. They decide its rules, who holds each function and who acts for them.

Nikosophia holds those decisions as the owners made them. The owners change them by a new decision of their own.

Managers, fiduciaries and service providers work within what the owners decided. Your records, and the working behind every figure, stay with the company when any of them change.

You can check at any time that the running system matches what you decided. So can an auditor you appoint.

Piraeus from the air: the yacht marina and breakwater, the city, and the sea beyond

Fiduciaries

You can hand the work of running the company's duties to someone else. In most family companies, it is handed to someone close. That may be a son or daughter, or a trusted member of staff.

They work in Nikosophia under a mandate you grant. A mandate is one responsibility, for a set scope and period. Nikosophia records when it starts and when it ends. You follow their work in as much detail as you choose.

The work can also go outside the company. A corporate service provider may run your shipowning company under your mandate. It works in your company's Nikosophia.

A management company can run its own Nikosophia for its own duties and its clients. It gives you access to the records your agreement covers.

Whoever does the work, you remain accountable. You still decide how the company is run.

A woman working on a laptop at a high office window over a city

Succession

Nikosophia holds a current, written account of how your company is run and why. When the company passes to your children or to a buyer, the account passes with it. They take up the company's duties from it.

An older man and a younger woman shaking hands across a counter, both smiling

The product

What you get
Your own Nikosophia system. It is a web application that you, your staff and your fiduciaries use in a browser. It works in English and in Greek.
Hosted service
We host and run Nikosophia for you on our servers. You pay a subscription. Each company's data is kept apart and encrypted with its own key. A company can also have a system hosted for it alone.
In your own environment
We install the same system on your servers or in your cloud account. It runs in the country you choose. It works the same as the hosted service.
Included
The rulebooks for your areas of duty, kept up to date as the regulations change. Every software update. Support from our analysts and engineers.
Setting up
Our analysts work with you to write down your company's duties. For each duty, they record how it is met and who is responsible. They load the regulations that apply to your fleet. Links to your own operational systems are quoted as separate work.
Rulebooks

We supply a rulebook for each regulation in your areas of duty. Each rulebook uses a published, open file format. We keep it up to date as the regulation changes.

Each rule states the duty, who it is owed to and when it applies. Your company sets how it is met and who is responsible.

Our reviewer approves each release. A qualified, independent third party then checks it before it goes live. Nikosophia checks the whole rulebook when your system is built.

Nikosophia keeps every version of every rule. It records when each version applied and who approved it.

Contradiction check

Before a rule is added or changed, Nikosophia compares it with every other rule. Two rules may apply to the same case and ask for different things. An example is two deadlines for the same report. Nikosophia then refuses the change and names both rules.

Where the law says which rule applies, the rulebook says so. Where both are your own rules, our analysts bring them to you to decide. More on the Foundations page.

Duty tracking

The Obligations screen lists each ship's duties. It shows each deadline, how each duty is met and who is responsible.

The Assessment screen shows the state of every duty, for every ship and for the company. The worst come first. The screen updates as records arrive.

Document reading

AI reads scans, PDFs and emails, such as bunker delivery notes, invoices and certificates. It links each value it reads to its place on the page.

A person at your company checks every value in a filing against its source. Nikosophia calculates every figure with fixed arithmetic.

Records
Nikosophia adds every change as a new entry. It keeps earlier entries as they were. Every figure links to the records and documents it came from. It also links to the version of the conversion factors it used.
Outputs

Regulatory filings, covenant certificates and evidence for P&I clubs and hull underwriters. Board and family reports. The policies and procedures manuals for Fiduciary Operations and Business Operations.

Every filing comes with a dossier. The dossier is fixed when the filing is put together. It records what was owed, under which rules and from which documents. It also records how each figure was calculated, and who signed and when.

Approvals
Each filing is signed in Nikosophia by the person responsible for it. You can require a second approver. The second approver must be someone who did not enter or confirm a figure in that filing.
Integration

Workflows written for your company read your operational systems, such as OneOcean and NOZZLE. They also read your electronic record books. They use read-only access you grant, or the exports those systems produce. They watch for the conditions you asked to hear about.

Some systems take a configuration file. Nikosophia writes that file from your rules. For other systems, your rules go into the manual their users work to.

Deployment

Every Nikosophia system is described by one specification file. The file lists each software component and its exact version. This holds for hosted systems and for systems in your own environment.

You can run a check that compares the running system with that file. So can an auditor you appoint.

Each new version needs the approvals the specification requires. It goes live only after your company adopts it.

Security

Each company's data is encrypted with its own key. The key is held on a separate key server.

Important events go into an audit log. Examples are a changed rule, a confirmed figure or an approved filing. Each entry carries a fingerprint of the entry before it. Changing or deleting any entry therefore breaks every fingerprint after it.