Selection of Freight Audit Companies
Freight auditing is a neglected area of transportation programs. Working with the right freight bill auditing firms can not only save you money, but also provide a wealth of data on service levels, carrier performance, and costs to help manage your program.
Trans-solutions has a deep understanding of this market and can help you identify the right provider for your freight profile. For instance, if you ship large amounts of parcel freight, you need a freight bill auditing firm with the technology to break down the many shipment details that parcel carriers provide and collect on service failures.
The right freight auditing firm might carry a higher per-invoice charge, but deliver significantly more value based on the refunds or credits they are able to secure for late deliveries, overcharges, duplicate invoices and other shipment and billing errors. Freight auditing firms that appear to offer “bargain” rates may only be performing a payment function, with little ability to conduct a thorough audit.
For a detailed overview on the topic, read our free white paper:
“Freight Invoice Auditing and Payment: A Primer for Shippers.”
“I’ve been working with the Trans-Solutions team for over a year, and over this time I witnessed their team bring discipline to the freight payment and rate card processes for several of our external vendors. The improvements in our external vendor invoicing have been drastic and led to a much more streamlined claims process. I can’t speak highly enough on the reporting and KPIs Trans-Solutions provides for all our vendor invoicing/claims services.
To speak to a phenomenal accomplishment, their team has collected over 60% of all requested claims. Trans-Solutions has and continues to be a critical partner for our company’s Supply Chain and Logistics team.”
-- Mathew Price, Novavax
Freight Auditing Services
Trans-solutions performs freight bill audit services for parcel, truckload, air and ocean freight. In fact, we have specially designed software that handles small parcel bill auditing and ocean freight. Contact us to learn more about our freight audit services.
Keys to Selecting the right freight bill auditing partner
- Bigger is not necessarily better.
For instance, smaller freight bill auditing providers that specialize in small parcels will keep up to date on the latest EDI feeds from UPS and FedEx since they want the additional detail these carriers provide. Conversely, large auditors that handle all modes of freight often can’t stay current on the tariffs and technology feeds from the parcel carriers. Therefore, they are not getting data they can use to get their money back. - Don’t underestimate the value of data.
Firms that can provide easy access to historical freight performance, by the carrier, give you an invaluable database for future reporting, trend analysis, and carrier negotiations. Typically, these firms are ones that deploy the latest, web-based technology. - Selecting an auditor with the lowest rate may actually cost you money.
Auditing freight bills is labor intensive. Some work can be automated to lower this cost, but collecting on an error is a manual effort that requires persistence, deep knowledge of the carrier tariff, and time. It’s like an insurance claim. The first response is typically denial of the claim. So, when you decide on a freight auditing and payment company, be sure to include the revenue side. If the auditor doesn’t find any money through the audit, it’s not much of an audit. At the very least, the revenue retrieved from an audit should be more than the cost of the audit.