freight audit services

Freight audit services for greater transparency

A freight audit is essential for checking incorrect freight billing errors. Outsourcing freight audits and payment helps eliminate overcharges and save money.

Companies that transport freight have to deal with overwhelming volumes of transactions daily. The amount of paperwork and complexity of freight rates is challenging for many organizations. In addition, payment to freight carriers has to be on time to avoid souring  carrier-shipper relationships. Companies must perform a freight audit to identify freight billing errors and improve productivity. Hence, outsourcing freight audit and payment services to a third party maximizes a company’s bottom line. This blog discusses outsourcing freight audit and payment services to freight audit companies.

Freight audit

Earlier companies used manual freight audits that were time-consuming. The process was prone to mistakes. Now, freight audits are a combination of automation and manual processes. So, freight audits can give reliable freight rates and ensure invoices are not duplicated or overcharged. Freight payment involves the amount payable for transportation or freight invoices. Further, freight audit and payment processes improve logistics efficiency and monitor shipping carriers’ performance.

The importance of freight audit

A freight audit is necessary for all freight shippers. Freight rates are negotiated with shipping carriers before contracts are signed. However, many companies end up paying more than the agreed quote. Freight audits help companies gain better visibility on their overall shipping expenses. In addition, freight audits optimize invoice management and payment. Freight audit includes both pre-audit and post-audit services.

Pre-audit helps shippers understand if the shipping carriers are correctly charged based on the contractual agreement.

Freight post-audit services aid companies decide whether shipping carriers have overbilled them.

How does outsourcing freight audit work?

In the U.S., many companies outsource to freight audit and payment companies. Ideally, freight audit companies act as facilitators between shippers and shipping carriers. Freight auditors receive invoices from shipping carriers or for in-depth analysis. The analyzed data offers good insights into shippers’ operations. Duplicate invoices are verified, and only outstanding bills are processed. Finally, only confirmed invoices are paid by wire transfer or check for payment. In addition, any unpaid invoices and due balances are taken care of during the freight audit process.

Advantages of outsourcing freight audit

Conducting a freight audit in-house may seem the best option for many companies. But outsourcing freight audits identify the mistakes that internal teams cannot. Some of the significant advantages of outsourcing include

  • Reducing labor costs

Outsourcing freight audit helps in cutting labor costs with accurate freight billing. Manual verification of freight payments before invoice approval requires labor. Outsourcing reduces these labor costs and increases productivity.

  • Saving time

Companies need not waste their valuable time tracking each shipment, filing for claims, requesting refunds, and more. Outsourcing saves time for companies by streamlining the freight audit process. Further on-time accurate freight payment to shipping carriers improves the shipper-carrier relationship.

  • Increase in financial returns

Freight audit companies aid shippers in recovering lost charges. Based on carrier contracts, accessorial surcharges or late delivery charges are verified, reduced, or waived. Outsourcing helps in identifying wrong detention invoice rates. In addition, freight audits help in reducing inventory costs and improve productivity.

  • Greater visibility

Dashboards give shipper the capability to become pro-active instead of reactive by anticipating problems before they become a crisis. They allow shippers to easily view their transportation data in easy to read and interpret tables and graphs. Perfect Dashboards , customizable reports helps shipper to enhance decision-making. Dashboards and reports provide transparency and real-time visibility to a shipper’s freight spend.

The above advantages give a competitive edge to shippers. Freight audits provide new opportunities for companies to streamline their processes.

Save more with Audintel

Freight audits can transform businesses. Audintel’s customized, intuitive dashboards and shipping reports help our clients understand their freight shipping expenses. We uncover potential freight bill errors and provide accurate freight billing across each carrier agreement. Audintel has a dedicated, professionally trained staff at our Call Center that negotiates with shipping carriers periodically for claims and refunds. Our state-of-the-art technology tracks freight invoices and saves money for companies. In addition, we handle complex contracts and rates for our clients. Audintel‘s team has optimized the freight shipping processes of our clients, saving them millions of dollars in shipping costs.

The bottom line

Businesses can save a substantial amount of their freight costs by adopting a good freight auditing process. Freight audits help in identifying freight billing errors and resolve freight payment issues. Skilled and qualified auditors at Audintel identify freight billing errors. In addition, we resolve payment issues and follow clients’ precise business rules. Audintel has saved millions of dollars for our clients with our efficient freight audits. Would you like to learn more about freight audits and our services? For further information, you can contact us at +1 (619) 354 8539 or visit our Audintel website.

Shipping reports

Shipping reports: Optimize shipping performances with data

This holiday season, economic uncertainty and rising inflation will hit many industries. Also, these industries will face customers who want more goods and services at a lesser price. Further, shipping companies deal with high shipping costs and holiday surcharges. In addition, companies will have to attract customers with great shipping experiences.

Transportation spend solutions like shipping reports make shipping simple and easy. Earlier, we had discussed shipping reports help in reducing shipping costs. This blog explores shipping reports, managing shipping costs, and shipping metrics.

Shipping reports: its essentiality

Companies require comprehensive solutions to reduce unnecessary surcharges. Automated parcel auditing help companies in saving money to a great extent. There is less reliance on manual, time-consuming manual auditing processes. Shipping reports provide companies with complete visibility of parcel shipping history, tracking data, shipping rates, and more variables. In addition, shipping reports use intelligent automation to identify billing mistakes and overcharges and efficiently track shipments. Shipping reports by Audintel give detailed, in-depth information on carrier performance, service levels, accessorial charges, etc.

Shipping cost management with shipping reports

It is becoming increasingly difficult for shippers to understand shipping rates and complex surcharges. Shipping reports provide details of the shipping processes to maximize operational efficiency. Companies that incorporate real-time analytics can provide quality service to their customers. Shippers have greater visibility in parcel spend management with the help of real-time shipping data and analytics. Further, leveraging the right technology helps in better shipping cost management.

Shipping metrics in shipping reports

Not just shipping cost management, shipping reports play a vital role in tracking the on-time delivery of packages. Shipping metrics like on-time delivery performance by shipping carriers offer clarity to shippers. It helps them recover refunds from shipping carriers like UPS and FedEx and reduce shipping costs. Further, parcel auditing involves using business intelligence solutions to reduce shipping costs. Some of the shipping metrics that are a part of shipping reports include

  • Accessorial charge summary-summarizes accessorial charges by invoice number
  • Address correction details-detailed information about the addresses that are corrected
  • Weight adjustment details-original weight and billed weight of package adjustments are listed.
  • DIM weight verification-details the dimensional weight variations of packages
  • Lost or damaged packages details-lists the lost or damaged packages
  • Invoice summary-summarizes invoices within a time frame or date range
  • Insurance detail-shows the insurance packages, values, and charges for each package
  • Delivery status-list the delivery status of a package and confirm whether residential or commercial delivery, zone, weight, etc.

The above metrics give a glance at what to expect in shipping reports. The shipping data in shipping reports covers the various aspects of shipping a package. Companies can minimize shipping costs with quick resolution of carrier errors and additional surcharges.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track shipping performance

There are various key performance indicators (KPIs) that help in monitoring each business area. Companies benefit by spotting financial problems early, making timely adjustments, and undertaking quick decisions with KPIs. The KPIs relate to Order management metrics such as the number of shipments, shipping time, and accurate order pick-up. In addition, Transportation management metrics help improve shipping operations with freight payment accuracy, on-time delivery, and transportation costs. Using transportation management metrics, companies can automate shipping processes. They can improve inventory management and identify unnecessary charges leading to extra costs. In addition, KPI dashboards help in tracking shipping performance.

A way to lower shipping costs

Shipping reports help to analyze historical data and share results in real time. They give clarity on service errors by parcel carriers and service refunds. And so shippers can negotiate discounts with shipping carriers and lower their shipping costs. In addition, shippers use real-time data to track each shipment and reduce shipping costs. Companies can increase the delivery speed of their packages with the correct data. A parcel auditing solution provider, Audintel helps companies follow the best shipping practices and save shipping expenses.

Customized shipping reports by Audintel

Parcel auditing services of Audintel audit every overcharge and invoice error. Our services provide transparency to transportation spending management. The shipping reports provided by Audintel give in-depth information on the shipping details of shipments. Our clients can save hundreds or thousands of dollars on their parcel spend.Audintel helps companies understand their transportation spend management more efficiently. Our shipping reports track the last-mile delivery status of a package, thus giving clients peace of mind. We provide real-time dashboards and customized shipping reports that help our clients reduce shipping costs. With lower shipping costs, shippers receive a great on-time delivery experience to customers.

Conclusion

Shipping during the holiday season is crucial for all companies. Customer satisfaction and optimum operational efficiency are essential during this period. Companies optimize their shipping operations with lower shipping costs. Audintel helps companies reduce shipping costs with their data analytics tools. Our customized shipping reports allow companies to gauge their shipping expenses and save money. So, for an increase in operational efficiency and quick turnaround time, contact our services at +1 (619) 354 8539 or visit our Audintel website.

Shipping Refunds

Efficient parcel auditing services save more with refunds

Shipping services will be at their peak in the upcoming holiday season. Businesses need to track whether their packages reach on time to their customers. Due to the heavy rush, there will be a delay in shipments.

Many shippers are unaware of recovering refunds from carriers for late deliveries. With the help of parcel audit services, shippers realize the errors made by carriers during shipment. This blog explores parcel audit services recovering refunds from shipping carriers. In addition, learn more about billing overcharges.

Parcel audit services and shipping refunds

Parcel audit services check and verify invoices from different shipping carriers worldwide. They conduct a comprehensive audit to ensure an accurate assessment of each shipment. Shippers face service failures from their chosen parcel carriers. For example, shipping carriers give duplicate invoices to shippers for a single package. Sometimes errors are made by shippers that directly impact shipments. For instance, the wrong address shipping label on the parcel is the cause for a delay in shipments. Mistakes made by carriers or shippers harm customer service. Parcel auditing is essential for shippers to recover refunds to avoid negative customer feedback.

Shipping refunds

An audit team addresses service failures of shipping carriers. Refund requests are sent to the shipping carriers immediately for quick resolution. Further, companies shipping large volumes of shipments have contracts with shipping carriers. The contracts entitle shippers to money-back guarantees from parcel carriers for late deliveries and other service charges. However, requesting refunds from shipping carriers is a complicated process. Each shipment has to be checked and verified to claim a refund from the parcel carrier. Most companies end up paying carriers for promised services that are unfulfilled. Outsourcing parcel audit services help companies receive refunds for late deliveries, overcharges, etc.

What are the kinds of refunds identified by Parcel auditing?

Parcel audits recover shipping refunds for companies and improve their operational efficiencies. Parcel auditing identifies refunds caused due to

  • Duplicate invoicing- More than one invoice with different parameters like invoice date and amount for the same parcel.
  • Billing overcharges- Unforeseen charges are added to the invoice when there is a delay in shipment due to an incorrect shipping label on parcels.
  • Late deliveries- Packages delivered late due to carriers’ network disruptions or other reasons are eligible for a refund.
  • Lost and damaged deliveries- Packages lost or damaged during transit are eligible for a refund.
  • Invalid surcharges- Parcel carriers charge shippers additional fees for the wrong dimensional weight of packages, errors in addresses, incorrect delivery areas, and improper fuel surcharges.

Companies find it an uphill task to dispute the additional fees levied by carriers. Manual auditing is time-consuming and requires resources. Reliable parcel audit services can help companies in challenging charges and getting refunds. In addition, it can help companies simplify the refund process.

Refund process

Shippers are eligible for refunds for service failures and incorrect invoicing by shipping carriers. The refund process for a shipment begins with a request to the concerned shipping carrier. Further, filing a refund claim must be within fifteen days of the quoted delivery date on the invoice. Shipping carriers like FedEx and UPS have dedicated channels for claiming refunds. In addition, UPS and FedEx promise on-time delivery of packages in their contracts with shippers. So,  shippers are eligible for a refund for late deliveries from UPS and FedEx (discussed in detail in our earlier blogs). Getting a refund for late deliveries is time-consuming, but outsourcing parcel audit services makes life simpler for companies.

Role of parcel audit services

Efficient parcel auditing services take care of identifying service failures and incorrect surcharges. Further, automated parcel auditing services recover refunds for carrier inefficiencies. Finally, refunds are directly transferred into the companies’ accounts effortlessly. In addition, audit companies aid companies in parcel contract negotiations, so they do not miss the money-back guarantees for late deliveries from shipping carriers. Parcel auditors maximize revenue for companies with their shipment tracking tools and state-of-the-art software.

Audintel’s parcel auditing services to recover your refunds

Receiving refunds from UPS, FedEx, and DHL is easier said than done. A team of parcel auditors at Audintel recover refunds for late deliveries, incorrect invoices, invalid surcharges, and more. Our intuitive software easily tracks shipments and identifies service failures instantly. Audintel Technology Development and Customer Service Call Center effectively request refunds from shipping carriers for service failures. We don’t just rely on automated software, but our dedicated and experienced team at the Call Center follow-up with the shipping carriers for quick refunds. Our clients can expect the most reliable parcel audit services from Audintel. Choose Audintel for recovering refunds instantly without hassles.

Summary

In the current economic situation companies need to spend less and save more. So, recovering refunds with the help of efficient parcel audit services is the best way forward. Companies need parcel audit services that understand their shipping costs and save undue expenses. Audintel fits the bill for businesses looking to increase their operational efficiencies. Receive refunds directly into your accounts with Audintel’s services. Contact us for more details about our services at +1 (619) 354 8539 or visit our Audintel website.