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Competitive parcel auditing services: essential for shippers

With rising inflation and skyrocketing fuel prices, businesses need to economize and improve profitability. Shipping small packages to customers needs scrutiny as service failures lead to higher expenses for shippers.

Affordable patent auditing services are essential to monitoring shipping expenses. Our earlier blog focused on affordable parcel auditing services that reduce shipping costs. This article focuses on the various aspects of parcel auditing services, such as package shipping spend, services offered, and their software.

Affordable parcel auditing services

Parcel auditing analyzes the shipping data of companies and unearths any invoice errors. Parcel auditing services of parcel auditing companies work to fix the invoice errors and get refunds from the shipping carriers. Web-based technology used by parcel auditors spares shippers from purchasing hardware, thus saving money. In addition, parcel auditing services do not involve set-up fees or up-gradation in current technology resulting in cost savings.

Parcel shipping spend

According to the latest reports in business wire, US parcel volume will grow exponentially by 2027. It is due to increasing demand for internet retail. Small parcel shipping is a critical component of shipping systems. An audit on small parcel shipping spend allows companies to save money. Shippers are eligible for a refund from shipping carriers for service failures like late deliveries, invalid surcharges, billing errors, and more. Parcel auditors like Audintel have a real-time dashboard that monitors small packages’ shipping spend while controlling shipping costs.

Outsourcing parcel auditing

Manual parcel auditing is time-consuming and is prone to human errors. So, by outsourcing parcel audit work to a third party, shippers save time as they do not need to track each shipment and file refund claims. Further, the parcel auditors secure refunds for service failures with direct credit to shippers’ accounts. Parcel auditing services provided by a third party give companies valuable insights into their shipping process.

Services offered by a parcel auditing company

Small parcel auditing is a complex process that requires data evaluation at each stage of the shipping process. Parcel auditing companies analyze the parcel invoices from the shipping carriers. In addition, tracking parcel delivery to customers and information about any shortcomings is conveyed to the business owner. Some of the common service failures made by parcel carriers include:

  • Late deliveries: Parcel delivery to the customer beyond the scheduled delivery time
  • Surcharge errors: Parcel invoices with incorrect address correction charges, delivery area surcharge, and other surcharge errors
  • Dimensional weight errors: Shipping carriers levy wrong dimensional weight charges on packages
  • Duplicate charges: Double invoicing for a single parcel shipment
  • Manifested not shipped parcels: Shipping carriers like UPS charge for a package manifested but not sent to its destination
  • Deviation from negotiated shipping rates and discounts: Parcel shipment with different shipping rates and discounts.

Parcel auditing services offered by parcel auditing companies provide effective solutions for service failures. They inform business owners about billing errors, changes in shipping rates, additional surcharges, etc. Parcel auditors use intuitive auditing software that automatically notifies any discrepancies in the shipping process.

Small parcel auditing software

The tracking and monitoring of each small parcel shipment use cloud-based shipping software. The data analysis improves shipping spend management and curbs excessive expenses. In addition, the software monitors the performance of shipping carriers, identifies invoice errors, and files for unclaimed refunds. Shippers reduce their parcel shipping spend and improve their shipping operations with ease.

Freight audit software

Freight audit software minimizes complex freight auditing processes. Due to the automation of the freight audit process, labor decreases, and cost-efficiency increases. The shippers get greater clarity of their shipping expenses. Also, there is streamlining of the shipping process. Further, automatic uploading of the shipping documents into the system helps track invoices efficiently. Freight audit software benefits many industries such as manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, construction, electronics, etc.

The software used by parcel auditors improves customer satisfaction and increases brand loyalty, which benefits shippers’ businesses.

Benefits of using Audintel’s services

Parcel auditing services of Audintel are economical and customized to cater to our client’s needs. We provide greater transparency to our clients by using their shipping data. Audintel has more than forty customized dashboards and shipping reports for our clients. Our team uses updated, secure technology to track and monitor the shipping data of our clients. We assist business owners in negotiating the best carrier contracts and saving money. Companies benefit tremendously by partnering with Audintel as it honors their parcel delivery commitments to customers. We help shippers receive refunds promptly from shipping carriers for service failures and increase their profits.

Final thoughts

Small parcel delivery services like FedEx and UPS do not always stick to their delivery commitments. It impacts the shippers as they have to deal with angry customers. Companies offer extra credit or special offers to keep customers happy, thus involving double expenses. Audintel’s parcel auditing services give companies a helping hand in receiving all the refund credits from shipping carriers. To know better about the full extent of our parcel auditing services, contact us at +1 (619) 354 8539 or visit our Audintel website.

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Reasons to consider a Freight audit software solution

Freight Audit Software Solution

The freight audit software solution will help companies save costs incurred through invoices. This will, in turn, have a huge impact on their annual profits.

Nowadays charges from various transporters are negotiated and impacted by the oil market. Without a firm understanding of all the intricacies of the shipping industry, a company is always at risk of being consistently over-charged. That is why many businesses turn to a freight audit software provider or a freight audit and payment company. Audit companies handle the laborious task of auditing their freight bills.

Most of the companies will not be able to handle the massive task of processing, organizing, auditing, and paying the carrier companies. It is not only time-consuming but also requires dedicated internal staff. The opportunity to maximize your profit margin through business intelligence will be missed if your company does not take advantage of the intelligence gained from the data.

Freight Bill Audit and Pay

So freight bill audit and freight payment software is an essential component of any business. Many companies do not utilize technology to manage freight bills, resulting in a lost opportunity for multiple cost savings.

The old-school way of manually processing freight bills and hoping for the best overlooks many important and potentially expensive factors. Some companies shipping and receiving more than hundreds of shipments every month, resulting in paperwork in different formats from carriers. In the long run, this will become overwhelming, and inevitable errors get cropped in either from human inaccuracy or a processing mistake.

Discrepancies In Freight Bills

But if your company is being regularly wrongly billed, the costs add up quickly. Most companies do not have the resources to devote to auditing every single bill, so some will resort to a random check, giving the organization only a sample of the entire picture. This will result in risking the forfeit of any lost capital due to overpayment, errors, hidden fees, or redundant costs.

It should be clear that a sound strategy is a priority when it comes to Freight Auditing and Payment. Experts estimate that a company can expect freight charges to typically represent up to 10% of a company’s total cost of goods. It is a significant enough portion to pay attention to and to apply the most effective tactics to minimize.

Freight Paper Invoices

Paper invoices run the risk of becoming lost, and a company loses the ability to analyze bills and data. The cost to internally process and pay freight invoices can be measured at around $11-$12 per invoice. Along with the cost of allocating manpower to perform this laborious task, human inaccuracies or inattention to unforeseen factors may choke even the most well-intentioned internal department. Also, the opportunity to file a claim for reimbursement for any error is typically 180 days and must be handled on time.

Freight Bill Auditing Process

The freight audit company follows a specific process to confirm all inaccuracies are noted and corrected. It provides the client with a detailed evaluation of their shipping and receiving procedure based on ad hoc data. The process begins when the shipping invoice is received either manually or through EDI. The freight audit company will then verify the bill, inspect for errors or inaccuracies, and ensure that:

  • The invoice has not been previously paid or is not a duplicate,
  • Is indeed the responsibility of the shipper to pay,
  • Any tariffs were calculated correctly,
  • Accessorial charges are legitimate and
  • All necessary documentation such as the Bill of Lading and purchase order numbers are included.

They will file a claim to be reimbursed for the mistake or oversight whenever inaccuracies are spotted. If they are assigned to make the payments as well, they will handle the processing of the bill to ensure that it arrives as scheduled.

Audintel’s role :

We at Audintel have a freight audit software solution, which consists of various audit checkpoints to capture any discrepancies done by the carriers. We provide business intelligence reporting which can be used for detailed insights and also plan a better strategy when compared to the competitors. For further queries, please visit Audintel or contact us at +1 (619) 354 8539 or mail to [email protected].

Need for Freight Audit

Why do we need a Freight Audit?

What is a Freight Audit?

Freight auditing is typically provided by an external audit company.  They carefully inspect the carrier invoices and look out for all the inaccuracies in the carrier invoices. Inaccuracies can include billing errors, incorrectly classified shipments, unapplied tariff weight breaks.

This audit will help a company to prevent over-billing, negotiate future shipping rates and choose better transportation strategies along with the most efficient carriers.

Nowadays freight rates and freight pricing in the logistics industry are becoming increasingly complex, and carriers make innumerable mistakes and also fail to meet service level agreements. And thus shippers use freight auditing as a tool. This tool ensures that the shippers pay carriers only after determining that the freight invoices are 100 % accurate and precise.

Rates in the LTL industry are very complex. They are calculated by a range of factors which include mileage, cost of diesel, product type, pickup, and delivery fees. Some of these fees and charges are negotiated with the shipper. Carriers can always add new charges or sometimes they increase existing charges also. For this reason, it is very difficult to track a company’s freight bills to ensure that they are accurate.

Carrier Formats and Error Frequency

Making matters more difficult is the fact that a company almost certainly uses more than one carrier, and each carrier’s invoices are different from one another and they all use different formats. This task becomes challenging when there are potentially hundreds and thousands of items to ship every month. And due to the large volumes of shipments, many errors go unnoticed and undetected.

One out of every four freight bills contains an error that could affect the company’s finances. Manual auditing and freight payment are time-consuming and often require additional administrative staff and time. For companies who lack these resources, they can save time and money by outsourcing freight Audit to an external audit company who has expertise in capturing all the errors and also using the auditing software.

Freight Audit Software

Examination of freight bills is a business process. Freight bill’s duplicates and accuracy are adjusted and verified. Now the shipper can stop wasting the time of their Accounts Payable department on the grueling, time-sensitive process of auditing, while also bringing in extra money at the same time. The shipping company has to pay the cost when there are overpayments. There are also other benefits like actionable data that can be used to negotiate better rates with the carriers.

Freight Invoice

Carriers submit an invoice to the customer or an external audit company, this invoice is the freight bill. Audit companies approach the respective carrier when there are errors in the shipper’s invoice. They suggest the carriers to correct and generate a new invoice. Here at AudIntel, as a leading freight audit provider, we ensure that shippers are not overcharging for their freight services. For example, in the shipping world, overpayments occur far too often. Carriers like FedEx freight/UPS freight delivers an average of 9 million packages in 220 countries every day. Hence the mistakes are inevitable. As a result, the freight audit service ensures that your actual freight invoice matches the quote.

AudIntel’s role in freight audit 

We at AudIntel, do many explicit audit checks on various types of freight invoices. This makes sure that even the smallest of discrepancies are captured. This in turn saves a good share of money for the shippers. And also provide data insights showcasing trends for revenue, shipments, accessorials, carriers, etc. For further queries, please visit Audintel or contact at +1 (619) 354 8539 or mail to [email protected].