Relevance and the Gravity of Adding Freight Bill Audit to your Business
As there has been a steep rise in the eCommerce industry these days millions and millions of goods and materials are being sent across countries each year. With buying made easier through online purchasing of materials these days customers expect the material to reach them in a matter of few days. As we see that there has been a change in the expectation of the customers, there has been a dire need for an expansive, efficient and a coordinated network of shipping too.
Freight Audit- Definition
Freight audit is a far- reaching accounting as well as overview of freight invoices as compared to business books. Let’s have a look at the main functions of freight bill audit.
- Looking for Inefficiencies-A freight invoice audit gives you a clear understanding about the shipping processes where you can look for shipping inefficiencies in the supply chain model of your business with a view of improving the freight invoice auditing practices to save your money.
- Checking Numbers- This is an important function that ensures that the carriers are charging you correct amount as per the contract with the view that the numbers are verified and aligned.
Freight audit will give you enough peace of mind as you will not have to pay that extra cost than your freight shipping amount.There are these following 3 ways in which the freight audit can be performed.
- Conducting the freight audit in-house.
- Making use of the freight audit software.
- Conducting the freight audit via logistics team of the third party.
- Practices that influence the pricing in the freight invoices
- Fuel and Freight
This is an extremely complicated as well as a very time consuming affair. While freight invoice processing makes is much simpler and revamps the whole idea of fuel and freight.
Freight Invoices and Accessorial Charges
Freight companies charge accessorial fee. Many a times these additional charges that are levied may be based on different factors that one may not have any idea about and also may not be able to discover whether it’s actually required or not. While auditing the fee it can be negotiated upon to bring down the cost.
Some of the very common accessorial fee may be as follows:
- Loading and unloading of the drivers
- Home delivery
- Re- delivery
- Layover
- Material charges of the hazardous products
- Re-consignment
- Storage
- Segregate services and sorting
- Vehicle order not used
Charges of the freight invoice as well as multiple vendors
It so happens that the multiple vendors may send electronic invoices and invoice notes that are physical in nature. While keeping all the paper work organized, cuts down all the errors that may have been committed when it comes to freight bill processing.
Why does the freight audit matters most for your business
It is very important to understand the fact that with the help of freight audit you can account for essential steps that further ensure that you will only be charged the correct amount of money and will not have to pay that extra money or overcharged. With that you will be able to trust your freight carrier too.
For the purpose of analytics, your freight bill audits can even help you foresee the market trends for strategising effective shipping routes. By optimizing these routes, you can save upon both money and time and also enhance your relationship with the carrier.
Process of freight invoice audit
This involves physical invoices, through electronic data interchanges or PDF’s. As soon as you receive an invoice, the first step is to put data into the physical ledger. This will create visibility and a simple method of comparing your freight bills with your past invoices. You will be able to check for the following discrepancies.
Are there any duplicate invoices?
You may be surprised to discover the fact that there may be duplicate invoices. The double charging of the shipment may lead to a common error that can be eliminated from the process during the auditing of the freight bills. This may be accidental done by the carriers. However it is removed during the freight audit and payment-processes.
Was the accessory fee added by the company?
It so happens that the accessory fee when added would put you at fault. If so happens then would you take the requisite steps to prevent such charges? Or were you charged with the amount that you actually negotiated previously?
Were you given the discounted rates?
You may have made arrangements with your carrier with various discounts and check for those discounts whether they were applied appropriately or not. While the freight audit services take place, you should be assured that you noted the bill of landing.
Was the mileage and the zip code put correctly?
The cost applied will be higher when the carrier goes off route or when the packages get transferred to various different trucks.
As a result for many of the businesses the customer loyalty hinges onto the shipping efforts. With proper freight bill auditing services when applied brings down the costs applied. There are many freight bill audit companies that deal in this matter and perform a great task of lowering down the value of money while making a shipment service. While the top priority should be carrying the goods in the most perfect condition, allowing to build up credibility as well as trust with your customers.
Freight audit providers act as safeguards in order to protect the shippers from paying over the charges. There are tools to optimize the shipping costs by reducing the waste or inefficiencies. For this reason it is crucial that you perform a regular check in terms of the freight invoice post audit onto your freight bills.
When the freight bill audit companies perform manual freight audits, the freight audit systems are very much encouraged to be purchased or employed by the third party logistics companies as well. These options help you a lot to save onto your money and help you give various different tools to improvise the shipping practices.