Ensuring Accuracy and Efficiency in Freight Invoicing with ShipHawk Audit

The cost of freight is a significant expense for any business that frequently ships goods — which is nearly everyone these days. ShipHawk’s real-time, multi-carrier rating technology automates carrier and service selection and order fulfillment using the best rates that meet your SLAs.  But when the bill comes due, how can you be certain that carriers are charging you the right amount?  

Carrier invoices include a dizzying array of rates, add-on charges, and unexpected fees that impact your bottom line.  It takes an experienced pro to review the invoices, make sense of the charges, and find the maximum number of billing mistakes. Whether you ship a few hundred shipments per month or hundreds of thousands or more, reviewing invoices requires you to pull shipment data from different systems, cross-reference these data to invoices, and determine whether each charge is valid. It can take hours or days per week just to compile the data. Then the real detective work begins: 

• Was the address correction fee really necessary?  
• Is the residential surcharge for this shipment valid?  
• Were those overnight shipments that you paid a premium to deliver actually delivered on time?  
• Were all of the packages delivered, and is there proof of delivery?

These are only a few questions that must be answered.  Most shippers only have time to review a limited number of high-cost charges, ignoring the real opportunity for recovery that comes from reviewing as many shipments as possible.

ShipHawk Audit

ShipHawk Audit answers these questions and more by reviewing every single shipment on every invoice for both small parcel and LTL shipments. This maximizes the potential for recovery and gives you the confidence that you are paying the right amount. ShipHawk Audit analyzes an extensive range of services and fees and can find mistakes related to: 

• Incorrect rates and discounts
• Express service guarantees
• Address correction fees
• Residential surcharge fees
• Lost and damaged packages
• Saturday pickup and delivery fees
• Oversize package fees
• Void shipments
• Duplicate charges
• And more …

This analysis is just the first step in a comprehensive audit. ShipHawk takes audit a step further by offering reconciliation: the ability to automatically match your booking details with the invoice charge. This enables a side-by-side comparison between what you expected to pay (booking rate) and what the carrier billed (invoice amount). This answers several other questions that invoice review alone cannot, including:

• Do the carrier weights and dimensions match what you booked?  
• Does the overlength/oversize fee make sense given the dimensions that were used for booking?
• Did the carrier bill according to the service requested?  
• Do the charges and fees match the add-ons that were requested? If not, what is driving the rate difference?
• Are you passing the correct information to the carrier at the time of booking to minimize unexpected fees?
• Are you charging the customer enough to cover the actual shipping charges?

Ensure Accurate Shipping Costs for Your Business

ShipHawk Audit is about getting answers to these questions and having the assurance that you pay the right amount for shipping. Get back the time spent pulling and reconciling carrier invoices with your fulfillment details and maximize recovery and insight into your business. To learn more about how ShipHawk Audit can help your organization save time and money, contact us today.