The goal of any freight auditing service is to help companies with high shipping volumes reduce shipping costs and streamline their distribution processes. Ideally, the audit firm should provide sufficient shipping rate analytics and logistics auditing technology to optimize your small parcel shipping. Best-in-class freight audit companies will be equipped to provide expert shipping contract negotiation and freight auditing services to reduce your shipping costs. It is important to be aware that not all negotiation and freight audit companies offer the level of service that is truly need to stay profitable and competitive in today's tight market.
The best freight audit companies will have a process that audits each carrier invoice both electronically and by a professional freight auditor. These freight auditing firms will consistently recover 2 to 6 percent of total small parcel and freight spend by locating every refund-eligible transaction. They will also manage any carrier audit refund claims.
If you're performing an in-house freight payment audit, you're consuming valuable employee resources. Besides, a manual freight audit won't uncover all the carrier audit billing errors and shipping service failures that a professional and highly competent auditing company will recover. The best freight audit companies will use advanced freight bill audit software to reveal even the slightest discrepancies. And they'll do it without the wasted man-hours of staff you'd normally have to dedicate to these exhaustive tasks.
The best freight audit companies can also create customer-defined carrier audit services. These can include complex and extensive general ledger (GL) coding. In addition, top-notch full-service freight auditing firms can provide extensive freight management and carrier reporting services. These freight bill audit solutions would include access to online reporting tools that provide extraordinary shipment visibility.