Parcel And Freight Auditing Fill Your Noggin With Current Logistics News.

UPS just announced its plan for a (limited) reinstatement of service guarantees effective April 5, 2021. Although it’s a step in the right direction, don’t cheer just yet. According to the fine print, this ‘reinstatement’ is only applicable to UPS Next Day Air and UPS Worldwide Express services, and it comes with extended delivery times. UPS Service...

Today we're going to talk about freight management services. First, what does that mean? Freight management services can cover a wide range of specific offerings. From a third-party provider like Lojistic, freight...

Today we're talking about all things less-than-load, and more specifically, LTL rates and audits. But first, since shipping terms can quickly become ‘acronym soup,’ let’s discuss what LTL really means. What are LTL Rates? When you have a full truckload of things to ship, you essentially ‘buy’ a whole truck. It moves across the country, and that's what you pay fo...

Comparing shipping rates, or performing a shipping rate comparison, is essential for shippers who want to maximize their budgets. Why Comparing Shipping Rates Matters Let's say two people operate similar ...

Lots of shippers would benefit from some negotiation tips for getting better UPS and FedEx contracts. We've helped countless companies optimize contracts and negotiate better rates with UPS and FedEx. One of the m...

The future of FedEx service guarantees and delivery policies are in flux right now. And it's important for shippers to know what's happening to leverage that information to make good business decisions. The Futur...

If you're in shipping, it's important to understand industry jargon and what the meaning of "free audits" really is. Shipping Jargon and the Meaning of "Free Audits" We speak to people often about our ser...

Lojistic helps companies track, manage and reduce their shipping costs, and an important part of that is the Lojistic refund recovery process. The Lojistic Refund Recovery Process At Lojistic, our client ...

Refund recovery is an extremely important topic for shippers. What is Refund Recovery? Refund recovery involves reaching out to the carriers to request money back for any carrier invoice errors discovered...

FedEx has been making some significant investments into its infrastructure. Today we'll examine how those investments will (or won't) create a “FedEx weekend advantage” over the competition. What is the FedEx...

“Transparency” and “carrier pricing.” Two terms you’ll likely never see used together in the same sentence. It’s no secret that UPS and FedEx mystify their pricing: invalid charges, hidden fees, buried costs, rate increases, inconsistent pricing and dozens of “negotiables” within every carrier agreement mean that most shippers operate in the dark. In no other industry is ...

It’s important for shippers to understand early term language and how it works in our industry. What is Early Term Language? Early term language is a contractual language that the carriers include in th...

Holiday peak season is the time of the year when there's a large uptick in shipments for the small parcel carriers. FedEx and UPS typically waive their service guarantee, which provides recourse if the shipments a...

Editor's Note: This post has been updated with new links and content. Original Publication Date: March 15, 2013 In the parcel world, the terms freight invoices and bills of lading are used frequently. But what is the difference? ...

Publisher's Note: This post has been updated with new links and content. Original Publication Date: May 1, 2017 In this post, we’ll help you understand how to become a FedEx and UPS power user. Let's start at the beginning with what FedEx and UPS power users are. ...

The global novel coronavirus pandemic has created great uncertainty all over the world. The disruptions to travel and commerce has led UPS and FedEx to suspend all service guarantees for Express, Ground and Freight for both Domestic and International shipments immediately and until further notice. This means that UPS and FedEx will no longer honor their promise to give you a refund when your s...

Optimizing your parcel contracts will not leave you feeling uncertain. No one wants to feel like their contract is anything less than the most efficient in the market. Contracts can be very complex and cumbersome. And if you're not a contract expert with a parcel, there's a chance some ...

Audit Recovery Saves You Time And Money Audit Recovery and Audit Recovery Bill pay are both topics that you should know about. Let's talk about the Audit first. Right now, if you went onto UPS or FedEx website, you would find the data that you're looking for will be cumbersome. What the Audit does is it...

Parcel Carriers: Breaking it Down The two primary parcel carriers offer some innovative billing tools on their websites. And I'm speaking specifically about FedEx and UPS. I'll talk about them one at a time. For FedEx, they offer a program available on their website that you need to sign up for. They call it FedEx Billing Online. They designed it to give you the ability to look ...

UPS and FedEx Billing Insights from the Pros Hey, guys, Rich with Lojistic here. I'm here to talk about UPS and FedEx billing with any of you that are still on paper invoices. Federal Express and UPS both offer online services. This will allow you to build in so...

Parcel Negotiation: Saving Money is Smart So, today, I'm talking about parcel contract negotiation. More specific is the role that analytics play in that process. And of how it can be helpful to help you get the best possible contract with UPS and FedEx and ot...

Freight Audit Differences to Keep in Mind Now, there aren't a lot of differences between a freight audit from one carrier to another. But there are subtle differences in the rules that each carrier adds to their tariffs. For example, Old Dominion Freight Lines will allow up to 20 linear feet of space on the truck. After that, you get ...

Data Visualization Explained Data visualization is the graphical representation of information and data. Using visual elements like charts, graphs, and maps data visualization tools is valuable. They provide an accessible way to understand trends, outliers, and patterns in data. In the world of big data, data visualization tools and technologies are essential. We need them to an...

Freight Payment Issues Explained It is primary to ensure that all your freight payment invoices are being audited. Much of it starts with negotiating the carrier pricing that you received to begin with. Everything that follows is a result of that contract. What you need to make sure is that all your carriers adhere to ...

Freight Bill Payment Improved with Lojistic Software Lojistic helps with freight bill payment in different ways. The primary way is how it consolidates all your invoices. It combines them from all your carriers into one spot. There's also often the difficulty of timing. Not to mention when bills are coming in, who they're coming in from. There are different pricing schemas that ...

Freight Bill Audit Benefits There is a primary benefit of using a freight bill audit. That is to understand exactly where you are spending your money. Your more reputable auditors will offer GL coding as well. So within your accounting, you can make sure that you divi...

Logistics Software and What It Does One of the things about the logistics software is the easy way that we allow people to sign up for audit. One of the things we allow you to do from our website is sign up create an account. You can then connect your carriers. And from that point on we begin ...

Freight Audit Basics First, you should never pay a free bill without a freight audit. Now whether you do that yourself or whether you hire a third party to do that, they should audit every bill. The reason for that is: errors happen. In the case of freight, the errors are usually big dollar amounts. When we analyze an invoice, we have software for those errors. We look at every ...

Parcel Audit Defined Parcel audit is auditing your weekly carrier invoices to make sure they're righteous. It also makes sure you're paying the right amount every week. The three things you need to look for in a parcel audit are: Results Visibility Analytics The audit itself is a pretty commoditized service. A lot of folks do it. Also, a lot...

Rate Negotiation Considerations Rate negotiation is an important thing for customers to understand. Customers ask, "What's the difference between the different types of negotiations?" And there is one specific term that we like to use sometimes and that's a rate ...

Parcel Negotiation Basics Parcel negotiation is the time of the year when you enter into a negotiation with a parcel carrier. It could be with a carrier like UPS or FedEx. What you're trying to do is get the best of what you can get out of the carrier from a rate perspec...

FedEx business customers spending around $60,000 or more annually can expect to see a waiver of their “Money Back Guarantee” in their next FedEx Agreement revision, assuming a waiver isn’t already there.  A waiver of the FedEx Money Back Guarantee eliminates a customer’s right to a refund when FedEx fails to meet their time in transit commitment (aka guar...

You have the achy feeling that somehow, someway, your parcel shipping is draining your company of valuable revenue. Every month you see profits melt away with ever increasing shipping invoice bills that you have no idea if they are correct or just plain filled with mistakes and lost saving opportunities. What are you missing in terms of savings and knowledge abou...

Freight auditing is an all-encompassing term for a broad mix of service models, modes covered, and pricing structures that are chosen to serve your particular freight shipping situation. No two shippers are completely alike so no two freight audit solutions will work the same for all shippers. Knowing your overall freight shipping spend, what modes you primarily ship, what pricing model you pre...

A parcel audit is a great risk-free way to find out if you’re overpaying your carriers for invoicing errors and late shipments. They are easily implemented, take little to no operational effort to set-up, and can generate significant savings. But what most shippers don’t know is that a parcel audit (or freight audit) can play ...

Contrary to what you may think, the moon isn’t made of cheese, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and UPS and FedEx are not infallible. Despite the advanced technology and automated systems the carriers may use to process your invoices, there are still dozens of human inputs that occur between the time a shipping label is created and the time a package is delivered. These human inputs leave a marg...

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, but there is such thing as a free parcel audit; and chances are, you need one. Virtually every carrier invoice your company receives contains erroneous charges that should be refunded to you.  Most billing errors are the result of human error and oversight, which happens more often than you’d think. Miti...

If you’re starting to get the feeling that UPS and FedEx are taking on the personalities of the Airlines and are charging fee after fee on top of the actual shipping charges, you’re right! Anyone who ships frequently with UPS or FedEx already knows how difficult it is to make sense of the carrier invoices. Often, companies who ship more than just a few shipments each week find it nearly imp...

Over the past decade, UPS & FedEx have increased their Ground tariff rates 54.9% and their Air tariffs 61.8-66.1%. Those aren’t exactly small numbers. Adding insult to injury, these figures do not include the infamous Dimensional Weight pricing changes of 2011 and 2015… ouch! With the 2016 General Rate Increase right around the corner, equip yourself with these best practices to help mi...

Shipping costs are über-important. For an expense that makes up (on average) 10% of your top line, they definitely deserve your undivided attention. Maintaining a solid relationship with your carrier reps can lead to improved discounts, incentives, and more. No doubt you’ve worked hard to negotiate a competitive pricing agreement and it behooves you to protect aga...

If you are involved in logistics or related fields, or in an industry that depends upon logistics in order to be successful, you are well-served by knowing as much as you can about the basics of freight claims. In the event that items in transit are lost or damaged, freight claims are the means of recovering some of that lost value. However, just as in any insurance situation, it is very import...

Cost is a perennial concern in everything to do with logistics. Shipping and handling costs make up a major part of the money spent on logistics by most companies in a given year, and so, many efforts are undertaken to reduce shipping and handling costs by improving contract terms and optimizing carrier relationships. However, con...

When it comes to 3rd party logistics, not every company is familiar with the considerations involved. There are many major third party logistics advantages, but capturing them means first finding the right 3rd party logistics company for you. In a field that is growing very fast, getting a handle on the world of 3PL is not necessarily easy. Still, it is worthwhile for you to delve into 3...

If your organization is serious about capturing true value from logistics, lifting it out of the service role and making it a true profit center for your business, you will have to take steps that many more conventional organizations would not bother with. In so doing, you stand to capture millions in savings and contribute to significant gains in your sales and revenue figures based on the exc...

Wondering about your true logistics costs? Logistics costs are mutable, not fixed, so any one category of logistic cost is subject to your enterprise’s own efforts. Logistic cost analysis is a crucial first step to finding any logistic cost that is out of step with the needs and expectations of your business. In fact, it is the first thing that you need to do in order to implement a truly com...

No matter how simple or relatively complex your logistics operations may be, there are certain logistics costs that you will have to be concerned with. Luckily, professionals in most industries will have the opportunity to turn these costs over to various carriers and other logistics services and will not have to concern themselves directly with things like the cost of fuel, long haul trucks, t...

Wondering how to reduce shipping costs? It is important to cut transportation costs in order to make your supply chain agile and ensure that your logistics efforts are sustainable. Many small and medium-sized businesses do not always realize the magnitude of cost savings as applied to logistics costs. When logistics costs are streamlined, a savings of even a few fractions of a penny per transac...

To reduce shipping costs, you need to be mindful of address correction charges. These bill-backs can quickly add tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to your freight cost. Major carriers like UPS or FedEx will impose address correction charges for incorrectly-formatted or improperly addressed mail and packages. This...