FAQ

Freight audit & payment consists of two services. Freight audit examines, adjusts and verifies carrier freight bills. Carrier’s freight invoices are sent in by Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and paper freight invoices. The audit process separates freight bills into “okay to pay” and “denied/needs more analysis”. Freight payment takes the file of “okay to pay” invoices to generate payments to freight carriers.

A freight audit & payment provider automates the process and digitizes all invoices. It verifies the origin and destination by matching the bill of lading to the invoice. The provider must have the ability to verify the origin and destination by matching the bill of lading matching and obtaining a signed proof of delivery. The providers’ system must be able to audit carrier invoices for the correct freight rate, discount rate and misapplied charges. It also needs to prevent duplicate invoices that have already been paid from entering the system. The provider must be able to pay the freight charges and allocate them to the appropriate ERP general ledger G/L accounts so that freight costs can be seen by the client in the way they desire.

• The Complexity of Freight Audit

With fluctuations of fuel costs, low visibility of future freight costs and complexity of carrier quotes, freight cost verification is vulnerable to human and process errors. Proper freight auditing ensures that the organization does not overpay for services.

• The High Volume of Freight Bills

Most clients have carrier rates maintained in multiple spreadsheets. Each carrier has a different freight rate in a different format. The organization has the daunting task of manually merging and managing carrier rates. The task is challenging and errors can multiply when millions of dollars is spent on freight on an annual basis.

• The High Cost of Freight Audit Processing

Freight costs include direct labor, indirect labor, equipment, postage and supply, and administrative costs. The Inbound Logistics publication estimates that freight costs can make up 10% of a manufacturer or distributors’ expense. Organizations without an automated freight auditing process are forced to perform random samples to check if freight invoices are billed correctly. Clients typically can expect an average of 2.8% annual transportation spend by automating freight auditing. By outsourcing the highly labor intensive audit process the total savings a company can expect to save a total 3%-5% of freight spend.

Clients will find that outsourcing automated freight auditing to a software company expert in logistics is the most cost effective way to perform this function. 

• Cost of processing freight invoices is reduced to pennies vs. dollars.

• Improved Carrier relationships. Quick & Accurate payments.

• Rate & Service validation savings from 3% to 5%.

• Cost avoidance opportunities typically 5%.

• More time to spend on core competencies.

• Leveraging the intellectual capital and technology of a logistics software company.

• Business Intelligence to perform what-if analysis and find opportunities for improvement.

The pre audit take place prior to carrier payment and post audit occurs after payment.

Post audit arose from the 1980 deregulation of the transportation industry. Companies performing post audit often work on a contingency basis. They collect 40-60% of the improvements obtained by renegotiating client contracts and comparing it to the improvement with the clients prior three (3) years of freight bills. 

The pre-audit provider was provided a flat fee by clients for checking freight bills for overcharges prior to carrier payment . Checks for this pre-auditing service became the core value-add process upon which the automated freight payment processing system was built. It included a verification of freight rates for compliance with the customer’s contracts, checks for previous payment, checks for shipper’s liability and other validations to meet the shipper’s requirements for payment.

Intune Logistics has a technology oriented approach that allows client to benefit from a flexible foundation, easy-to-use portal, reliable reporting and logistics experience.

Intune is an expert in small package audit & recovery, information technology and logistics. Our freight audit recovery services save clients time and money.

We believe that by providing our clients a relationship of trust we will continue to grow. The satisfaction of our clients in our services can be seen in these case studies.

Intune Logistics provides flexible, high quality freight invoice audit and payment services utilizing the latest technology. Our goal is to save our clients time and money and include the following:

• Freight Auditing / Payment

• Small Package Audit & Optimization

• Business Intelligence (BI)

• Bench Marking / Impact Analysis

• Freight Claims & Recovery

• Contract Negotiation & Consulting

Intune Logistics provides most client customization at no extra charge.

Intune Logistics can pay carriers on your behalf, or you can choose to pay carriers yourself. 

Intune Logistics Pays Carriers:

• Client Funds Intune weekly for payments due

• Private accounts and visibility

• Intune issues ACH & checks payments

• Insurance protection

• Requires no AP/IT resources

• Monthly payment processing fee

Client Pays Carriers:

• Intune provides client with a custom AP file weekly for posting in ERP system

• Client provides Intune with remittance file for posting to portals

• Client issues payments

• Requires AP/IT resources for initial setup

• No Monthly payment processing fee

Intune Logistics makes every effort to help you avoid unnecessary freight costs. These costs are often that you may have never noticed before. Here are just some ways we can help, Contact us for more.

• Accessorial Reporting

• Wrong Mode

• Low Cost Carrier

• Inactive Accounts

• Expedited Service Level

• Weight Adjustments

• Oversize, Incorrect Packaging

• No Discount scenarios

• Address Corrections

• Returns / Undeliverable

• Chargebacks

• Billing to Invalid / Inactive Accounts

• Zone Analysis

• Customs / VAT

Intune Logistics has some of the lowest setup fees and processing fees in the industry. The specific price depends on your annual expense on shipping. Please contact us for detailed information. 

Unlike others in the industry, we do not charge extra for most professional services.

Freight audit services pricing usually consisted of three parts: setup fee, processing fee, and professional service fee. Intune Logistics manages to maintain the competitive setup and processing fees, while not charging clients for most additional professional service fees.

How did we manage to do this?

• Our freight invoice processing is highly automated and completely streamlined. 

• Our technology allows us to automate the processes that our competitors do manually.

• The startup process of each new client is extremely efficient.

• Our leaders have 60 years combined years of logistics experience.

• Client Satisfaction is our first priority.

As a small start-up facing with thousands of competitors, we choose to put client satisfaction as our priority. Intune clients usually enjoy administrative reports and tools without paying any professional service fee.