Auditing is time-consuming, complicated and often confusing. Shippers can partner with 71lbs to take that weight off their shoulders and get back to business.
Time is money for you and your parcel carrier. For businesses, time spent auditing shipping invoices is time not being spent on other activities that generate profit. For your carrier, being on time makes them money while being late costs them ... if they own up to it, that is. Not every carrier is going to admit to a service failure that would impact their bottom line.
Unfounded trust in big shippers like UPS and FedEx means many shipping departments assume receipts are accurate. Sloppy billing practices and sneaky omissions are just two of the reasons every business should audit every shipping receipt, but there’s reluctance to do so. After all, it’s a complex, time-consuming task that may not even pay off.
It’s a necessary labor if a business has any hope of making the most of its shipping budget. Let’s look at the reasons why shipping audits are essential, and how your company can complete them without doing a single bit of work.
The benefits of regular auditing
We’ve already established that saving money on shipping receipts is the first benefit. An article in the Journal of Commerce revealed some shockingly high errors on shipping invoices. Some estimates say 30 percent of all invoices have an error, while others warn that big parcel shippers could be losing up to $150,000 on invoice errors.
Large business or small, careful auditing provides two other advantages:
- It sends a clear message to your carrier that shoddy practices and questionable math won’t be tolerated.
- Auditing helps deepen a shipping department’s understanding of the wider shipping process. Mystery usually means you’re losing money, so it pays to understand how bills are calculated.
Logistics variables fluctuate, but carrier accuracy shouldn’t
Consider the price of fuel, for example. No matter which shipper you use by air, sea or land, they will all add fuel costs to their overall charges. Fuel prices rise and fall, meaning that the cost of shipments could differ as regularly as month to month. This fact is good to know, but it can make shippers relax their guard when noticing price fluctuations.
There are so many moving parts to a shipping invoice based on volume, destination and time of year that, before you know it, surcharges and fees can make a costly dent in your budget. Some of them will be necessary, but many may be the result of carrier error or simple lax performance.
Invoices are tough to read and can be pages long. This makes the hunt for errors a real slog. Even when they’re found, a shipping department’s labors don’t end there. FedEx and UPS will then require an often-lengthy claims process of phone calls, emails, and debate, which only doubles the effort and the time lost. Worse, they give businesses a limited period to notice errors and get a refund claim underway.
Businesses need a logistics partner who can study invoices closely and provide results that make shipping operations swifter, surer and cheaper. That’s the kind of outcome 71lbs specializes in providing.
We’ll happily handle every step of your shipping audits
When you hand over shipping audits to us, you get the best possible result without doing any of the work. The 71lbs team uses our logistics expertise to dissect invoices into 65 different categories and root out errors that could be responsible for up to 30 percent of your company’s shipping spend.
Our insight gives you the complete picture of where, how, why and what you’re being charged. This advice will revolutionize your shipping by giving you complete awareness and the maximum possible refunds/savings on every invoice. We make sure FedEx and UPS credits 100 percent of your shipping costs directly back to your account if they’re even 60 seconds late on a delivery.
Our combination of human vigilance and state-of-the-art data analytics take the mystery out of shipping metrics. Real-time, at-a-glance information empowers our customers to hold carriers accountable for the service they’re paid to provide. If they let you down, we file the claims and fight for them until you get what you’re owed.
We also allay fears that outsourcing could be just another heavy expense. We don’t charge a signup fee and there’s no monthly membership fee. In short, we don’t get paid unless you do. Our happy customers attest to the massive savings they’ve made by joining up with us. Connect with 71lbs today and find out how effortless audits can be.
At 71lbs, we focus on two things: a) helping customers save money on shipping, and b) helping customers understand their shipping costs. We provide you refunds, savings in shipping insurance, freight, and imports, among others. Our automated dashboard displays easy-to-understand shipping costs and insights so you can make better business decisions. Drop by the contact page to get in touch!
