About the business
I run a distribution business. We ship to customers every day using several carriers, and every carrier sends invoices. A small accounts team pays them.
The problem: no way to check, so we paid
Our agreed rates lived in contract files and old email threads. Shipment records lived in a different system. When an invoice came in, nobody had time to open both and compare them line by line. The team glanced at the total and paid it.
Every so often someone spotted something odd. A rate higher than we'd agreed. A fee nobody remembered. The same shipment billed twice.
But we had no idea how often it happened, because we weren't looking at every bill. We were catching the ones that happened to look strange.
Disputes were worse. Once a truck left our dock, we had little visibility into what happened next, so arguing about a late or damaged delivery came down to whose memory was better.
What we changed: every line matched to the rate and the shipment
We built the check around two things we already had.
First, agreed rates went into one place, organized by carrier, route and weight band. Second, each invoice line was linked to the matching shipment record.
Now, when an invoice arrives, every line is compared against both:
- Rate: does it match what we agreed for that carrier and route?
- Weight: does the billed weight match what we actually shipped?
- Fees: is every extra charge one the contract allows?
- Shipment: can we find the shipment at all?
If everything matches, the invoice goes forward for payment. If anything doesn't, that line is flagged for a person to review. They go back to the carrier with the facts and ask for a correction before we pay.
The approach comes from SAP Transportation Management work on much larger supply-chain systems, scaled down to fit a business our size. It doesn't need to be heavy, and it doesn't need SAP.
Two honest points. Software finds the differences. It doesn't win the argument with the carrier, so a person still handles every dispute. And the check is only as good as the rates you put in. Getting the agreed rates right was the first job, and the most tedious one.
The result: we stopped paying blind
The team doesn't read every invoice line by hand anymore. They look at the flagged ones. Corrections get requested before payment, which is far easier than asking for money back afterwards.
And for the first time, I can see how often each carrier's bills differ from what we agreed. That's a very useful thing to have open on the table when a contract comes up for renewal.
If your shipments also feed a warehouse, the same logic applies to stock counts that go stale by lunch. And if this sounds like one of several tools your team is stitching together, here's how one business turned six into one.
If you pay carrier invoices without checking each line, tell us how many carriers you use and where your rates are kept today. We'll tell you honestly whether a check is worth building at your volume.
Free tool audit
List the tools you pay for and how work moves between them. We'll show you what overlaps, what to cut, and whether building anything is worth it.
- Free
- Reply within 24 hours
- No obligation