Freight Auditing Technology: Benefits and Common Questions

Benefits of Freight Auditing Technology

Without freight auditing technology, it is next to impossible to have complete control of your global transportation spend. The addition of a best-in-class, tech-enabled freight audit and payment (FAP) solution pulls all the freight data captured via your tech stack, digests, cleanses, and normalizes it, and empowers your transportation leaders to make informed decisions with critical business intelligence.

IoT and Connectivity

Enhanced connectivity across your entire logistics operation empowers visibility, allows for more agility when issues arise, and reduces manpower through automation. A connected supply chain relies on the adoption of digital technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), which will only enhance your freight audit data.

IoT sensors allow for real-time, end-to-end visibility, useful in many ways:

• Aggregating carrier billing data via any transportation mode, providing new track and trace capabilities for shippers while allowing for a more robust freight audit
• Automating inventory replenishment and data about consumption trends
• Identifying trends in disruptions to eliminate bottlenecks or common issues, lowering freight costs
• Streamlining communications between shippers and carriers, ensuring a more agility with the ability to minimize disruptions and delays

Big Data Analytics

Big data analytics refers to a set of tools, systems, and technology that organizes and mines datasets for meaningful insights. With new capabilities unlocked by the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, and artificial intelligence, even the largest, unstructured data sets can be made useful. Through automation and freight audit data integration, transportation leaders have all the information they need at their fingertips.

Real-time Insights

One benefit of a technology-enabled freight audit and payment solution is the addition of a connected supply chain. When paired with the adoption of digital technologies like IoT, these software solutions supply real-time insights into every aspect of your transportation management operation, streamline communications, and future-proof your operations with predictive analytics.

Outsourcing Freight Auditing Technology

Many questions surround the benefits of a global enterprise outsourcing its audits to a freight audit and payment company. We’ve compiled the most frequently asked questions and provided answers so you can make informed and intelligent decisions when it comes to your freight audit and payment process.

How Does Outsourced Freight Auditing Technology Work?

When you outsource your freight audit and payment operations to a third party, you trust a team of experts to work through the burdensome, costly complications that accompany internal freight audits.

Issues that an outsourced FAP provider could address include the following:

• Dealing with multiple carriers with differentiating procedures, freight rates, costs, and details
• Tackling an insurmountable amount of FAP paperwork
• Devoting various, valuable internal resources to a task that will take a large chunk of their time
• Resolving mistakes, overcharges, and duplicate charges in a timely manner

What is an External Freight Bill Auditor?

An external freight bill auditor is a third-party company that inspects all of an enterprise’s carrier invoices for inaccuracies. They identify and minimize overpayments and inaccurate freight invoices, increasing cost-savings and improving freight spend data quality.

What is a Third-Party Freight Audit Like?

A traditional third-party freight audit process includes five steps: 

1. Centralizing freight invoice data
2. Categorizing and standardizing data
3. Verifying charges and items
4. Data analysis
5. Reporting

This thorough review allows transportation leaders to cut costs, optimize operations, improve data visibility, and ensure accurate and timely payments. In addition, by completing regular freight invoice audits, enterprises gain a competitive advantage.

Is an Outsourced Freight Audit Secure?

One of the main issues of outsourcing is security. It's difficult to entrust a third-party organization with vast amounts of data, compliance requirements, and a complicated network of freight costs. To mitigate this risk, look for a solution that makes transparency and data security a high priority. In addition, look for companies that are trusted in the industry and have worked with transportation situations similar to yours. Testimonials and case studies are a great place to start.

Does an Outsourced Freight Audit Generate Reliable Data?

In one word: yes. By onboarding a freight audit and provider solution that uses technology to audit every freight invoice from your transportation operation, your company gains end-to-end visibility into the data generated by your logistics operation. When compared against a cherry-picking approach to freight audit, your end-to-end data provides a holistic, reliable image of your operation.

What Do Outsourced Auditors Do with a Company’s Data?

A tech-enabled, outsourced freight audit and payment provider takes all your electronic freight invoices and ingests, cleanses, normalizes, and connects the data from your disparate systems, providing centralized business intelligence while catching errors in carrier invoices and decreasing shipping costs for your organization.

Your freight audit and payment partner should also provide comprehensive data management, which delivers a clear view of what’s currently happening in your transportation operation and what’s to come in the future. With a flexible master data management framework, which is easily customizable to your global enterprise’s needs, you can establish global pricing rules that are visible to all and seamlessly incorporated into your FAP process.

Find an Outsourced Freight Auditing Technology Provider

The days of manual, in-house freight auditing are over. In today’s volatile market, supply chain technology, automation, and end-to-end visibility are necessities, not luxuries. 

The Trax freight audit and payment process encourages global companies to move from simple freight audit and payment to total transportation spend management maturity. With Trax’s unmatched suite of products, you will drive efficiency, empower visibility, and enable cost-savings - take the first step today and contact Trax.