Updated: 03-25-25
Key Takeaways
Supply Chain Resilience is Critical – Ongoing disruptions require enterprises to assess vulnerabilities and optimize logistics.
Types of Freight Audits – Logistics audits assess costs and efficiency, risk assessments identify disruptions, and freight invoice audits ensure accurate billing and cost allocation.
Data-Driven Decision-Making – Effective audits require strong data integration, compliance monitoring, and governance practices.
Technology is Key – AI, automation, and freight audit software streamline processes, cut costs, and improve efficiency.
Proactive vs. Reactive Auditing – Regularly scheduled audits, rather than crisis-driven assessments, enhance visibility and control.
Freight Audit Outcomes – Improved compliance, cost savings, operational efficiency, and strategic risk mitigation.
Why Outsource? – Partnering with a global freight audit provider like Trax frees internal resources, provides expert insights, and optimizes transportation spend.
From labor shortages, scarce resources, port closures, delays, and more - the supply chain has been at the forefront of conversations for years. And the conversation isn’t over. Now more than ever, supply chain leaders are asking essential questions.
What are the current supply chain conditions? What are the supply chain’s most prominent threats? How can we mitigate risks and improve supply chain resiliency?
Published in February 2022, the US Department of Transportation completed the Freight and Logistics Supply Chain Assessment, which addresses current vulnerabilities and challenges in transportation and logistics while developing strategies to build more resilient supply chains.
This freight audit assessment provided key market-wide insights and may serve as a model for supply chain leaders conducting a thorough logistics audit.
Read on to learn how enterprises can manage logistics and audits efficiently.
Trax offers a unique approach to transportation spend management, focusing on end-to-end visibility into the supply chain. By leveraging the right global freight audit software, companies can scale and ultimately become more resilient.
Types of Audits and the Role of Freight Audit Software
The Freight and Logistics Supply Chain Assessment was a holistic evaluation centered around the challenges faced by shippers and carriers, mainly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s important to note that this assessment covered multiple audit areas, including the following:
Logistics Audit
A logistics audit measures a company’s performance in logistics operations to save money and improve customer satisfaction. It collects data related to logistics costs like staff and productivity, inventory management, warehouse planning and layout, and operational efficiency.
Data availability and security were major focus areas for the USDOT's February 2022 assessment. These must be considered when conducting an internal logistics audit.
For example, measuring performance requires examining the Freight Data Management system and determining whether analysts can access all the data they need to derive meaningful insights. Likewise, assessing cybersecurity risks and inventory issues contributes to assessing a freight company's overall performance.
Risk Assessment
A risk assessment is necessary to determine specific vulnerabilities and cost drivers on a global scale. The USDOT report found that bottlenecks related to a limited chassis supply were a major risk for shipping delays.
McKinsey & Company emphasizes the importance of investigating known and unknown risks. While managing known risks involves early identification and documentation, unknown risk management relies on strong defenses and developing a risk-aware culture.
Freight Invoice Audit
When the supply chain is disrupted, freight costs inevitably rise. Therefore, having the right freight invoice audit software in place is one way to remain resilient in the current market. A modern FAP audit covers the following components:
- Data integration
- Data management
- Digital Auditing, including verification of carrier invoices for accurate billing
- Allocating costs and sending payments
- Analyzing and reporting on relevant data
Other Internal Audits
Some internal audits fall outside of freight invoice audits.
Additional components of an internal freight audit include more long-term audit planning, standardized reporting and communication of results, and timely follow-up on findings.
Supply Chain Brain identifies five core tenets of achieving supply chain excellence, summarized in the following areas.
- Remaining Customer-centric: Remembering that the purpose of the business is to serve the customer guides the operations.
- Market Segmentation: Treating different market segments appropriately ultimately improves ROI.
- Business Agility: Being ready to adapt to market volatility is an asset that cannot be understated.
- Data-driven Optimizations: Optimizing inventory, spending, and other resources requires having enough data to support business decisions.
- Leveraging Technology: While AI and ML aren’t replacing humans, leveraging technology that can help automate basic tasks and increase efficiency is essential.
Evaluating a company's performance in these areas adds another layer to the internal audit so businesses can make informed decisions and have real-time visibility.
Outcomes of Freight Audits and the Role of Freight Data
The key to freight auditing is developing a structured approach to risk assessment and visibility. Rather than completing an audit when a problem arises, businesses must proactively schedule freight invoices and other internal audits to remain competitive in the market.
While freight auditing has many positive outcomes, the areas below represent the largest opportunities for enterprises.
Compliance and Visibility
Data compliance is at the core of a freight audit, which spans all invoices, shipments, and rates. This results in a thorough audit of charges, liabilities, discrepancies, and duplicates to achieve settlement and payment.
Business compliance, including compliance with carrier contracts and routing guides, is also important in freight contracts. Without visibility, buyers will refuse to sign a supplier agreement unless they can prove compliance.
Freight Audit Controls
Freight audits provide more visibility into the entire billing process. Controlling freight audit functions frees up internal resources that could be better spent servicing customers. Ultimately, this control over transportation performance and spending sets businesses apart in supply chain performance.
Governance and Reporting
Data governance practices and policies impact the freight audit process, including how information is collected, structured, and maintained. Employing the right technology for freight audit processes saves time and results in more comprehensive data for strategic business planning.
Automating Productivity
With the right freight audit software, businesses can automate freight audits for liability, tax accuracy, duplicates, and contracted rates. By removing some of the manual processes, operations can be optimized. This cuts costs, streamlines processes, reduces errors and allows continuous improvement.
Tools for Freight Invoice Audits: Leveraging Freight Data for Cost Savings
Similar to the comprehensive assessment conducted by the USDOT, the outcome of a Trax freight audit service gets to the root causes of issues. Trax’s Global Freight Audit solutions differentiate itself from traditional freight auditing systems by helping industry leaders work towards becoming proactive in their transportation spend management.
Outsourcing freight audit functions can help businesses focus on core operations and gain specialized expertise and advanced analytics to optimize freight spend and achieve significant cost savings.
To speak to an expert in freight audit management solutions, contact Trax today.