Managing and optimizing your freight invoice audit and payment process is crucial for cost control and operational efficiency, but a freight audit shouldn’t be the only tool you use to ensure data accuracy. Let’s look at three reasons why leveraging Transportation Management System (TMS) technology alongside your freight audit process should be the next step you take in your journey from just having data on hand to using it to making it actionable.
Improve Communication with Your Customers and Carriers
A TMS streamlines shipment execution and provides real-time visibility into freight movements. Organizations can enhance communication with their customers and carriers, ensuring planned transportation aligns with executed moves. Integrated TMS and freight audit data verifies that invoiced shipment charges apply to shipments executed, and ensures carriers accurately bill all executed shipments.
Plan for the Unexpected
One of the significant advantages of utilizing TMS technology in freight audit processes is the ability to anticipate and manage unexpected charges. By tracking accruals and comparing planned vs. billed charges, organizations can proactively identify discrepancies and resolve billing issues promptly. This proactive approach to managing freight costs helps organizations maintain financial transparency and mitigate unexpected expenses, particularly when it comes to customer billing for freight services.
Establish, Understand and Leverage Key Metrics
Utilizing a TMS empowers organizations to establish, understand and leverage key metrics that drive operational efficiency and cost optimization. By tracking metrics such as freight cost as a percentage of sales, organizations gain insights into freight performance and identify areas for improvement. Whether treating freight as a profit center or a pass-through cost, understanding freight costs and related metrics is essential for informed decision-making and strategic planning. This data-driven approach not only enables organizations to negotiate better rates with carriers, but also improves overall financial management and operational effectiveness.
Freight Audit + TMS: So Many Benefits
Integrating TMS technology into your freight audit process is an essential strategy for enhancing visibility, optimizing costs and improving operational performance. By leveraging TMS capabilities alongside a rigorous freight audit process, you’ll be able to communicate more effectively with your customers, carriers and internal stakeholders and better plan for exceptions that inevitably occur. Ultimately, the clean data you acquire by implementing these execution and compliance mechanisms delivers powerful business intelligence that drives informed decision-making in your freight management program.