SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT FREIGHT PAYMENT SERVICES: BOOSTIING INVOICE IQ
FBAP@WORK
Y N
VALID DUPLICATE ACCESSORIAL TARIFFS CORRECT
ACCURACY AUDIT
PAYMENT ISSUED TO CARRIER
INVOICES RECEIVED FROM CARRIER
INVOICE ENTRY
Here’s how freight bill audit and payment services work. First, carriers send their invoices directly to the freight bill payment company, which enters the bills into its system. The company then audits the bills for accuracy. Next, the service provider codes and reconciles the charges and pays the bills. Information about transportation activity is delivered to shippers, allowing them to make intelligent business decisions.
CHARGE CODING & RECONCILIATION
REPORTING & ANALYSIS
SHIPPER DECISION- MAKING POWER
companies deliver information in usable forms, such as graphs and charts, so that more intelligent business decisions can be made concerning transporta- tion activity. Providers are able to drill down the shipping data to generate reports about how much each carrier is paid, how much is being spent in each transportation lane, whether the correct mode/carrier is being used, the potential savings of using parcel versus LTL (and vice versa), and how much is being spent on individual product groups. Shippers can then adjust their business decisions accordingly. “Getting down to these granular lev- els allows us to provide clients with intelligent data,” says John Mecchella, president and owner of Technical Traffic Consultants, Congers, N.Y., a third-gen- eration, family-owned-and-operated
company that provides customized FBAP to clients. “We capture and report information in a way that allows clients to make the most appropriate business decisions for their organization. This is where the true savings are generated.” In many cases, this information is accessible to the shipper via a Web- based portal. For instance, CassPort Internet Reporting Services, from Cass Information Systems Inc., a Missouri- based bank holding company, provides standard and customized reporting, data files, metrics, and transportation/ financial analysis through the Internet. “This makes it extremely easy to share information with customers,” says Tom Zygmunt, marketing executive at Cass. CassPort condenses data into one display, at the summary level for a day, week, month, or year. If additional data
100 Inbound Logistics • September 2009
FACING LOGISTICS CHALLENGES? USE IL’S 3PL EXPERTS AND
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