AcuAudit

Leading ocean, air, drayage, D+D specialist since 2006.

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To learn more about the downside of manual processes for global freight audits, read our white paper: 5 Worst Practices for Managing Global Freight.

Downside of Manual Freight Audits

Specialist not a Generalist

The cost to manually process a global freight invoice is 53% higher than the cost of using an outsourced partner with an automated process.

Costly errors

Rate sheets used for comparisons are often outdated; if the quantity and or sizes of the containers are wrong, the invoice can look right but still be wrong.

Unsolved problems

Short paying an invoice when a discrepancy is found doesn’t resolve the issue with the carrier – a short/over claim is coming.

Reduced working capital

Overpaying or paying before disbursement is due diminishes cash flow.

The Better Way

Automate the Audit Process via Acuitive’s pre-payment global freight bill audit module receives data inputs from carriers, 3PLs and forwarders, and then automatically validates the correct invoices and isolates discrepancies. It’s a highly transparent, granular process that audits 100% of all freight bills, prompts carrier self-correction prior to payment, and reduces the time and cost of administration.

How Do Things Change with the Acuitive Platform?

Minimizes human intervention – see how Jo-Ann Stores automated and improved the ocean freight audit process.
Standardizes the process, giving you complete control over global freight audit and payment – learn about our easy, 6-step audit process.
Provides easy access to shipment history data.
Automates and adapts payments based on the credit terms and payment schedule you have negotiated.
Automates screening and detection of duplicate and missing invoices.
Improves management visibility – monthly reports document actual savings captured for clear, accurate ROI data.
Integrates automatically with most of the world’s major carriers and 3PLs – see our Integrated Providers.
Simplifies the dray audit process – Acuitive has created a dray audit module to help shippers deal with this task, made more complex with ocean carriers’ exit from the chassis business.

Bottom Line Benefits

Save money – Acuitive averages $1.4 million in discovered discrepancies per month. For one customer this was 18% of total invoicing.
Reclaim unproductive time – 99.5% of invoices get approved without your involvement.

6-Step Audit Process

Show All Steps

First, we validate that the ASN (856) and the Invoice (310) agree and are structurally correct. Any discrepancies between the invoice and the agreed terms are identified and isolated. The issuers are contacted by the Acuitive team to make any adjustments and resubmit the bill for audit.
100% of all invoices are then audited. If there is an issue, the invoice is returned to the issuer who works directly with the Acuitive team to resolve the issue, before we pass the corrected, audited invoice to the client for payment. Typically, this is done with minimal shipper involvement (as low as 0.25% of total invoices). A personalized dashboard, created by Acuitive, gives an at-a-glance view of all discrepancies, promoting quick carrier feedback and an integrated approach to dispute resolution by all parties.
Our system can then allocate costs down to the PO, Item/SKU levels and by CBM; we can additionally allocate the costs by department, division, BL destination or DC code.
The system can then automatically schedule a payment based upon your payment terms with each individual carrier. No payments are scheduled or made until all parties agree on a resolution of any discrepant invoices.
Next, our module generates an EDI 810/Approval to Pay on receipt of EDI 310 (Invoice), communicating progress to all parties. The system’s ability to automatically allocate costs, apply GL Codes, schedule payments and reconcile payments can allow your AP department to automate a very costly, manual freight audit process.
Finally, Acuitive’s EDI 820 integration completes the communication loop to inform all parties that freight payment has been issued. The 820 could include payer and payee identification, bank and account IDs, check numbers, invoice numbers(s) and billed and paid amounts, allowing carriers to reconcile payments they receive against invoices issued through the Acuitive Web portal.

Case Point

According to the CFO of a Top 30 North American Importer that moves 35,000 FEUs annually, the company saw a hundred-fold payback on the software investment.

We moved from a 1950s, paper-based process for freight bill auditing to a modern, data-driven approach that freed up time and allowed us to engage the problem-solving ability of some of our best people.

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