Real case in production

Courier invoices: from 2 or 3 hours to about 2 minutes, on every line.

A business with a high volume of shipments checked its courier invoices in an Excel spreadsheet, and could only ever verify a sample. Here is the whole case: how the work was done, what it cost, what we built and what changed.

The case at a glance

Business: Ships goods every day
Volumes: Hundreds of lines every billing cycle
Couriers: More than one, each with its own invoice layout
Before: Sample check in Excel, 2 to 3 hours per cycle
After: About 2 minutes per cycle, 100% of the lines
Timing: 25 days from proposal to delivery
Where it runs: On the client’s server

Details and figures generalised for confidentiality: the orders of magnitude are the real ones.

The situation

Hundreds of lines on every invoice, checked by sampling.

The business ships goods every day. Every billing cycle the courier invoice arrived with its shipping statement: hundreds of shipments, each with weight, volume, zone and surcharges.

The rates were the ones agreed in the contract, but checking them meant recalculating every shipment by hand. The check was done in an Excel spreadsheet, and in the time available only a sample could be looked at. The rest was paid as it was.

Before

How the check worked, step by step.

2 to 3 hours every cycle, to look at only part of the lines.

01
Download invoice and statement

The courier PDF, one line per shipment, with amounts and extra charges.
02
Pick a sample

There was no time to look at every line: the most expensive or oddest shipments were picked.
03
Recalculate each line

Actual and volumetric weight, band, destination zone, surcharges: the contract rate, line by line, in the spreadsheet.
04
Mark the differences

Lines that did not add up went into a list, to be checked again before disputing them.
05
Dispute, or let it go

Small differences were often not worth the time of a dispute. Repeated over hundreds of lines, though, they added up.

What it cost

The time was visible. The money was not.

The yearly figures, with this case’s volumes.

Over 100 hours

a year of manual checking

2 to 3 hours every billing cycle: more than two working weeks a year, to check only a sample.

Over 1%

of a month’s spend, overpaid

With this case’s volumes, that is between €1,500 and €2,500 a year, paid without anyone noticing.

Over 70%

on a single shipment

The overcharges found on single lines ranged from over 25% to over 70%. In a sample check, lines like these slip through easily.

The solution

A program that reads the invoice and recalculates every line against the contract.

Not off-the-shelf software: the rules are the ones in this business’s contract.

It reads each courier’s PDFs according to that courier’s invoice layout.
It recalculates the cost of every shipment to the cent with the contract rates: weight, volumetric weight, band, zone and surcharges.
It puts a status on every line: compliant, overcharged, to check.
Only the lines worth a look reach a person, with the reason.
The contract has its own page: the client updates the rates alone, without going through us.
The results export to CSV or Excel.
It runs on the client’s server: invoices and rates stay in the company.

The project

25 days from proposal to delivery.

3 milestones each one verified on the client’s real data

Fixed price paid by milestone

25 days from proposal to software in use

After

About 2 minutes per cycle, and no line left behind.

About 2 minutes to load the files and get the report on every line

100% of the lines checked every cycle, not a sample

Over 70% the highest overcharge found on a single shipment

Over 1% of a month’s spend overpaid, now visible

The team no longer recalculates anything by hand: they open the report, look at the flagged lines and decide what to dispute. When the rates change, the client updates them on the contract page.

The limits

What the program does not do.

It does not dispute for you

It says which lines do not add up and why. A person decides on the dispute and sends it.

A new courier has to be added

Each courier has its own invoice layout. A new one needs its own reading template.

Rates must be kept up to date

The check is only as right as its rates. When the contract changes, they are updated on its page.

Unclear charges go to a person

A surcharge the contract does not describe clearly is not forced: it lands among the lines to check.

Do you have courier invoices to check?

Send us one invoice with the shipping statement for the same period and the agreed rates. The first check is free: we recalculate up to 20 shipments and tell you how many do not add up and on which items.

Ask for the free check

Start with the problem

Describe your invoice check.

Couriers, volumes and how you do it today. We reply by email, directly.

The first check is free and commits you to nothing
Every message gets read, there is no call centre
Fixed price and payment by milestone
Italian and English, VAT invoices
No phone call unless you want one
If nothing should be built, we will say so

Prefer to write directly? [email protected]