Worldwide demand for shipping has increased drastically in recent years for nearly every kind of business. The global shipping infrastructure helped facilitate continuing operations and expanded eCommerce through a difficult time. But this has left many companies over-reliant on shipping companies. Shipping companies can commonly overlook mistakes with the millions of packages they deal with every day. They also don’t have a great track record of charging acculturate prices to their customers. In fact, UPS was even ordered to pay $8.4 million due to overcharged fees from one lawsuit in 2019. Businesses that weren’t even significantly dependent on shipping before can now find themselves at the mercy of shipping companies just to be able to continue to do business. You need to be able to count on and trust that your shipping provider is doing its job and charging you fairly.

This expanded reliance on shipping companies has put a lot of stress on the system. It also regularly leads to errors and delays from shipping companies. Shipping isn’t cheap, and you don’t want to pay more than you have to. You also count on your shipments to arrive when you are told they will. Late deliveries hurt the image of your business. They can even have serious impacts on your revenue. A shipping audit can be a simple way to make sure that you’re not paying more than your fair share for shipments and that you’re also getting any refunds due to you from late deliveries.

What Is a Shipping Audit?

A shipping audit is a process of verifying your entire supply and delivery chain by checking invoices for shipment inconsistencies. This can help verify the health of your overall shipping ecosystem. It can also be incredibly useful to prevent overpayment and inefficiencies. At many large organizations, a dedicated shipping audit team is constantly working to verify that invoices have been billed accurately for shipments and that the company’s entire shipping infrastructure is as efficient as possible.

Most organizations won’t have an entire department working exclusively on shipping audits. But auditing a shipping carrier is an absolute must for any business that relies on deliveries to conduct business. Trusting your overworked and often understaffed shipping carrier to get everything right with delivery and billing for your shipments will often leave you overpaying for less efficient shipping than you bargained for.

The Advantages of Shipping Audits

A robust system of auditing your shipping carrier is part of guaranteeing that your expenditures are buying you exactly what you pay for. Without verification, small inconsistencies can build up over time and result in serious losses. Protecting your investments in your shipping systems and ensuring that your carrier fulfills its end of the contract is an essential part of protecting your organization’s assets and interests.

Shipping audits are essential for controlling the often high costs of shipping. As a result, many organizations will reach out to experts for help on the matter. Experienced auditing services can often help streamline the process by giving organizations access to a highly sophisticated auditing infrastructure to ensure the accuracy of shipping accounts.

Establishing a system of regular shipping audits can have numerous benefits for your operation, including:

• Breaking down exactly what all shipping costs are and revealing opportunities to improve efficiency with your carrier
• Identifying late deliveries and other opportunities for reimbursement from your shipping carrier
• Finding ways that your carrier isn’t living up to the service they’ve promised

Your shipping audit gives you insight into how your entire shipping ecosystem works. Then you can find the most efficient path in the future. Also, you may be able to recoup any money you are owed from past services.

How Does a Shipping Audit Save You Money?

Without regular shipping audits, your shipping invoice costs and fulfillment service quality are left in the hands of another organization entirely. You may have a great relationship with your shipping carrier and trust them. But they will always prioritize their business over your company. A shipping audit may find an invoice irregularity in your favor once in a while. But if you’re not watching your invoices, the shipping carrier is usually coming out on top.

If you are involved in any sort of eCommerce, it’s not only what you’re charged on your invoices that could be selling you short on the shipping carrier’s obligations to you. Late deliveries affect your reputation and potentially your income. When your shipping carrier guarantees a delivery date and fails to meet that date — even if only by a minute — you are often due a refund. Your late shipment has already harmed your reputation and impacted the service that you provide. So you definitely shouldn’t be paying more than you have to for it.

With so many shipments delayed due to the increased burden on the entire shipping infrastructure around the globe, this could potentially add up to a significant amount of money that you are due back from your carrier. Without a shipping audit, these delivery inconsistencies will often go unnoticed, resulting in extra expenditures and missed opportunities.

Increase Efficiency and Get Refunds for Late Deliveries

The costs of shipping are high enough as it is. You can’t afford to be paying more money than you should be. Our increased dependency on shipping to do business isn’t likely to go away soon, and a thorough shipping audit is the best way to keep your efficiency high and make sure you get any refunds for late deliveries that you’re entitled to.

Here at Util Auditors, we know how important controlling shipping costs can be. One invoice line can potentially indicate multiple erroneous charges that could add up to serious losses. Contact us today for a free review and see what you could potentially save with a shipping audit.