4 Common Parcel Audit Misconceptions

Parcel auditing may seem unnecessary or unimportant due to the low cost of each shipment, especially since the carrier’s technology has advanced so dramatically from an operations and billing perspective. However, shipping and invoicing mistakes are still rather common.

What are Common Parcel Audit Misconceptions?

Parcel auditing is a critical factor when managing the backend of the shipping process. It’s important to monitor parcel shipping costs and freight rates in order to catch any errors made by the carriers in their invoicing.

1. It’s Easier to Complete Audits In-House
2. Audits Postpone Deliveries
3. Recognizing Audit Mistakes Causes Conflicts
4. Outsourcing Parcel Audits is too Expensive

1) It’s Easier to Complete Audits In-House

Small parcel auditing is not a quick and easy process. It takes a considerable amount of time and parcel pricing knowledge to sift through each parcel invoice in-house in order to identify errors. Once a mistake has been found, it is then a time-consuming process to file a claim with the carrier and then reconcile that the credit was actually received on a future invoice.   In-house auditing may also require advanced technology, due to the volume of shipments and complexity of the carrier pricing agreements, which can quickly become expensive.

Pro Tip: Outsourcing your parcel auditing service will give your staff the time to work on more important projects.  

2) Audits Postpone Deliveries

Some business owners think that auditing your parcels will postpone deliveries, but this just isn’t true. Especially since parcel auditing is done after the delivery has taken place. Parcel audits won’t postpone deliveries, but they are time sensitive. This is because, depending on the type of error found, you may only have 15 days to file your claim.

3) Recognizing Audit Mistakes Causes Conflicts

Many people don’t want to point out any mistakes they found during the audit process, because they don’t want to cause any issues with the carrier relationships. However, it should be a common business practice to recognize and reprove mistakes. It’s part of the carrier’s duty to ensure that parcels were delivered on time and that you are invoiced accurately according to the contract. As a reminder, the carriers have instituted these refund policies as part of their normal business practices, you are simply adhering to policies they have created and in some cases are contractually or legally bound to.

4) Outsourcing Parcel Audits is too Expensive

It’s time extensive and tedious to sort through hundreds, if not thousands of deliveries in-house. If it takes 3 minutes to audit 1 shipment, and if there are 1,000 shipments, that will take 50 hours, which is more than the average full-time work week. Most employees don’t have that kind of time on their hands. Outsourcing your parcel audits will save your staff time and help you get the most accurate refunds. As well, companies like ours work on a contingency basis, where we only get compensated once any claim has been credited to your account by either FedEx or UPS. If no errors are found, you owe us nothing! This also aligns our interests with yours in trying to maximize your return.

Don’t Believe Everything You Hear

It can be easy to believe these common parcel audit misconceptions but continue to educate yourself and your staff to ensure that you’re not believing a fallacy. Mistakes happen and must be tracked in order to reimburse lost revenue. It’s just a part of the shipping management process.