Did you know that on select days annually, both FedEx and UPS pause their money-back guarantees?
These blackout dates align with major holidays and peak shipping periods, including:
- Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas
- Ground shipments from Thanksgiving Monday to Christmas Eve
- Express shipments during the “Same Day Late” grace period in the week before Christmas Eve
Carriers also void money-back guarantees if additional handling is required, such as handling dangerous goods/dry ice.
Given these constraints, what else can you audit for?
- Address Corrections: If you are charged for an address correction, compare the original address and corrected addresses; if they’re close enough, you can request credit from the carrier for that address correction.
- Invalid Residential Addresses: If a package is manifested to ship to a commercial location but the driver lists the address as a residence, you can request credit from the carrier for the incorrect residential designation. You can use software tools like Sifted Logistics Intelligence to determine this.
- Service Failures: You can request a credit from the carriers if the delivery date of a package is after the ‘Due By’ date.
- Manifested but Not Shipped: If a label is printed but there’s no shipping or tracking activity associated with it, an audit can validate the unavailability of the ship date. If a ship date isn’t found after 24 days, the package is marked as ‘Manifested but Not Shipped’ and a refund request can be raised.
Why Invoice Auditing is Crucial For Supply Chains
Invoice auditing helps identify errors such as duplicate invoices, incorrect pricing, and unauthorized charges. It leads to significant cost savings by catching billing mistakes and overcharges. It also prevents overpayment and ensures contract compliance by verifying that agreed-upon rates and discounts are correctly applied.
Additionally, invoice audits highlight discrepancies between purchase orders and delivery receipts, facilitating prompt issue resolution and maintaining good supplier relationships. Regular audits also detect fraudulent activities, safeguarding the company’s finances..
FedEx and UPS invoice auditing is the process of thoroughly inspecting shipping invoices from FedEx and UPS to make sure that all charges are accurate and in line with the services provided. This auditing process helps businesses ensure they only pay for what they receive.
Here are some key reasons why UPS and FedEx Audits are essential for supply chain businesses:
Cost Control
Identify And Recover Overcharges: Carriers sometimes make billing errors, which can result in overcharges. Auditing helps identify and rectify errors such as incorrect weights, duplicate charges, and invalid surcharges. This ensures that you only pay for the services you actually received.
Monitoring Rate Increases: Regular audits can help track and manage rate increases, ensuring they align with contractual agreements and market standards.
Cost Analysis: Detailed audit reports can highlight cost-saving opportunities, such as using different service levels or carriers.
Claim Refunds
Both UPS and FedEx have service guarantees, meaning you may be entitled to refunds for damaged goods, late/incorrect deliveries, lost packages, etc. Auditing helps identify instances where deliveries did not meet the guaranteed performance, allowing you to claim refunds. You can claim refunds from FedEx and UPS under the following situations:
- Late Delivery: If a shipment is not delivered within the guaranteed time frame, you are eligible for a refund as both FedEx and UPS offer money-back guarantees for late deliveries.
- Billing Errors: For incorrect billing, such as duplicate charges or incorrect rates, you can request a correction and a refund for any overpaid amounts.
- Lost Packages: If the package is lost during transit and cannot be located, you can file a claim to receive compensation for the lost goods.
- Damaged Goods: When the contents of the shipment are damaged during transit, you can file a claim for the value of the damaged items.
- Service Failures: If the promised service level is not met, such as missed pickups, you can request a refund for the service charge due to the failure to provide the agreed-upon service.
- Invalid Delivery Attempts: When a package is marked as undeliverable despite having a valid address, it may cause significant disruptions. In such cases, you can claim a refund for the delivery charges incurred. This situation typically arises due to errors on the part of the carrier, such as incorrect scanning, misrouting, or insufficient delivery attempts.
The process begins with identifying the invalid delivery attempt, often indicated by a tracking update stating that the address was undeliverable or that the recipient was unavailable. You should then verify that the address provided was accurate and complete. If confirmed, a claim can be filed with the carrier for a refund of the delivery charges.
Additionally, you can request that the carrier redeliver the package without imposing any extra costs. This ensures that the shipment reaches its intended destination promptly, minimizing delays and maintaining customer satisfaction. In many cases, carriers like FedEx and UPS will prioritize such redelivery attempts to correct their mistake swiftly.
By addressing invalid delivery attempts through refunds and free redelivery, you can maintain your operational efficiency, uphold delivery commitments, and foster trust with your customers and partners. This proactive approach also encourages carriers to improve their service accuracy and reliability, ultimately benefiting all parties involved.
Looking to optimize and automate your invoice auditing?
Operational Efficiency
Tracking Errors: Audits can reveal lost packages and other operational errors, such as misrouted shipments. These errors can result in significant delays, increased costs, and customer dissatisfaction. Lost packages can occur due to various reasons, including incorrect scanning, routing mistakes, or mislabeling by the carriers. You can report a missing UPS package by filing a claim online.
Resolving tracking errors not only helps in recovering lost packages but also improves overall shipping efficiency.
Improving Logistics: Understanding patterns in shipping errors or inefficiencies can inform better logistical decisions and process improvements.
Contract Compliance
Ensuring Adherence: Auditing ensures that the carrier is adhering to the terms and conditions outlined in the shipping contract, including discounts, rates, and service levels.
Rate Compliance: Invoice auditing validates and ensures that that the shipping costs and fees billed to you by carriers match the rates that were agreed upon in your contract or service agreement. This process involves verifying that:
- Contractual Rates: The rates charged for shipping services are consistent with the rates specified in the contract with the carrier.
- Discounts and Promotions: Any discounts or promotions that were negotiated are correctly applied.
- Surcharges and Fees: Additional fees (e.g., fuel surcharges, residential delivery fees) are accurately billed and comply with the agreed terms.
- Rate Changes: Any changes in rates are communicated and applied correctly, without unauthorized increases.
- Service Level Agreements (SLAs): The charges align with the service levels agreed upon, such as express or standard delivery rates.
Negotiating Power: Having detailed audit data can provide leverage in negotiating better terms and rates with carriers.
With a simple setup process, Sifted’s Logistics Intelligence platform was able to quickly audit invoices and request refunds for Best Home Funishings. Sifted provided Best Home Furnishings an estimated savings of nearly $500,000 over a 36-month term—about 15% of their gross parcel spend. Need help automating your invoice audits? Get in touch with us now.
Financial Accuracy
Budget Management: Accurate auditing helps maintain precise financial records, which is essential for budgeting and financial planning.
Error Prevention: Regular audits reduce the risk of unnoticed billing errors accumulating over time, which can lead to significant financial discrepancies.
Customer Satisfaction and Retention
Quality Assurance: Ensuring that deliveries are timely and accurate contributes to higher customer satisfaction and retention.
Proactive Problem Solving: Identifying and addressing shipping issues through audits can prevent potential customer service problems.
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