FREIGHT AUDIT + PAY\\\


exceptions or a poor delivery experience,” Testani tells podcast listeners before telling Freight Business Journal: “Shippers are increasingly looking for sophisticated global technology providers who can help them truly understand their transportation spend, monitor carrier performance, and arm them with the tools required to cut costs and reduce time-in- transit while improving customer experience—all of which seem to be in contradiction with one another.” You’ll find no contradiction


there from Steve Beda, EVP, Customer Solutions at Trax.


“The biggest shiſt in


the FAP sector is more focus on data management and the rich analytics that result from augmented data, than simply a core audit of carrier invoices,” he says. “While audit remains an important part of the value proposition, there is great long-term value in generating what we call Transportation Spend Intelligence as part of an overall Transportation Spend Management strategy.” In other words, in addition


to its bread-and-butter work processing, polishing, and proving payment of carriers’ freight bills, Trax,


like Intelligent Audit, is


pulling more value from so many petabytes of invoicing data. (Just how much data? A zettabyte is composed of 1 million petabytes; one petabyte contains the rough equivalent of 20 million four- drawer filing cabinets filled with text.)


Bigger expectations


While FAPs improve their management of Big Data, their clients are expecting even more from all that potential—and from the FAPs harnessing it. “Shippers are demanding more


visibility to complex spend and wanting to more control over transportation spend in general,” Beda says. Last year, executives cited


a 1970s study saying shippers overpaid $7 billion a year to carriers. Nowadays, FAPs typically save shippers 3-5% in their annual transportation spend by catching inappropriate accessorial charges and service levels, recurring billing errors, and even shipping labels with the slightest inaccuracies. Additionally, FAPs say they


streamline shippers’ own bookkeeping shops. “Trax has also invested in


Tectonic technologic al shiſts


While tectonic technological shiſts appear to be creating a consultative space within the FAP sector, Craig Cameron, vice president, Sales & Marketing at A3 Freight Payment, says: “A3 has chosen to remain focused on our core competency of providing a reliable, customized, freight payment solution for complex shippers, rather than trying to maximize revenue opportunities at the expense of our customers/ core business.” He mentions a new client, a


manufacturer that partnered with a company specializing in last- mile delivery; the manufacturer’s newly expanded distribution model now included shipping and product installation.


2 2>>


making the core FAP process more efficient by automating workflows, using online, web- based collaboration tools that were traditionally performed using email, phone, and yes, sometimes even a fax machine,” Beda says. For instance, customers use


Trax data to drive Requests for Proposal, thereby improving contract pricing and RFP compliance. That “optimization strategy” saved clients 5-15% in the last 12 months, Beda says. Another case study illustrates


how FAPs are flexing their technological and Big Data muscles to help clients beyond their core green-visor auditing operations.


In this instance, a global


manufacturer of children’s toys sought out Intelligent Audit. The problem? Toys “R” Us shuttered, leaving the manufacturer scrambling. Now what? “In order to identify


opportunities to capture lost business,” the case study says, “Intelligent Audit evaluated all transportation going to each individual toy retailer around the world—analyzing both frequency of shipments, as well as types of SKUs.” The result: A decision to open


pop-up locations in high-demand markets, while remaining mindful of the manufacturer’s other crucial distribution channels, namely Walmart and Target. IA helped negotiate new contracts between the manufacturer and its carrier partners, while also adjusting volume forecasts and creating volume incentives.


“Rather than traditional


transportation invoices, this solution produced invoicing that contained installation charges, management fees, warehouse fees,


and other associated


charges,” he says. A3 simplified all that, creating


a customized Electronic Data Interchange, or EDI, feed for the new partners. The program, among other value-added bells and whistles, validated installation codes at the product/ SKU level.


“Prior to A3’s involvement,


the manufacturer had no audit of these charges and limited reporting,” he says. “In the first two weeks, A3 identified over $25K in billing errors.” Likewise, CT Logistics also


prefers to hew to its tried-and- true freight audit and payment business model; aſter all, it’s worked well for the company since 1923. Nowadays, of course, the company provides its own distinguishing services through two unique applications, online


Issue 8 2018 - FBJNA


and off. CT’s TranSaver, now more than 30 years old, operates along the lines of a co-op, whereby shippers collaborate for stronger buying power from participating carriers. The second program is FreitWeb LCR, which stands for Least Cost Rating. The interactive portal, integrated with TranSaver, lets shippers shop carriers, plan shipments, and allows users to populate and print a standardized bill of lading, and tender the shipment online.


21 In making a specific point about


current trends in the FAP sector, Allan J. Miner, CT’s president, cites increasing capacity constraints in the trucking industry. At the same time, those limitations help drive shippers’ demand for the company’s technology to rate- shop and tender their loads. “CT has also seen an increase


in benchmarking carriers’ rates and bid negotiation services due to higher truckload costs and less equipment commitments to clients,” he says.


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