Freight Validate: 3 Strategies to Streamline the Freight Validation Process

Freight charge validation processes have been slow to modernize, but today’s available solutions include automated invoice verification, real-time document management, and integrated data analytics. These tools minimize logistics providers’ risks, enhance transparency, and ensure higher standards of compliance.

In a High-Stakes Freight Landscape, Efficient Validation is Vital

Freight charge validation ensures the invoice includes all required information, such as the bill of lading and load specifics. Importantly, invoice validation also verifies the charges are actually legitimate.

Freight validation has become a critical piece in the fight against double brokering, which occurs “when a freight broker or intermediary arranges for a shipment to be transported by a carrier but then brokers that same load to another carrier without the knowledge or consent of the shipper of the original carrier,” Your Freight Broker Training said. “This practice can lead to various complications, including issues related to transparency, liability, and legal compliance.”

Your Freight Broker Training said double brokering has serious implications, including:

• Lack of accountability.
• Payment issues.
• Regulatory violations.
• Transparency and trust.

The implications are exactly the same for logistics providers that don’t have freight charge validation processes in place. There’s a lack of accountability without a digital data trail as backup. This can lead to payment issues. A lack of documentation and proof of compliance can get both carriers and freight brokers in hot water. And finally, it’s impossible to build trust without back-office transparency.

Three Strategies to Streamline the Freight Validation Process

Freight charge validation may seem daunting, but there are services available today to streamline the process through automated carrier verification, real-time document management, and integrated data analytics.

Automated Carrier Verification

Automated systems are now available to verify carrier credentials and compliance, including insurance and licensing. This reduces the time and effort required for manual verification, ensures up-to-date and accurate compliance data, and enhances carrier reliability.

Upwell’s automated verification tools simplify the entire invoice-to-income process. Our features include:

• Smart Invoices, which automate the extraction of verified payment request details utilizing artificial intelligence, reducing manual data entry errors and overlooked double brokering attempts.
• Last Check, which leverages large language models to pre-audit freight invoices against customer-specific rules, ensuring each one is absolutely accurate and complete before it leaves a logistics provider’s system.
• Distribution Automation, which guarantees those verified and accurate invoices are sent to customers exactly as they want them.

Real-Time Document Management

Electronic document management systems can be implemented to handle and validate freight documents such as bills of lading and proof of delivery. This speeds up document processing, minimizes errors, and ensures that all documents are validated in real time.

Upwell’s platform provides seamless integration for document handling, improving accuracy and reducing processing time. We have automated the freight invoice process to ensure each bill reaches its destination exactly as customers require, whether that’s through electronic data interchange, application programming interface, email, or directly into secure online portals.

Our Online Payment Portal & Options feature offers customers a variety of payment methods through a secure, easy-to-use online portal. This function accelerates cash flow and improves transparency and trust.

Our Cash Application/Remittance Processing feature ensures payments quickly find their matching – and verified – invoices, transforming what can be a painstaking process into a seamless, trusted, and error-free operation.

Integrated Data Analytics

Data analytics can be utilized to assess and validate freight data against historical trends and benchmarks. The benefits include the ability to identify inconsistencies and discrepancies, enhance decision-making, and improve overall validation accuracy.

Upwell’s analytics tools offer detailed insights and validations to support data-driven decisions and streamline freight operations.

Leave Your Freight Validation to Upwell

Upwell’s back-office software automates legacy processes, including freight charge validation. Upwell harnesses the power of AI to transform the entire freight invoice-to-income process. Our automated remittance processing, for example, reduces errors, improves the integrity of data, and enhances visibility by providing real-time insights.

Our industry-leading tools provide:

• Automated data capture and validation.
• Integration with existing financial and transportation management systems.
• Real-time tracking.

Our invoicing and accounts receivable automation platform is designed specifically for logistics and trucking. We help freight brokers validate each and every invoice — and get paid faster by automating the manual tasks that slow down their back offices.

Get an Upwell demo today.

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