Speed is important when it comes to parcel auditing. For shippers, there’s a small window of time immediately following an invoice being posted to your account when claims and disputes can be filed against billing mistakes. It’s crucial to capitalize on the fraction of time available to catch those refunds. The quality of the audit is dependent on the speed at which that audit occurs. During this time, each refund must be captured or lost forever. What are some ways good parcel auditors expedite the auditing process without sacrificing accuracy along the way?
Rapid credit delivery
You can either take the slow track or the fast track to get refunds returned to you and we’ve detailed the different credit delivery methods in a recent blog post. Basically, there are three different ways in which refunds can be paid by the carriers. Credits are either applied to shipping invoices, your credit card or sent via a check in the mail. If credits are applied directly to shipping invoices, this is the best indicator that your audit is being performed at the highest speed and with the highest probability of recovering a maximum refund. Filing claims during the time period between when shipping invoices are posted to the account and when payments are transacted on the invoices provide the best results. The credits lower the total amount of the invoice and filing the claims quickly increases the success rate of the refunds delivered.
Credits applied to your credit card on file implies that you pay via credit card stored with the carriers and that payment has already been transacted on the open invoice. If all of your refunds are coming in the form of refunds to your credit card then that means your auditor is late in filing disputes and claims. Similarly, the refund via check is a sign of a slow audit and claim filing service. So, if you’re getting your refunds via check or via credit card refund, it’s likely your audit is slow and not supplying complete refunds or missing refunds altogether.
EPISCS audits are performed with proprietary software that delivers industry-leading numbers on speed and precision in the analysis performed on each shipment. FedEx and UPS bill customers on a weekly basis and new invoices are added to a shipping account each week. EPISCS retrieves these invoices and processes the shipments within immediately. Giving you rapid results.
Real-time reports
Since carriers bill on weekly cycles, reports are available there on weekly cycles. Shipment auditing companies that report monthly most likely operate using a system incapable of processing invoices and filing claims in the same week that shipping invoices are posted to your carrier accounts. If they are incapable of reporting findings within the same week, then they’re not getting the audit done within the week. They’re missing refunds along the way, simply because the system can’t process fast enough. This suggests a slower, less qualified audit and ultimately lost dollars for you. When it comes to shipment auditing, speed should not be neglected but used to your advantage.
Superior bandwidth
Another way to assess the speed capabilities of an auditing system is to consider minimums. Some parcel auditing companies won’t do business with any company that spends under a certain amount with the carriers each year, say $1 million. This isn’t about being choosy. It’s more about a limited amount of bandwidth, which speaks to the lack of sophistication in automation and severe limitations. Just think about peak season around the holidays. Would all the shipments be properly audited and claims filed if there’s a limit to how many shipments an auditor is willing to evaluate? Probably not. Generally speaking, companies that require minimums are not the same companies that excel at scale or speed, and most likely not the best auditor for your business.
EPISCS’s baseline for processing audits is one thousand shipments per hour. The length of time an audit takes is dependent on the number of shipments within a given invoice, but once finished the results are published to a customer’s EPISCS account. There’s no lag in feedback and results are available immediately. EPISCS scales with your business and keeps up with the needs of a growing company. Failure to meet capacity or exceeding capacity is not a problem for EPISCS customers.
Speed is important in shipment auditing to maximize refunds. How your refunds are being credited, how the credits are being reported and the application of minimums all point to how speedy a shipment auditing company is in its process.
Ready to see fast results? Check out EPISCS.
