Ocean Freight Auditing Software for NVOCCs enables operational savings by helping to automate the manual audit process.
With the increase in global sourcing and logistics-related costs as a percentage of sales, ocean freight costs are now a strategic focus for business. Traditional practices of ensuring that ocean bills of lading are correct can be costly, but now auditing the bills can mean an even greater financial loss. Descartes Rate Builder™ Ocean Freight Auditenables operational savings by helping to automate the manual audit processes, while providing visibility to billing errors.
Descartes Rate BuilderOcean Freight Audit combines the speed, accuracy and ease of contract publishing of Descartes Rate Builder™with the industry leading messaging B2B integration capabilities of the Descartes Global Logistics Network™ (Descartes GLN™), giving Non-Vessel Operator Common Carriers (NVOCCs) and shippers a new tool for their financial supply chain. Connected to over 30 ocean carriers, the Descartes GLN feeds Descartes Rate Builder’s automated ocean freight audit system, providing for 100% audit of freight bills with the minimum amount of supervision and expense, enabling maximum return on investment.
Descartes Rate Builder Ocean Freight Audit offers flexible rating of business documents. It allows you to audit incoming electronic Bills of Lading or auto-rate your Advanced Shipper Notifications (ASNs) to know freight costs in advance or to allocate to commercial invoices. With Descartes Rate Builder, auditing is automated, with no more manual key entry of freight invoice information. Descartes Rate Builder Ocean Freight Audit solution enables the setting of audit tolerances, viewing error queues, and running reports. The power of Descartes Rate Builder Ocean Freight Audit integrated with Descartes Reporting Service gives NVOCCs and shippers a wide array of options to analyze and benchmark carrier performance.
Descartes Rate Builder Ocean Freight Audit helps to:
- Provide greater accuracy and volume of invoice audits
- Reduce implementation speed and costs by leveraging existing Descarates GLN connections with ocean carriers and other logistics providers
- Provide flexible pre- or post-audit options using ASNs or Bills of Lading
- Automate, streamline, and simplify the invoice reconciliation process
- Reduce or eliminate any paper processes and associated time and expense
- Provide an excellent reporting platform for score carding, benchmarking and analyzing ocean carrier performance
- Integrate the results with back office accounts payable (A/P) systems
Features of Descartes'Ocean Freight Auditing Software
Web and Desktop-based Buy Contract Management Tools
Web-based tools and the ability to use spreadsheet-based buy contract imports combine with Descartes’ industry-leading experience with publishing ocean freight rates to provide ease of use and the highest data quality.Descartes GLN Integration
Integrating electronic messaging with the Descartes GLN for searching, calculations and comparison for Descarates Rate Builder provides a fully automated solution. Automation improves accuracy and reduces costs, providing for high value and leads to compliance with many electronic business initiatives.Search, Calculate, Audit
Messages (Bills of Lading and Advanced Shipper Notifications) delivered by the Descartes GLN are imported, their contents used to search for specific rates which are calculated and the results compared to the billing information found in the Bill of Lading. When using Advanced Shipper Notification, the calculated results tell the NVO or shipper how much to pay for a particular shipment. Tolerance settings allow users to set margin for errors.Data Quality Review
Passed, failed and error queues enable customers to manage the audit process. Failed audits can be reviewed and analyzed, passed if required. Error queues enable users to identify and fix data quality issues.Integrated Reporting
Descartes Rate Builder Ocean Freight Audit’s adhoc reporting tools provide the ability to create and build key business analysis reports, including:
- Audit Pass/Fail ratios
- Error reporting to identify data quality issues
- Carrier messaging and audit score carding to analyze carrier performance
- Analysis of transportation spend across lanes, carriers and commodities
Global Contract Visibility
Optional retrieval module is available to provide visibility to carrier contract rates to ensure global operational routing decisions are compliant with procurement commitments.Back Office Integration
The combination of XML- based data transfer from Descartes Rate Builder and the superior messaging capabilities of the Descartes GLN allow for enhanced data integration options. Integrated audit information with NVO or shipper back office A/P systems enables seamless payment proces
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