What is freight invoice audit?

Freight invoice audit checks carrier and 3PL invoices against rate cards, bills of lading and proof of delivery before you pay. ALK flags overbilling, duplicate charges and short shipments, with the source of each finding.

Which documents does ALK compare?

Carrier invoices, rate cards, bills of lading, proof of delivery and customs entries.

Do we need to change carriers or systems?

No. Send invoices by email or upload them, and ALK returns a list of variances to review.

Stop paying for freight you did not agree to.

Carrier overcharges, surprise accessorials, and 3PL bills that do not match activity are easy to miss. ALK checks every invoice against your rates and shipping documents before month close.

Get started See how it works

What changes with ALK

Freight finance, before and after ALK.

Freight invoice audit

Before

Spot checks on a sample

With ALK

Every invoice checked

Carrier overbilling

Before

Found after payment

With ALK

Caught before month close

3PL reconciliation

Before

Spreadsheet matching

With ALK

Only exceptions reach your team

ALK running on a desktop computer in a sunlit office

THE DISPUTES

1 in 5 invoices disputed.

One food shipper moving 15,000 to 20,000 containers a year sends about 20% of its ocean freight invoices to dispute. Two full-time staff do nothing but audit freight bills, and some disputes have lasted more than a year.

Jason Lloyd, Interra International, at the Journal of Commerce TPM 2017 conference, as reported by FreightWaves (American Shipper), Mar 2017

ALK checks every invoice the day it arrives, so a dispute starts before you pay, not after.

MONDAY AT HARROWGATE

See carrier invoices checked before anyone pays them.

Connect the inbox where invoices land. ALK checks each one against your rates and delivery records, and shows its work. Here’s how.

app.alk.work/integrations

ALK integrations, with the Gmail inbox connected.

The freight audit’s start step set to Gmail: every new email with an attachment is added and run automatically.

24 carrier invoices sorted: 17 approve to pay, 5 dispute, 2 waiting on proof of delivery.

ALK explaining why invoice GLH-20909 goes to dispute: fuel billed at 38% against a contracted 32%.

Harrowgate’s rate confirmation showing fuel at 32% of linehaul, next to the value ALK read.

The Dispute stage listing five invoices and the reason for each.

ALK Analyst: disputed dollars by carrier, $13,743.50 in dispute and $59,513.93 approved to pay.

Telling Pulse what to watch: warn me when more than $10,000 is in dispute.

Pulse dashboard: $13,743.50 in dispute, $3,743.50 over the $10,000 alert.

Replay

Every step in that run is a tool you can use on its own. Here’s each one.

Audit carrier bills

Catch carrier overbilling before you pay.

ALK checks every carrier invoice against your rate confirmation, bill of lading and proof of delivery, and flags the charges you did not agree to, with the source line one click away.

Get started

ALK PRODUCT SUITE

Freight Invoice Audit | Harrowgate 3PL Home Supply

Add Document

Reset results

Run

Export

3 of 24

Page 1 of 4

69%

Fields

Freight invoice GLH-20909 HGS-L-26-0903.pdf

Billed linehaul

1260.00

Agreed linehaul

1260.00

Billed fuel surcharge %

Contract fuel surcharge %

Classify Audit Result result

Dispute

AI Reasoning

The invoice bills a 38% fuel surcharge, while the rate confirmation specifies an agreed fuel surcharge of 32% of linehaul. Because the billed percentage is higher than the contracted percentage, the packet must be disputed.

Source Quote

"Fuel surcharge (38% of linehaul)"

Main24

Waiting on POD2

Dispute5

Approve to pay17

Create New Stage

View run

Hover a charge to see its source

Bill clients

Bill every client for every pallet.

Before client invoices go out, ALK checks them against warehouse activity and each client's rate card, so unbilled storage, old rates and missed charges get fixed first.

Get started

ALK PRODUCT SUITE

Client Billing Review | Harrowgate 3PL Home Supply

Add Document

Reset results

Run

Export

	Document	Invoice total	Check Invoice Match result

Main12

Ready to send8

Fix before sending4

Create New Stage

View run

Click a stage

See the spend

See where your freight money goes.

Ask in plain words and ALK charts spend by carrier, split into linehaul and fuel, with every figure traced back to the invoices it came from.

Get started

ALK PRODUCT SUITE

Split each carrier into linehaul and fuel surcharge dollars.

	A	B	C
1	Carrier	Linehaul	Fuel Surcharge
2	Great Lakes Haulage Ltd.	19470	6306
3	TransNorth Freight Inc.	19790	5937
4	Maple Line Transport	16860	5226.6
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Linehaul vs Fuel Surcharge by Carrier

Every figure traces back to its invoice rows

Watch disputes

Know when disputes pass your limit.

Pulse keeps this week's disputes, the clean-to-pay total and missing proofs of delivery on one screen, and flags the moment disputes pass the limit you set.

Get started

ALK PRODUCT SUITE

Carrier invoices this week

LIVE

Invoice Dollars by Carrier and Audit Status