Your recovery audit company can function as a valuable source of savings and business intelligence. Together, these two attributes can make a direct impact on your bottom line. However, not all recovery audit companies are created equally.
Because of this, it’s imperative for you to know how to choose the best recovery audit company. In other words, you should be able to audit the recovery audit company.
Fortunately, we’ve outlined a few top questions to ask a potential recovery audit company prior to hiring them. Read on to learn more, and don’t hesitate to reach out to the team at Trans Audit.
How Long Has the Freight Audit Company Been In Business?
As one of the most quintessential items on any checklist, it’s important to understand the company’s reputation and financial stability before hiring them. For the most part, the longer the company has been in business the better.
The company’s ability to remain in business usually speaks to its proven ability to audit freight bills and recover lost profits. While you may not rule out a potential company if they are new or haven’t been in business for an extended period of time, this could serve as a red flag.
On the other hand, an experienced, well-established recovery audit company will have demonstrated proven expertise. You can leverage this expertise to prevent future over-billing, duplicate payments, and other issues.
What Type of Technologies Are Involved in the Provider’s Audit Process?
Before choosing a recovery audit company, you should have some level of understanding as to how their technology works. This is key because technology is the starting point for any freight bill or accounts payable recovery audit. And industry technology tends to change at a remarkable pace.
Ask about their certifications and IT audits to make sure an older infrastructure doesn’t prevent reporting, ap recovery audits, and analytics. Recovery audit companies that utilize highly automated processes can ensure your team is only needed in rare instances or exceptions.
The best freight audit companies will utilize industry-leading platforms and software that is integrated into your freight management software and business intelligence systems. These systems can deliver tailored analytics and reporting.
Does the Freight Audit Company Have Global Expertise?
Anytime global shipments are involved, they are required to be compliant with different rules for routing. Because of this, it’s imperative the freight audit company you choose has the capability to track multiple shipments and verify carriers using different:
- Tax laws,
- Geographies, and
- Transportation modes.
Understanding the logistical differences across South Asia, the American subcontinent or Europe are all key parts of the accurate global freight bill and invoice auditing. To gain insight into the provider’s capabilities, ask about their in-house expertise with other languages and how they handle currencies from different countries.
Does the Provider Offer Real-Time Visibility and Claims Tracking?
Most businesses and logistics departments strive to lower costs and gain actionable business intelligence. To help you achieve these goals, any reputable recovery audit company should ensure rapid normalization of data.
If you choose the wrong provider, you could end up waiting several days or even weeks for key data. However, you can gain insight into a provider’s capabilities by requesting proof of concept. The best providers will offer real-time visibility into data that takes minutes to load — or hours at the most.
Ask Whether the Provider’s Processes Are Fully Automated?
When a service provider delivers freight audit services through a fully integrated process, you can be certain you’ll recover all possible overcharges based on the contract terms. Specifically, when the provider’s freight audit automation is integrated with your systems, it can catch variances in real-time as they occur.
For example, at Trans Audit, we establish recurring feeds of bills of lading, paper, and electronic paper invoices, rates, contracts, vendor statements, and payment information to perform a recurring review. As a result, we are able to immediately identify and recover overbillings and errors with the highest level of efficiency.
Does the Freight Audit Company Offer an Array of Audit Services for Your Supply Chain?
While the post-bill freight audit is an integral service, it’s not the only one! The best contract compliance audit partner will offer you a range of root cause analysis services designed to not only ensure accurate billing — but create efficiencies. Typical services offered by leading recovery audit companies include:
- Global freight and parcel freight audit
- Cost optimization and reduction
- Second post audit
- Contract compliance audit services
- And more
Contact Trans Audit Today
At Trans Audit, we are the world’s largest and most successful global transportation post audit service provider. We partner with Global and Fortune 1000 organizations to perform transportation post-payment audits and contract reviews.
We have been in business for more than 40 years and boast unsurpassed post audit solutions as well as a global presence in Singapore, Europe, and China. We specialize in auditing all modes of transportation, including ocean, rail, truckload, less-than-truckload, duties, and more.
Through our state-of-the-art systems and processes, we establish recurring feeds of information to perform the recurring post-payment reviews. Once we discover overpayments, errors, or mistakes, we will automatically recover monies due to your business to generate efficiencies throughout your supply chain.
In addition to world-class technological solutions, we boast an unsurpassed team of subject-matter experts who specialize in creating recoveries and value across every mode of transportation in all places.
Contact Trans Audit today.
