What is Parcel Audit?

Parcel auditing is the systematic review of carrier invoices against actual shipment data to identify billing errors, overcharges, and service guarantee failures. Carriers make mistakes—incorrect surcharges, wrong zone calculations, weight discrepancies, duplicate charges, and late delivery refund failures are common. Parcel auditing catches these errors and recovers the overcharges, typically saving shippers 2–5% of their total shipping spend.

Why It Matters

Major carriers like UPS, FedEx, and DHL process billions of shipments annually, and billing errors are inevitable at that scale. Studies consistently show that 1–4% of carrier invoices contain errors in the shipper’s favor. For a business spending $100,000 per month on shipping, that represents $1,000–$4,000 in recoverable overcharges every month. Additionally, carriers offer service guarantees (money-back for late deliveries) that shippers rarely claim.

How It Works

• Invoice Collection: Gather carrier invoices and match each line item to the corresponding shipment record in your system.
• Rate Verification: Confirm that the billed rate matches the contracted rate for the service, zone, weight, and dimensions of each shipment.
• Surcharge Review: Audit surcharges (residential, delivery area, fuel, dimensional weight) for accuracy. Verify that addresses flagged as residential or rural are actually in those classifications.
• Service Guarantee Claims: Identify packages that were delivered late relative to the carrier’s service commitment and file refund claims within the required timeframe.
• Recovery: Submit credit requests or disputes for all identified overcharges and track until credits are applied to your account.

How Nventory Helps

Nventory integrates with carrier billing systems to automatically audit invoices against your contracted rates and actual shipment data. The system flags billing discrepancies, identifies late delivery refund opportunities, and helps you recover overcharges that would otherwise go unnoticed on your carrier invoices.