Vol. 1 · Established for shippers
The shipper’s side of the tariff.
Carriers wrote the rules after deregulation. Most “savings” programs still run on those rules. This is the other set of books: how freight should be bought, audited, allocated, and explained to a CFO.
No pitch. Read first.
Three truths
A carrier tariff is not a market. It is a defense of strong lanes and a tax on weak ones.
Unpaid freight is not a mystery. It is an accrual problem. If finance cannot tie a shipment to a cost center, the saving was never real.
The people who can fix this do not sit in transportation. They sit in the office that owns cash, margin, and inventory.
For the dock and the director
Same load. Three numbers.
Why the meeting dies
OpsOn-time. Lanes. “We’re under budget.”
APWhatever showed up in the mail this week.
PurchasingUnit cost. Inbound is the vendor’s problem.
A transportation manager sees one shipment. The building sees three stories. Take the picture upstairs, not a carrier pitch.
Fifteen minutes with a CFO
1. One numberWe don’t have one.
2. AllocationIt all hits one GL.
3. AccrualThe close waits on the mail.
4. InboundPrepaid is hiding spend.
5. The askNo-fee look at 12 months. Keep the carriers.
The Almanac
Start with the money
01
GL allocation
Freight is hitting the wrong P&L. That is why nobody believes the savings.
02Accruals
You are already carrying the liability. You just have not booked it.
03Single payable
One weekly settlement. Then the phone stops.
04Inbound terms
Prepaid is not free. PPA is often a more expensive collect.
05Profit accelerator
A saving you pass on is a gift. A saving you can keep is a margin.
When you want your own numbers
The diagnostic
A no-fee, no-commitment look at your freight against a shipper-built rate basis. You keep your carriers. We tell you what the last twelve months would have cost if the tariff had been written for you.
What the diagnostic coversIf you go further
The working relationship
Staff-extension, not a go-live. Work is phased over four to six months. Monthly numbers. On-site when it matters. You stay the one awarding freight.
How the work is paced