Freight Payment Concerns

Freight Payment Technology

2006-11-28T08:58:00.000-06:00

As the software designer, formerly employed by Logistics Group, I have built lots of software applications for the freight audit and freight payment industry. I now design application for the general business community. However, I have a number of applications, including web-reporting, freight payment, EDI, and post-audit for freight bill administration programs available for customization.

I worked in the freight payment business for well over ten years, and it was definitely time for a change. Anyone needing some modern software to run their logistics company with is encouraged to contact me.

Check out the link above for some details on the technology I use to program custom software with, and what it can do for your company.

Departments of Transportation - DOT web sites

2006-11-27T18:29:00.000-06:00

Here is all the DOT links That we have, I figured why not make these US Department of Transportation web site links available to our bloggers.

HERE THEY ARE:

-A-

1. Alabama

Alabama State DOT Website

2. Alaska

Alaska State DOT Website

3. Arizona

Arizona State DOT Website

4. Arkansas
Arkansas State DOT Website

-C-

5. California

California State DOT Website

6. Colorado

Colorado State DOT Website

7. Conneticut

Conneticut State DOT Website

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8. Delaware

Delaware State DOT Website

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9. Florida

Florida State DOT Website

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10. Georgia

Georgia State DOT Website

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11. Hawaii

Hawaii State DOT Website

-I-

12. Idaho

Idaho State DOT Website

13. Illinois

Illinois State DOT Website

14. Indiana

Indiana State DOT Website

15. Iowa

Iowa State DOT Website

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16. Kansas

Kansas State DOT Website

17. Kentucky

Kentucky State DOT Website

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18. Louisiana

Louisiana State DOT Website

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19. Maine

Maine State DOT Website

20. Maryland

Maryland State DOT Website

21. Massachusetts

Massachusetts State DOT Website

22. Michigan

Michigan State DOT Website

23. Minnesota

Minnesota State DOT Website

24. Mississippi

Mississippi State DOT Website

25. Missouri

Missouri State DOT Website

26. Montana

Montana State DOT Website

-N-

27. Nevada

Nevada State DOT Website

28. New Jersey

New Jersey State DOT Website

29. New York

New York State DOT Website

30. North Carolina

North Carolina State DOT Website

31. North Dakota

North Dakota State DOT Website

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32. Ohio

Ohio State DOT Website

33. Oklahoma

Oklahoma State DOT Website

34. Oregon
Oregon State DOT Website

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35. Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania State DOT Website

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36. Rhode Island

Rhode Island State DOT Website

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37. South Carolina

South Carolina State DOT Website

38. South Dakota

South Dakota State DOT Website

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39. Tennessee

Tennessee State DOT Website

40. Texas

Texas State DOT Website

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41. Utah

Utah State DOT Website

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42. Virginia

Virginia State DOT Website

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43. Washington

Washington State DOT Website

44. West Virginia
West Virginia State DOT Website

45. Wisconsin

Wisconsin State DOT Website

46. Wyoming

Wyoming State DOT Website

Logistics Today - Top 50 Logistics Friendly Cities

2006-11-27T18:23:00.000-06:00

Logistics Today has posted a great logistics article. It contains the top 50 logistics friendly cities in America. The whole list in PDF format.

Here in an excerpt from the article:

"The study evaluates the overall logistics infrastructure of our nation's 362 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) based upon 10 major categories, including the transportation and distribution (T&D) industry, T&D work force, road infrastructure, road congestion, road conditions, interstate highway access, vehicle taxes and fees, railroad access, water port access and air cargo access." - Source (http://www.logisticstoday.com)

It's an interesting read for logistics professionals when considering reconstruction of the supply chain.

Rising Fuel Prices

2005-09-01T10:34:00.000-05:00

Forget consumers, what about how the rising cost of diesel fuel is going to affect freight rates, discounts, etc... Now we are probably familiar with fuel surcharge. Does anyone remember when this wasn't ALWAYS on a freight bill???

I DO

The sad fact is, it's been ever-present for quite a while now, and with the cost of fuel only going up, it's not likely to ever be excluded from the body of a freight bill again. And despite the fact that the surcharge is in effect, fuel costs WILL factor in big when it comes time to renegotiate pricing.

As a note: My receptionist's Husband works for FedEx as an over the road driver, and he went for hundreds of miles before he could find a place to fuel. Scary. So keep your eyes open for transportation costs to increase dramatically over the coming year.

I would love to get your feedback to this particular post - Steve

Auditing For GSR (Small Package)

2005-08-22T15:13:00.000-05:00

FedEx and UPS guarantee their GSR deliveries by a set time, and if the package arrives late, the payer is entitled to a full refund.

Did You Realize:

FedEx and UPS deliver nearly 10% of their packages late, thereforeeligiblee for a refund?
Nearly $2,000,000,000 (2 Billion Dollars) per year is owed by FedEx and UPS in refunds on late packages, yet go unclaimed? Note these figures rise as both these companies grow.
If you aren't auditing for these type of refunds, you just aren't getting the complete picture?

This is certainly food for thought. Our company has been auditing for these things, and more for years. This is one key to look at when you select a reliable freight payment company to add to your RFP.

Oh, and for good measure, as a developer using some of UPS's E.Tools, here's an excerpt from the UPS License Agreement
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Excluded Uses of Information. The Information is for planning purposes only. End User agrees that the Information is insufficient for purposes of determining whether adjustments or guaranteed service refunds are due to End User. Accordingly, End User agrees that shipping data in addition to the Information will be required in order for End User or any third party to obtain a guaranteed service refund, any other adjustment or refunds against UPS service fees or for reconciliation of invoices for UPS services. For further information on the procedures and data required for service refunds, please consult the Terms and Conditions of Carriage/Service for the country of origin of a package in effect at the time of shipment.
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Needless to say, they don't want to make it easy to get these billions back do they? And why would they, is probably a better question...

Hi guys, everyone knows that no carrier is perfect. That sentiment is especially for UPS and FedEx. Many freight payment companies have methods, and a system in place to track, trace, audit, code and automatically apply for UPS and FedEx credits.

Bill Gates Hates Spam Too...

2005-08-22T15:05:00.000-05:00

A Quick post to a few words by Bill Gates. Not exactly a freight payment concern, but enlightenting nevertheless.

UPS Versus DHL & FedEx???

2005-08-22T13:52:00.000-05:00

Not many people realize that DHL in fact is owned by the Duetch Post actually owns DHL. That's not really the point. The point of this article is to point out that there are viable alternatives to UPS, and FedEx.

Historically, UPS has made it extremely easy for customers to ship their small packages. Then they made it easier. Around eleven years ago (don't quote me here) they raised the then 70 Lbs. limit to 150 Lbs. This raise allowed UPS to start having access to shipments that would have normally gone out to the lowest bidding LTL carrier. Of course now they're really in the LTL market! (Sound familiar)

The problem with UPS is this:

They are very inflexible. From having years of experience paying UPS bills, I can tell you they (UPS) are so big now, most requests go unheeded, unheard, and dismissed. FedEx is Better, DHL is best. While DHL isn't the biggest, ( in fact they have the smallest share of the small package segment), but they view this as a distinct advantage, by offering personalized service. Instead of calling and getting someone who knows exactly (nothing) about your account, or your needs, you get someone who is "responsible" and receptive to your ideas about what can be done to help you improve your business.

From companies that actually use DHL, I've heard nothing but good things, and rates are competitive. I would really like to see some real-world posts concerning any of these three small parcel carriers.

Let me know what you're thinking...

On Topic Posts

2005-08-22T13:43:00.000-05:00

Okay, while I do appreicate al of you who post comments to articles here at freight payment concerns, I take exception to off topic posts. This is a forum for freight professionals, and those wishing to become more knowledgeable concerning freight payment, and logistics issues.

The supply chain isn't funny, it's the lifeblood of America. How many things you've bought at a bricks and mortar come on truck? All of them. So bloggers unite, and please post on-topic comments.

Thanks, Steve

PS: Besides, I have enough spam already being filtered coming via POP, let alone having to delete spam comments off the blog.

Service Transport (SERJ)

2005-08-19T16:58:00.000-05:00

Service Transport, located in Cookville, Tennessee is A LTL common carrier. They have started sending some of our freight payment customers balance dues for discount revocation. Now firstly there are stringent rules in effect that do allow for this. The problem is Service Transport seems to be disregarding them...

Most LTL carriers have tariffs in place which allow for this, but they have to follow the CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) The CFR allows for discount revocation / deletion in the following cases:

ONLY FOR UNPAID BILLS.
WITHIN 30 DAYS OF ORIGINAL BILLING.
MUST BE APPLIED TO SEPARATE BILLS. (NO AGGREGATE FREIGHT BILLINGS)

As LGI is a premier freight payment & audit company, we know the rules, and are starting this freight payment blog to help make not only our customers aware, but also the millions of shippers and consignees out there.

Here are the facts:

Service Transport Has sent these "discount forfeitures" on bills that LGI has short paid. In fact, our audit complies with all customer's pricing tariffs, and there is NO BALANCE DUE AT ALL. Besides breaking all the conventional rules, Service seems to think they can collect money after their doors are closed by sending out huge freight bills to their once faithful customers.

Without safeguards, (in the form of knowledge) most customers are probably paying these bills completely unaware that not only does Service not have the right to bills these types of freight bills, but that they are in fact totally bogus. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Transportation Consumer Protection Council getting involved.

The main difference between Service and other companies that have tried these types of tactics, is that Service is sending out "original bills", which would appear on the surface to comply with Title 49 CFR. This couldn't be further from the truth.

I urge anyone needing a copy of the actual law, or has trouble finding it from the link provided in this topic, to contact me. I don't normally post my e-mail address because of spammers, so use LGI's contact page instead. I will reply as soon as I can.

Preventing Duplicate Payments

2005-08-18T13:31:00.000-05:00

As an application designer, developing software for the freight payment industry, I've noticed one very consistent thing. Duplicate payments are a fact of life. Logistics Group, a leader in freight payment started out many years ago (before readily available PCs) as a post audit only company.

We found duplicate payments manually with our memory, Definitely not a fool-proof system, and yet... We still found plenty. Now we let our sophisticated software do the work. As our software is constantly in development, we are always looking for better ways of accomplishing a set task, which brings me back to the topic : DUPLICATE PAYMENTS

Carriers have to go by Federal guidelines when handling money they can't identify and apply. If you've paid a bill twice, they are supposed to send you a form you can fill out and send back to them, at which point they will refund you the amount (of the freight bill) in question. Problem is, are we all really ready to trust a carrier with always following the rules???

I DON'T THINK SO.

We have a client that has four divisions, and they are all treated as separate entities according to their wishes. While our systems used to perform key searches according to client parameters, when we first took this client on, we changed this behavior within our Freight Payment application, which we customized for them. And boy am I glad we had the forethought to do so.

Turns out many carriers, including, Con-Way, and SAIA, (among others) were billing both divisions on some inter-departmental shipping. Our client does quite a lot of location to location shipping and also plenty of cross-region shipping.

Needless to say we were quite surprised that the carriers were doing this, and while this behavior may seem quite unethical, I just chalk it up to experience and am thankful we caught these bills.

Anyway, when considering a freight payment provider, I highly suggest you question their effectiveness of catching duplicate payments. Question like: How old is your software? Can you adapt your systems to fit my individual needs? Are you using multiple-layer duplicate protection?

Since hardly any carriers uses a very consistent numbering system for invoice numbers (length) LGI uses special SQL commands to find bills that are duplicates, even if we put in an extra number or transpose a number within the sequence, we and our client are protected. Since we are using the newest technologies, and have an in-house development team, we have an advantage over companies using outdated systems programmed a decade or more ago.

Some carriers use their terminal prefix on their freight bills, like R&L Carriers. Some carriers put a bunch of "0s" on the front of their invoice numbers, and some do this on the back of the number. While from a logic standpoint I understand this. They are padding their strings in anticipation of growth. Some carriers like UPS, even start recycling their tracking numbers. All in all, it adds up to quite a challenge when developing routines that prevent duplicate payments.

Needless to say, nobody is perfect, but the more thought that goes into a certain problem, then it just stands to reason that a better solution is the eventual outcome.

I've been dealing with application development in the freight payment business, as a provider for over ten years. Today, our numbers are being processed over a hundred different ways, all to ensure that those pesky dupes stay under control.

Yet, somewhere, some carrier is laughing, knowing exactly they are doing when they bill out the shipper and a consignee on a shipment, and while this wouldn't be a duplicate payment from the same company, it's tantamount to the same thing. Especially if no one is actually looking at the freight bills before payment.

And that is why I keep looking for better ways to keep our business intelligence, "intelligent"

Estes Express Aquires GI Trucking

2005-07-14T10:08:00.000-05:00

Well, I guess it's time to update our databases. Estes Express, a very dependable LTL carrier has bought out GI Trucking.

Here's an excerpt from Estes's web site:

RICHMOND, VA – Estes Express Lines today announced 100 percent acquisition of Los Angeles-based carrier G.I. Trucking, effectively expanding Estes' U.S. territory to provide service to 46 states, coast to coast.

The two companies already had a strong relationship through their 10-year-old, less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier network, ExpressLINK. Estes has also maintained joint ownership of G.I. Trucking since 2001, when Estes Express and the senior management of G.I. teamed up to purchase G.I. Trucking from then-owner Arkansas Best Corporation.

For Further Information:
Kim Camp (804) 353-1900 Ext. 2367 (@ Estes Express)
publicrelations@estes-express.com

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Please visit the Estes Express web site for more information.

For now, the question I pose is how will this change affect Estes's historically good service, and operations?

I am looking forward to watching this unfold, and I urge anyone to post their comments concerning this aquisition.