Freight Accessorial Charge Auditing
Accessorial charges — liftgate, residential delivery, inside delivery, limited access, redelivery — are where freight invoices get padded, not because a base rate is wrong but because a fee gets applied for a service that either wasn't requested, wasn't actually performed, or was billed at the wrong tier. These charges are individually small, five to forty euros each, so nobody flags them one at a time, but a shipper moving thousands of shipments a month can lose a meaningful chunk of freight spend to accessorials that were never checked against what the shipment actually required. Distinguishing a legitimate accessorial from an incorrectly applied one requires knowing the delivery address type, the shipment's actual requirements and the carrier's fee schedule — three things that live in different systems nobody cross-references at invoice time.
STARTING PRICE
From €299
Standard tier · Multi-step workflow with AI extraction/decisioning and 2-3 integrations.
Get a quote →Saves roughly 4-6 hrs/week for a freight audit or AP analyst.
How the automation works
We check every accessorial charge on a carrier invoice against what the shipment record actually required — address type (commercial vs residential), whether liftgate or inside delivery was requested at booking, delivery attempt history for redelivery fees — rather than accepting the carrier's applied fee at face value. Charges that match a legitimate, documented requirement pass through; charges with no supporting requirement in the shipment record are flagged as likely unwarranted, with the specific mismatch (for example, billed residential but shipped to a commercial address) attached so the dispute is concrete rather than a general challenge to the invoice.
Process flow
- 01
Invoice with accessorial line items received trigger
Accessorial charge lines on an incoming carrier invoice trigger a check against the originating shipment's booking and delivery record.
- 02
Pull shipment requirement record integration
The shipment's actual booking requirements and address classification are pulled from the TMS or order system for comparison.
- 03
Validate each accessorial against requirement ai
Each accessorial charge is checked against whether that specific service was requested, required by address type, or evidenced by delivery attempt history.
- 04
Classify as warranted or unwarranted ai
Charges with no matching requirement in the shipment record are classified as likely unwarranted and flagged with the specific mismatch driving the flag.
- 05
Generate dispute packet output
Unwarranted charges are compiled into a per-carrier dispute packet with shipment reference, applied fee and the mismatch reason, ready to submit for credit.
- 06
Track recovery outcomes output
Disputed charges are tracked through to carrier resolution — credited, denied or pending — so recovery rate per carrier is visible over time.
Inputs
- Carrier invoices with accessorial line detail
- Shipment booking records
- Delivery attempt and address classification history
- Carrier accessorial fee schedules
Outputs
- Warranted/unwarranted accessorial classification
- Per-carrier dispute packet
- Recovery tracking log
- Accessorial spend trend report by charge type
Works with
Prefer a fully custom build instead of an off-the-shelf integration? We scope both options during your free consultation — most jobs like this one work fine on standard connectors, but higher-volume or non-standard systems sometimes need bespoke API work, reflected in the complex tier.
Where this goes wrong if you get it wrong
- Residential vs commercial address classification is often wrong at the source — a small business address gets flagged residential by a carrier's address database even though it's genuinely commercial — so the audit needs its own address classification check, not blind trust in the carrier's own flag that generated the fee in the first place.
- Redelivery fees are only legitimate if a first delivery attempt genuinely failed for a reason within the shipper's or recipient's control — a carrier scanning a failed attempt that never actually happened is a known billing pattern, and validating against actual delivery attempt timestamps and driver notes catches it.
- Liftgate and inside-delivery fees depend on what was requested at time of booking, not what a driver decided was needed on arrival — auditing against the booking record rather than the delivery record catches fees applied for services the shipper never asked for.
- Disputing every flagged charge without a recovery tracking loop wastes the audit's value — carriers routinely deny disputes that aren't followed up, so tracking dispute status through to actual credit is what turns flags into recovered spend.
Frequently asked questions
How does it know if liftgate service was actually needed?
It checks the shipment's booking record for whether liftgate was requested or flagged as required, rather than assuming every charge with that line item was legitimate.
What's the typical recovery rate on flagged charges?
It varies by carrier and charge type, but accessorial overcharges are one of the more consistently recoverable categories once a dispute is backed by the specific shipment mismatch rather than a general challenge.
Does this cover fuel surcharges too?
Fuel surcharge accuracy is handled by rate-contract audit; this job focuses specifically on accessorial and extra-service fees tied to shipment-specific conditions.
Can it flag patterns by carrier, not just individual charges?
Yes — the accessorial spend trend report groups flagged charge types by carrier over time, which is useful for renegotiating a contract with a carrier that consistently over-applies a specific fee.