Freight Invoice

A freight invoice is the carrier's request for payment after hauling a load. It arrives after delivery – sometimes days later, sometimes weeks – and represents the carrier's accounting of what the shipper owes for that move. It's the document that triggers the shipper's accounts payable process and, if unchecked, is where billing errors silently drain freight budgets.

A freight invoice typically includes the carrier's name and payment details, the shipper's account or customer number, PRO number or shipment ID, origin and destination, shipment date, weight and piece count, base linehaul charge, and any accessorial charges – fuel surcharges, liftgate fees, detention, residential delivery, inside delivery, and so on. For LTL shipments, the invoice will also reflect the freight class and any reclassification adjustments the carrier applied after weighing or inspecting the freight.

The challenge with freight invoices is that they're wrong more often than most shippers expect. Industry estimates put the freight billing error rate at 3–7%, and the errors almost always favor the carrier – overcharges on weight, duplicate fuel surcharges, accessorial fees that weren't part of the contracted rate, or charges for services that were never provided. For a shipper moving hundreds of loads per month, that error rate compounds into tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. Without a systematic audit process – comparing every invoice line against the tendered rate, contracted terms, and actual shipment data – these overcharges simply get paid.

Automating freight invoice auditing – matching each invoice against the original tender and flagging discrepancies before payment – is one of the highest-ROI workflows in logistics. It recovers money that would otherwise be lost and gives finance teams confidence that what they're paying is what they actually owe.