← Freight Accessorial Invoice Auditor
Freight Accessorial Invoice Auditor vs. reviewing an invoice by eye
Reading a carrier invoice yourself catches the one line that looks obviously high. It reliably misses a second identical charge billed at an ordinary-looking price, the free-time-and-cap math behind a per-unit rate, a fuel surcharge never turned into a percent of linehaul, and whether an overage actually has evidence attached — which is what this free, no-upload auditor computes exactly, on every line.
Where reading it yourself stops being enough
Every AP clerk, broker, and small shipper who pays freight bills already does this: open the invoice, scan the lines, and flag whatever looks expensive. For the one line that is genuinely several times what a normal stop costs, that scan works — it is designed to catch exactly that. The problem is everything else on a real invoice does not look wrong on its own; it only becomes wrong when compared against something else, and a skim does not make that comparison.
| What you're trying to catch | Reading the invoice yourself | This auditor |
|---|---|---|
| One line that is obviously higher than a normal charge of that kind. | Works. This is the case a scan is built to catch. | Also catches it, in the same pass as everything below. |
| The same accessorial billed twice — same invoice, reference, code, and amount. | Invisible on its own: an ordinary-looking price raises nothing, even read twice. Catching it means comparing every line against every other line, not judging one line at a time. | Flagged automatically as a possible duplicate the moment two lines share invoice, reference, code, and amount. |
| A per-unit rate with a free allowance and a cap — detention, storage, reweigh, driver assist. | Needs three steps in your head: subtract the free time, multiply the remainder by the rate, then check the cap. Easy to skip the subtraction when the total already looks plausible. | Computed exactly, with the reasoning shown — e.g. "3 hours past 2 free × $65.00/hour" — not just a number. |
| Whether a fuel surcharge matches the contracted percent of linehaul. | The dollar figure alone tells you nothing until it is divided by linehaul and compared to the contract percent — a division most reviews never actually run. | Billed percent of linehaul computed and compared against both the contract percent and an optional index-plus-adder figure. |
| Whether a flagged overage actually has supporting evidence attached. | Easy to lose track of which of several flagged lines you have a scale ticket or BOL for once the invoice runs past a handful of rows. | Each line's evidence status is tracked against its own variance, so only an overage with missing or contradicting evidence counts as actionable. |
| The total dollar amount actually above the rate card across a whole invoice. | Added up longhand, one line at a time — error-prone, and easy to double-count a line whose evidence already settled it. | Totalled exactly, excluding lines that could not be priced and lines evidence already supports. |
A scan for the one big line is still the fastest way to catch the charge that is obviously wrong, and this auditor is not doing anything a patient, line-by-line audit with a calculator and a highlighter could not — it is reading the same invoice a patient audit would, just comparing every line against every other line and against the rate card automatically instead of leaving those comparisons to be made by hand.
This tool needs no account and no sign-in: it is a static page, the arithmetic runs in your browser, and once it has loaded it keeps working with the connection off. An imported file is read locally and never uploaded.
Common questions
Can't I just review the invoice myself and catch the overcharges?
For one line that is obviously high -- a detention charge several times what a normal stop costs -- yes, that is often visible on a single read. What a read misses is a line repeated twice at an ordinary-looking price, a per-unit rate with a free allowance and a cap that needs a two-step calculation, a fuel surcharge whose percent of linehaul was never actually computed, and whether an overage has supporting evidence attached once the invoice runs past a handful of lines.
Why is a duplicate line harder to catch than one that looks expensive?
An expensive-looking line stands out on its own -- it triggers a "that seems like a lot" reaction independent of anything else on the invoice. A duplicate does the opposite: the second liftgate charge at the same ordinary price looks completely fine by itself, so reading it a second time raises nothing. Catching it means noticing that two separate lines share the same invoice, reference, code, and amount -- a comparison across rows, not a judgment about any one row -- which is exactly what a skim does not do.
What does the detention or fuel math actually require?
A per-unit accessorial like detention, storage, or reweigh is rarely a single number: it is a rate per hour or per hundredweight, usually past a free allowance and often under a cap. Getting the expected amount right means subtracting the free time first, multiplying only the remainder by the rate, then checking the cap -- three steps, and the middle one is easy to skip when a dollar figure already looks plausible. A contracted fuel surcharge is harder still to eyeball: the dollar amount alone says nothing until it is divided by the linehaul charge and compared against the contracted percent, which is a division most reviews never actually do.
If I already track evidence for each disputed line, doesn't that cover it?
Tracking whether you hold a scale ticket, BOL, or rate confirmation for each line is exactly the bookkeeping a real review needs -- but holding that alongside which lines are actually over the rate card, across an invoice with more than a handful of rows, is where a manual review loses the thread. An overage with supporting evidence attached is a settled line, not a dispute; an overage with no evidence, or evidence that contradicts the billed condition, is the one worth raising. Keeping that pairing straight by eye across a whole invoice is the same cross-row bookkeeping the duplicate check needs, one column over.
Is this page making a live comparison against a tool or company?
No. This page describes a manual review any shipper, broker, or AP clerk already does -- reading a carrier invoice and checking it against what they expect to owe. It names no competing product or company. The auditor makes no network request of any kind: everything runs in your browser, and an imported file is read locally and never uploaded.
Have a whole invoice to check at once? See how to audit a whole freight invoice, or open the Freight Accessorial Invoice Auditor directly.