Operational Excellence for Freight Forwarders

Tag: Margin Management

  • Revenue Leakage

    Post 3/3: ✅ A Smart Way to Stop Revenue Leakage

    The solution is to check every single job? Or automate the checking processes? FALSE. This is likely to flag too many jobs creating a very long list of false positives, overload the system, the user, and alert fatigue would set in.

    Forget rule-based automation that fails due to inconsistent charge codes. We took a different route: filter by gross margin outliers.

    📊 Step-by-step:

    1. Track job-level revenue, cost, and gross margin %. Create a list of averages by service and tradelane.
    2. Flag jobs with margins far below (or above) average (outliers)
    3. Deep-dive review only for flagged jobs
    4. Investigate unbilled services like customs inspection, port storage, etc.
    5. Tag root causes for recurring process gaps
    6. Perform period spot checks, especially for vendor rebates and recent cost renegotiations.

    This approach works – it’s scalable, data-driven, and minimizes false positives.

    Want to tighten your billing accuracy? Start with your margin outliers.

    And BTW, a list of averages will help operations with monthly forecasting.

    #RevenueLeakage #FreightERP #OperationalExcellence #BillingControl #MarginManagement #WorkingCapital #LogisticsFinance #FreightForwarding #Profitability #BillingErrors #SupplyChain #ProcessImprovement #mmlogistix

  • Revenue Leakage

    Post 2/3: ⚠️ Why Solving Revenue Leakage is Hard

    The biggest challenge? Inconsistency.


    Even with systems like CargoWise, when different people use different charge codes for the same service — e.g., “Trucking” vs. “Haulage” — it becomes impossible for the system to detect what’s missing.

    Add to that:

    • Manual workarounds
    • Unstructured exception handling
    • No reliable alert mechanism
    • Disjointed cost vs. billing visibility

    The result? Charges go unbilled. Margin erodes. Finance gets blindsided.

    #RevenueLeakage #FreightERP #OperationalExcellence #BillingControl #MarginManagement #WorkingCapital #LogisticsFinance #FreightForwarding #Profitability #BillingErrors #SupplyChain #ProcessImprovement #mmlogistix

  • Revenue Leakage

    Post 1/3: What is Revenue Leakage?

    Revenue leakage is the silent killer of profitability. It’s the revenue your company earns but never collects – often due to operational oversights, billing errors, or inconsistent processes.

    In freight forwarding and logistics, this can include:

    • Unbilled customs inspection fees
    • Missed detention/demurrage pass-through
    • Inconsistent documentation charges
    • Services rendered but not invoiced
    • Vendor rebates not applied

    It adds up – and it directly impacts cash flow, working capital, and bottom-line performance.

    🧩 Are you tracking your leaks?

    #RevenueLeakage #FreightERP #OperationalExcellence #BillingControl #MarginManagement #WorkingCapital #LogisticsFinance #FreightForwarding #Profitability #BillingErrors #SupplyChain #ProcessImprovement #mmlogistix