Haven Launches Freight Invoice Audit Platform

San Francisco, Tuesday, June 30th - Haven, the provider of bespoke end-to-end transportation management solutions (TMS) to the freight industry is launching their signature Freight Invoice Audit Platform (FIAP) that will enable error-free invoices in ocean freight. These invoices are often wrong due to incorrect surcharges billed, rate fluctuations, rate of exchange variations, and changing port pairs.

The FIAP is simple to understand, easy to use, seamlessly integrates with many existing systems, and can be customized to the unique needs of different businesses. It is designed like an app and does not require the customer or service provider to change their workflow, as the invoices will all be routed via the FIAP, making it convenient for all parties concerned.

“Since our platform already houses original rate quotes and carrier invoices, we had all the data necessary to create a solution, and thus, the Haven Freight Invoice Auditing was born. The platform uses a variety of techniques to compare the original quote or contract rate card to the invoice provided by the provider. When an anomaly is detected, the shipment invoice is flagged, and the discrepancy is highlighted for follow up with the carrier.” — Brad Klaus, CEO at Haven

The time and effort required to check, audit, rectify, and recheck the volume of invoices generated for ocean freight is enormous, and so far, customers have had only three options available:

Use their own employees to rectify the anomalies - which often comes at the expense of compromising on new business development or maintenance.
Outsource to a 3rd party and pay up to 2% of freight spend - which is an expensive enterprise, especially when costs are high in the current scenario.
Do nothing and overpay.

Now, with Haven, there is a 4th option – the ability to use an automated FIAP, which does it all for the customer at a fraction of the cost of the above-mentioned options. Additionally, Haven offers the solution through a yearly subscription as opposed to the currently available, expensive, commission-per-transaction type models in the market.

“Throughout my time at Haven, one thing that I heard over and over again from customers was, “Can you help me fix all these billing errors?” — Brad Klaus, CEO at Haven

The FIAP was created on the back of this cry for help from the industry. This call has been further reinforced by the current market crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, which is forcing many businesses to look for immediate cost-saving measures.

Even a 3 percent overpay on $10 million in annual freight invoices would equate to $300,000 in additional — and moreover, potentially avoidable — costs.

“For one shipper, we did a three-month spot-on audit on their invoices and 37 percent of their invoices were in error,” said Chris Stauber, Chief Product Officer at Haven. That represented almost $1 million in invoice variance over three months, including potential overpayment by the shipper of $500,000.

Businesses are now scrambling to recover from the Covid-19 situation, which has been one of the biggest disruptions in recent times. Organizations have had to change the way they work, overnight, and reassess their processes to adapt to the “new normal”. Business owners have had to ensure productivity through work from home, scramble to automate processes and utilize resources for crisis management. Global trade has been hit massively and this begs a look at how the situation can be salvaged, coming out of the pandemic. With maximum capital being directed towards helping businesses recover, decision-makers have been forced to be prudent when looking at investing in solutions. Cost consciousness is part of the new normal and going forward, decisions will be based on time, effort, and resources saved. This is where automation plays a huge part, especially with respect to ocean freight.

There is still a long way to go with many people-dependant processes still being the norm within global supply chains. However, with these unique offerings, Haven, which has a global presence, with offices in Asia, Europe, and North America, has taken huge strides towards streamlining the freight invoice process and thereby enabling significant cost saving, especially in this difficult business environment.

About Haven

Haven is dedicated to making global trade as efficient as it can be. The company works towards simplifying and streamlining operations with technology. Haven automates global logistics for commodity traders, food producers, and other large shippers every day. In a system notorious for inefficiency, Haven's solutions-focused TMS streamlines workloads, saving over 50,000 hours of human time thus far. Their tools unlock shipment data that otherwise get buried or lost in emails and phone calls, and turns that information into actionable insights that make global freight operations more efficient.