You check carrier invoices without retyping them by letting freight audit software pull each invoice from your inbox, read every line item and match it against the accrual for its shipment. Your team then only confirms the positions assigned to them and looks at what differs. At Cargo Movers, a large invoice now takes about 30 minutes of accounting time instead of 2 to 3 hours.
This guide explains what a freight invoice audit is, why it takes so long by hand and how nemox automates it.
What is a carrier invoice audit?
A freight audit, also called a carrier invoice audit or freight invoice audit, means checking every line on an incoming invoice against what you expected to pay for that shipment. In a forwarding company, that expected cost is the accrual in your TMS. The goal is simple: pay only what you agreed, and catch overcharges before the invoice is booked.
Why does checking carrier invoices take so long?
Large supplier invoices can run to more than 100 line items. For each one, someone has to:
- find the position
- mark it
- assign it to the right colleague
- keep track of what is done, often with a spreadsheet open on the side
Including checking and booking, a large invoice can take 2 to 3 hours. And across hundreds of lines, overcharges are hard to spot.
How can you check invoices without retyping them?
nemox takes the typing out of the process:
- It pulls the invoice. Carrier invoices come straight from your inbox into the platform.
- It reads every line. nemox reads the line items, amounts and container numbers.
- It matches against the accrual. Each line is compared with the accrual for its shipment.
- It flags overcharges. Anything billed above the expected cost is marked.
- It routes each position. Every position goes to the colleague responsible for it. That person gets a notification and confirms.
- It marks the invoice ready to book. Once every position is confirmed, the invoice is ready.
How much time does automated invoice checking save?
Cargo Movers uses nemox in Accounting across Bremen, Frankfurt and Rotterdam. Around 60 invoices a working day now go through the platform. These are its results, from the Cargo Movers case study:
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Accounting time per large invoice | about 6 minutes, down from 2 to 3 hours |
| Invoices booked without anyone changing a field | 57% |
| Line items read automatically since March | 28,000+ |
| Line items assigned to the right colleague automatically | 20,000+ |
As one accounts payable clerk at Cargo Movers put it: “I used to type nonstop. Now I barely type at all.”
Can automated checking find overcharges?
Yes. Because every line is matched against the accrual, wrong charges stand out. In 3 months, nemox found 476 line items at Cargo Movers that were billed above the expected cost. Together they were worth 1.5% of gross profit.
What do you need for automated invoice checking to work?
You need accruals. The platform can only check an invoice against an expected cost that exists.
At Cargo Movers, the biggest bottleneck that remains is not reading invoices. It sits before the invoice arrives. Either Operations did not enter the accrual for the shipment, or the supplier billed the wrong charges. In August, 27% of invoices came in for shipments with no accrual in the system.
So the best first step is a clear rule: every shipment gets its accrual in the TMS.
Does anything get booked without a human check?
No. Nothing is booked until every position is confirmed. Every step is logged with the person who confirmed it.
Your data stays in the EU. nemox runs in ISO 27001 certified data centers in the EU and never uses customer data to train AI models. Read more on the security page.
How do you get started?
The technical setup takes 2 to 3 days. nemox connects to your inbox and your TMS, so it can read invoices and the accruals behind them. Your IT team gets a setup guide with screenshots.
See how the accounting module works on the product page, or read the full Cargo Movers case study.
