Freight audit software that closes every delivery to invoice
Kargentra’s freight audit software checks each carrier bill against what was tendered and what was actually performed, tests every delivery against 16 named billing checks, and turns Finance-ready facts into customer invoices. Disputes with carriers and customers run on one governed lifecycle, so money questions are settled on the record rather than in email.
What changes for your operation
Revenue leakage has a name
Work that is finished but not billable waits in a queue with its exact blocker on a specific delivery, instead of surfacing as a surprise at month-end close.
Carrier bills are checked first
Every bill is matched to the tendered expectation and the cost you actually incurred before anyone agrees to it. A variance opens a governed dispute, not an email chain.
Invoices only from proven facts
Invoices are built from charges already handed to Finance. Nothing is re-rated and no amount is typed, so every line traces back to the delivery that earned it.
One position per 3PL client
Warehouse services, storage and transport for a client roll up into one commercial engagement with one margin position and one Finance handoff.
What Finance does
Billing readiness, freight audit, invoicing and disputes on one record
Billing readiness and revenue assurance
Each delivered shipment is evaluated against 16 named checks, from order accepted through accepted delivery evidence, resolved exceptions, a governed charge and coherent currency.
- Verdicts: Blocked, Never evaluated, Ready to bill from
- A plain-language reason for every failed check
- Evidence completeness as Complete, Missing, Invalid or Unknown, with its denominator
- Revenue at risk, deliveries awaiting evidence and billing-ready deliveries as tiles
Delivery-to-finance close
A close queue moves each delivered movement from evidence to billing ready, closeout and Finance handoff, with the blocker that holds it shown on the row.
- Evidence incomplete, Billing blocked, Billing ready, Closeout approved, Handed off to Finance
- Sell, expected buy, actual cost and accessorials side by side
- The Finance handoff is a frozen snapshot that your accounting system receives
Shipment commercial position
Sell price, expected buy, actual buy, accessorials, variance and gross margin are recorded as separate governed facts for every shipment, never rebuilt in a spreadsheet.
- Accessorial types: Detention, Redelivery, Layover and Other
- The rate rule version is shown behind every expectation
- Detention backed by yard check-in and release timestamps and free-time policy
- Positions per currency, never summed across currencies
Freight audit workbench
Carrier bills arrive by operator upload or through the partner gateway and are matched against the tendered expectation and the performed cost. Every shipment’s audit standing sits in one queue, most urgent first.
- No bill received, Awaiting match, Reconciled, Variance, Dispute open, Dispute resolved, Not comparable
- Expected, billed and variance shown with the performed cost
- Open a commercial dispute straight from a variance
- Missing money is never shown as zero, and nothing is accepted automatically
Carrier rates and customer agreements
Versioned buy-side carrier rates and tender routing guides sit beside governed, approvable customer agreements that act as the sell-side rate authority, applied by lane, equipment class and route shape.
- Agreement reference, customer, status and effective dates
- Rate rule version carried onto the tender snapshot and every charge
- Every applicability axis declared, so no rate applies by accident
Customer invoice generation
Finance-ready facts from shipments, commercial engagements, return and claim cases and dispute adjustments become invoice candidates, grouped in a preview, drafted, approved and issued.
- Ready to invoice, Drafts, Needs approval, Approved, Issued, Delivery problems, Credits and supplements
- Plain blockers: not handed to Finance, open dispute, missing billing profile, PO reference required
- Issued by Kargentra with a legal number, canonical JSON and PDF, or by your accounting system on its confirmation
- Approval is not issue; delivery to the customer is tracked separately
Corrections that keep history intact
An issued invoice is immutable. A correction is a new document that points at the one it corrects, so the audit trail shows what was billed, what changed and why.
- Credit notes, supplemental invoices and debit notes
- Invoice numbers are never recycled
- Customers see “Corrects an earlier document” on the replacement
Commercial disputes in both directions
One lifecycle covers payable disputes with carriers and receivable disputes with customers: itemised lines with evidence, proposals, banded approval, resolution and a Finance handoff. The counterparty answers in its own portal.
- Reasons include rate variance, accessorial not agreed, detention or waiting, duplicate charge
- Outcomes: keep our value, accept theirs, agree an adjusted value, void, counterparty reissues
- Versioned policy with amount and percentage approval bands
- Need my action, Need approval, Waiting on counterparty and Overdue views
3PL commercial engagements
For 3PLs, a client’s warehouse and transport work is grouped into one commercial job. Warehouse services are charged on the same ledger and recurring storage periods are closed under governance.
- Open, Ready for Finance handoff, Handed off and Closed engagements
- Storage close previews counted units and the charge before freezing
- Expected revenue, actual sell, actual cost and gross margin per currency
- Warehouse-only jobs reach Finance without an artificial shipment
Proof of delivery becomes billable revenue without a hand-over gap
Operations and finance read the same record. When a delivery is complete, the close queue shows whether it can be billed, and if not, the one check that is failing and who can fix it. Billing-ready work is counted in the Control Tower beside blocked readiness and open exceptions, so finance work is visible to the people who can unblock it.
- Evidence complete is a separate state from Billing Ready, and both are shown
- Each blocker names the permission needed and who can act
- Closeout freezes the commercial position before Finance receives it
- A reader without money permission sees the verdict while amounts stay withheld
Invoices built only from facts already proven billable
Generate invoice walks a billing specialist through three steps: choose the candidate scope, review how lines group into invoices, and create the draft. Amounts come from governed charges and are never typed. After approval the invoice is issued either by Kargentra with a legal number or by your external accounting system, which Kargentra marks as issued only when the official number is confirmed.
- Candidates from shipments, 3PL engagements, return and claim cases and dispute adjustments
- Approved and issued are different states, and the queue shows both
- A disputed line resolves to a supplemental invoice, credit note or debit note
- Every invoice is a conversation subject in the Collaboration Center
Each carrier bill checked against the awarded quote and the work performed
The expected buy is not a guess. It comes from the exact quote version a planner awarded, or the carrier rate that applied at tender, and it is frozen with the tender. When the carrier bill arrives, the audit workbench compares billed against expected and against the cost recorded during execution, and a variance can become a governed dispute in one step.
- Awarded quote versions are append-only, with the reason for the award
- The rate rule version travels with the tender snapshot
- Variance is billed minus expected, never inferred from missing data
- Carrier bills are never rewritten; corrections are reissued by the carrier
From delivery evidence to issued invoice
- 01
Evidence accepted
The driver submits photo and signature proof for the delivery attempt. Operations accepts it separately, and only accepted evidence counts toward billing.
- 02
Readiness evaluated
The 16-check gate runs on the delivered shipment. A failed check becomes a named blocker with an owner, not a silent exclusion.
- 03
Commercial closeout
Sell, expected buy, actual cost, accessorials, variance and margin are reviewed, then closeout is approved by someone with that permission.
- 04
Finance handoff
A frozen snapshot of the commercial position is handed to Finance. It is a governed handoff to your accounting system, not a ledger posting.
- 05
Carrier bill audited
The carrier bill is matched against the tendered expectation and performed cost. Reconciled bills move on; variances open a payable dispute.
- 06
Invoice issued
Candidates are grouped, drafted, approved and issued by Kargentra or by your external accounting system, and delivery to the customer is tracked.
- 07
Corrected or disputed
A customer disputes a single line in the portal. The agreed outcome becomes a credit note, supplemental invoice or debit note against the immutable original.
Governed AI inside Finance
Ask Kargentra reads the record you are looking at, cites every fact it uses and proposes the next step. Nothing changes until a person with the right permission approves it.
- Why is this delivery not billing ready?
- Why does the carrier bill differ from the tender?
- Draft a reply to the carrier’s proposal
Shipment SH-40712 is Billing blocked on one check: the driver submitted proof for delivery attempt 2, but Operations has not yet accepted it. Separately, carrier bill CB-8841 is £60.00 above the tendered expectation because it includes a Detention accessorial. The yard record shows the trailer released inside the agreed free time, so no detention fact exists for this stop.
- Billing readiness · SH-40712 · check 11 of 16
- Delivery attempt 2 · proof submitted
- Carrier bill CB-8841 · variance £60.00
- Yard visit YV-2210 · released within free time
Proposal · requires approval
Open a payable dispute on CB-8841, reason “Accessorial not agreed”, proposing to keep the expected value.
Approver: Freight auditor to raise; Finance approver within the configured approval band. Applied only through the governed action, and recorded in the audit trail.
Exceptions and edge cases Finance handles
Real operations are mostly exceptions. These are handled as first-class states with an owner, evidence and a next step, not as notes in a spreadsheet.
- A delivery with complete evidence but an unresolved exception stays Billing blocked, with the exception named on the row.
- A carrier bill for a shipment with no tendered expectation is marked Not comparable rather than reconciled against zero.
- Charges in two currencies are kept as two positions and are never summed into one figure.
- An invoice approved for external issue stays Approved with “External confirmation missing” until your accounting system confirms its number.
- A disputed line is corrected by a supplemental invoice or credit note; the issued original is never edited and its number never reused.
- A reader without money permission sees the readiness verdict, while amounts are withheld and labelled as withheld, not shown as zero.
- A 3PL storage period is previewed with counted units and the charge before it is frozen, so a wrong count is caught before billing.
- A detention claim is backed by gate check-in and release timestamps and the configured free time, and a person files it.
Who uses Finance
Billing specialist
Works the close queue and the invoice tabs, clears named blockers, generates drafts from candidates and follows delivery problems after issue.
Freight auditor
Matches carrier bills to tendered expectations and performed cost, raises payable disputes from variances and records the agreed outcome.
Commercial manager
Owns customer agreements and carrier rates, approves closeouts and reviews margin by lane, customer and carrier with the arithmetic open to check.
Finance controller
Receives frozen Finance handoffs, approves invoices and dispute outcomes within the configured approval bands, and reconciles to the ledger.
3PL account manager
Runs a client’s commercial engagement across warehouse and transport, previews storage period close and hands the job to Finance.
Freight Finance & Billing at a glance
A scannable reference for evaluation teams and RFPs.
| Billing readiness |
|
|---|---|
| Commercial position and rates |
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| Freight audit |
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| Customer invoicing |
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| Commercial disputes |
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| 3PL commercial |
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| Integrations |
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Connected to the rest of Kargentra
Every module reads and writes the same record, so a hand-off is a state change rather than a re-keyed file.
- Transportation ManagementTender snapshots carry the expected buy and rate rule version, and the delivery-to-finance close queue lives where transport work ends.Explore TMS
- Driver AppPhoto and signature proof bound to the delivery attempt is the evidence that billing readiness checks, once Operations has accepted it.Explore Driver
- Customer PortalCustomers see their own issued invoices and charges, download documents and dispute a single invoice line with evidence.Explore Customer
- Carrier Network & PortalCarriers answer payable disputes with expected, submitted and difference side by side, and send their own proposal.Explore Carrier
- Warehouse ManagementWarehouse services and storage for each 3PL client are charged to the same commercial engagement as the client’s transport.Explore WMS
- Collaboration CenterInvoices and disputes are conversation subjects, so questions about a charge stay attached to the charge and its evidence.Explore Collaboration
Finance: frequently asked questions
What is freight audit software?
Freight audit software checks a carrier’s bill against what was agreed and what actually happened before the bill is accepted. In Kargentra, each bill is matched against the tendered expectation, including the awarded quote version or carrier rate, and against the cost recorded during execution. Reconciled bills move on, variances are visible per shipment, and a variance can open a governed dispute in one step.
What does billing ready mean in Kargentra?
Billing ready means a delivered shipment has passed 16 named checks, including accepted delivery evidence, resolved exceptions, a governed charge and coherent currency. It is deliberately separate from evidence complete: a delivery can have every document and still be blocked by an open exception or a missing charge. Each failed check is shown in plain language on the delivery, with who can fix it.
How are freight invoice disputes handled?
Disputes run on one lifecycle for both directions: payable disputes with carriers and receivable disputes with customers. Each dispute is itemised with a reason and evidence, both sides can propose a value, and outcomes above a configured amount or percentage need approval from the right band. The counterparty answers in its own portal, and an approved outcome becomes a governed commercial fact.
Can Kargentra bill 3PL clients for warehouse and transport work?
Yes. A 3PL groups a client’s warehouse services, storage and transport into one commercial engagement with an expected revenue, actual sell, actual cost and gross margin per currency. Storage periods are closed under governance with a preview of counted units and the charge, and the engagement reaches Finance and invoicing as one job, without creating an artificial shipment.
Does Kargentra replace our accounting system or ERP?
No. Kargentra owns commercial truth up to the issued invoice and the frozen Finance handoff, and your accounting system remains the ledger. It does not post general ledger entries, take payments or run collections. When your accounting system owns invoice issue, Kargentra sends the approved invoice and marks it issued only when that system confirms the official number.
How are invoices corrected after they are issued?
Issued invoices are immutable and their numbers are never reused. A correction is a new document that references the original: a credit note to reduce, a supplemental invoice or debit note to increase. The customer sees that the new document corrects an earlier one, and the audit trail keeps the original, the reason and the approver together.
Further reading
- Guide · 9 min readFreight audit and billing readiness, explainedThe freight audit process step by step, why delivery evidence decides billing readiness, common invoice errors and how disputes are resolved.
- Guide · 9 min readElectronic proof of delivery (ePOD): a practical guideWhat electronic proof of delivery should capture, how offline capture works and why arrival, a delivery attempt and accepted POD are different.
- Guide · 10 min readWhat is a transportation management system (TMS)?What a TMS does, how it works from transport demand to freight audit and billing, who uses one and how to evaluate it without being sold a map.
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See Kargentra run your operation
A working session on your lanes, your sites and your hand-offs: order to invoice, on one record.