So, raise your hand if you hate freight shipping related adjustments and or rebills. Well guess what, I have been working in logistics and the freight brokerage industry for more than 10 years and I HATE them too! Although I doubt we will ever eliminate them completely due to inherent complexities of shipping large heavy products via freight; we have put together a list of ideas to greatly reduce freight related shipping adjustments we all dislike!
- ITEM MASTER: Have a product item master on file and online in an official looking format, to present to carriers in the case of a freight class or weight adjustment. This should include the sku, description, dims, and weights of the products as they would ship (ei master case dims and weights).
- PACKING SLIP: Always create and use a packing slip per shipment and keep it on file. The two main documents you will need to quickly dispute freight adjustments are a packing slip, and a product item master. This should include the skus shipped, and quantities shipped and should correlate to your product item master easily for carriers to verify.
- RESEARCH THE CORRECT CLASS AND NMFC CODES: Seems simply enough but many people have just inherited what they believe to be the correct freight class and nmfc codes for their products. However the truth is most class and nmfc codes are constantly evolving as commodities and the material they are made of morph and change. If you ship a lot of freight you should have access to a site like https://classit.nmfta.org to do class and nmfc code research.
- DOUBLE CHECK THE DENSITY: Many products are density rated in lbs per cubic foot. So double check to see if your products are density freight class calculated. Most systems like our Carrier Rate 2.0 have simple density calculators you can use, but you still need to know the increments of density the pertain to each class code of your product.
- BE AS SPECIFIC AS YOU CAN WHEN BOOKING SHIPMENTS: Include all accessorials (I.E. lift gate, residential delivery), extreme length (anything over 12 linear ft usually) and always double check carriers insurance will cover your replacement cost whether product is new or used. Better to know what each carrier will charge ahead of time for each accessorial rather than later when they rebill you and it’s too late to switch carrier.
- ARM YOUR SHIPPING TEAM WITH ALL THIS INFO: Kind of goes without saying but your shipping team needs to be given all this information and be tasked with keeping it up to date as your products morph and change. If your company can arm your shipping team with most of these simply tools you should be able greatly reduce and/or maybe even eliminate freight shipping rebills.
If your shipping department needs help with any of this and/or your current freight company doesn’t know how to help you with this please let us know. We would be happy to start working with you and set you up for success and less headaches from the start using our newest Freight Management System Carrier Rate 2.0. Makes our working life easier and less stressful to, so setting you up correctly is a win/win for all of us!
Please call or email us with any questions you or your shipping team may have. We would be honored to look at partnering with you for any of your firm’s logistical needs into 2016!
Sincerely,
Jeremy