Job margin protection

Check the vendor invoice against the rate card and the proof of delivery before it is approved

• Domain: Supply Chain & Logistics
• Moment: Before the money moves
• Customer: A third-party logistics operator

Check each vendor charge before it reduces job margin.

The situation

A third-party logistics operator sells a job at a price built from a customer rate card, then buys the execution from subcontractors: trucking, handling, customs clearance, storage, last mile.

The cost side arrives weeks later as a vendor invoice covering many jobs. By then the trip is a memory, the delivery record is filed, and the approver sees a total without the calculation behind it.

It gets approved. The vendor is known, the number looks plausible, and holding it starts an argument with a partner who is moving next week's freight.

What breaks today

The invoice arrives at a different grain from the rate card. The card prices per trip, per lane, per tonne, per pallet, per waiting hour. The invoice arrives as a monthly statement with one line per job reference, or one line per date. Comparing them means rebuilding the calculation by hand.

Accessorials have no contracted rate, by definition. Waiting time, detention, redelivery, after hours, tolls, fuel adjustment, lift on and lift off. These are the charges vendors add most often, with nothing to check them against.

Delivery records are rarely used in the check. The POD confirms the trip, delivery date, drop count, tonnage, and signed waiting hours. These details often remain separate from the invoice review.

Charges reappear. The same trip billed on two statements. A credited charge re-invoiced under a different reference. A charge against a job that was cancelled.

The contract version is not the invoice date. Rate cards change mid-period. The rate that applies is the one in force on the service date, and a manual check uses whichever card is on the desk.

Checking is priced out, and recovery afterwards rarely happens. Past a certain number of lines, with a payment deadline, sampling replaces checking, and vendors learn which lines get looked at. After payment a dispute needs evidence that sits in three places, and the amount per line is small enough that chasing it costs more than it returns.

What Manuel does

Reads the invoice in the form it arrives. Statement PDF, spreadsheet, portal export or per-job invoice. It is split to line level and normalised to the job, so comparison happens at the grain the card uses.

Resolves the vendor and contract version from the service date. It then returns the rates that applied to that movement.

Rebuilds the expected cost from source. The calculation uses the rate card, lane, trip record, weight or volume, accessorial policy, and delivery record. The expected amount is ready before invoice review.

Matches line by line to the job. A charge referencing no job becomes an exception. A charge already invoiced becomes a duplicate exception with the earlier reference attached.

Applies tolerance per charge type. A fuel adjustment inside its index band receives a different result from an unexplained handling charge.

Classifies every difference. Causes include rate variance, quantity variance, unsupported accessorials, duplicates, out-of-contract charges, and charges on cancelled jobs. Each case carries both values and the supporting documents.

Produces the job margin position before approval. It shows price sold, expected cost, invoiced cost, the difference, and supporting records for each line. The team can discuss a disputed charge using the invoice line and signed POD.

What the customer gets

The check moves from after payment to before approval, which is the only place it changes the outcome. A held line carries a reason the vendor can be shown, so the dispute is short.

Margin is known per job when the cost is accepted. The data also shows which vendors add accessorials and on which lanes.

This control is delivered, while recovery figures remain with the customer. Discovery measures monthly invoice lines, current review coverage, out-of-contract charges, days to approval, and the gap between quoted and realised margin per job.

What stays with your existing systems

The accounting system stays the system of record. Rate cards stay where they are maintained, and Manuel reads the version that applied. Job and trip records stay in the operating system.

Approval authority does not move. Manuel does not approve, pay or release. It puts the position and the evidence in front of the person who holds that decision.

What a first scope looks like

One vendor, or one service line, and a set of invoices you have already approved and paid. Read-only, files first, no change to the approval path.

We rebuild the expected cost for those jobs and show you, line by line, what would have been held and on what evidence. It is a report on your history before it is a control on your payables.

Related: Freight document intake / AP invoice control / Pre-reconciliation detection