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By definition an audit is, * An examination of records or financial accounts to check their accuracy. * An adjustment or correction of accounts. * An examined and verified account. A freight audit vendor is therefore one who examines, adjusts and verifies freight bills for accuracy.〔Insource Audit, ''Selecting a freight audit vendor ()''〕 Therefore, a freight audit is the process of examining, adjusting and verifying freight bills for accuracy. Freight costs 〔Geodis Wilson, ''Freight Management - F ()''〕 * Costs incurred by the merchant in moving goods, by whatever means, from one place to another under the terms of the contract of carriage. In addition to transport costs this may include such elements as packing, documentation, loading, unloading and transport insurance. ==Complexity of Freight Audit== Rising freight cost is an emerging area of concern as seen in recent years. The cost of freight has been rising due to the increase in oil prices and all freight cost is highly dependent on the cost of transportation which relates directly to fuel prices. With high fluctuations of fuel costs, low visibility of the future freight costs and high complexity of the freight quotes, freight cost verification are vulnerable to human and process errors and this requires proper auditing to ensure that the organization does not overpay for services it did not incur. The forwarder freight rates are usually maintained in multiple spreadsheets and usually each forwarder has a different freight rate format to the customer. An organization is daunted with the task of calculating the freight rates manually and this task can be challenging when the customer has hundreds of shipments shipped each month. Most organizations do not have the manpower to calculate all the freight invoices issued to them and at best, they perform random sampling to check if the sample invoice is billed correctly. Some organizations have the manpower to perform freight audit themselves, the manual and tedious efforts required for a freight audit will usually end up much more expensive than an outsource vendor might be able to provide. Based on the research of inboundlogistics.com, freight costs can make up 10% of an organization’s expenditure.〔Inbound Logistics (2009), ''Freight Payment Services Boosting Invoice IQ ()''〕 As a consequence of rising freight costs, an increasing number of organizations has been more proactive in controlling freight cost and outsourced the freight audit process to freight audit specialists. Many Freight Auditors are now offering Parcel Auditing Services which include UPS, Federal Express, DHL, Purolator etc...〔Transportation Cost Recovery, "Parcel Audit ()''〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Freight audit」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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