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Best Practices
3-5% of parcel spend is hiding in carrier invoice errors
Rabot
Content Contributor
Jul 2, 2025
Carrier invoices land every week, yet 3-5% of the dollars you pay are pure leakage that could be clawed back with a basic audit. For a fulfilment operator or 3PL that ships $4 million in small‑package freight a year, that silent leak is roughly $120,000 of margin slipping out the door.
Why do invoices go wrong?
The benchmark data shows five repeat offenders:
Dim‑weight or re‑weigh overrides when package dimensions are wrong or missing.
Address corrections and zone miscoding.
Oversize and additional‑handling fees on heavy or long packages.
Missing or late scan events such as un‑manifested labels.
Return‑label and reverse‑logistics relabels.
Each of these errors converts into $1‑$100 per parcel, with the sweet spot in the $3‑$40 range.
What 3‑5% looks like on your P&L
A mid‑size shipper in the benchmark study lost $127K a year plus nine hours of staff time every month chasing adjustments and still only recovered 23% of the money owed.
Back‑of‑napkin math:
At‑risk spend = Annual parcel spend × 0.03 (use the lower end to stay conservative)
Potential recovery = At‑risk spend × 0.70 recovery rate
Run the numbers against your own parcel budget and the upside becomes hard to ignore.
Four fast fixes to reclaim the cash
Quick win | What to do | Payback signal |
|---|---|---|
Capture perfect dims & weight | Install an automated parcel dimensioner at pack‑out | Hardware typically pays back in under six months |
Audit freight invoices | Use in‑house scripts or a third‑party audit partner to dispute every error | Treat the recovered 3-5% as free money |
Block bad labels at source | Add preship validation rules in WMS/TMS for dimensions, weight and address | Prevents fees before they appear on the invoice |
Tighten contract language | Negotiate refund windows and caps on accessorial mark‑ups once volume justifies it | Locks long term savings into your carrier agreements |
Ready to stop the bleed?
Run a free carrier adjustment health check: we’ll screen last month’s invoice for error patterns.
See the evidence engine live: take a 10‑minute demo of Rabot’s video‑backed invoice dispute tool.
