DIY Freight Management Toolkit
Professional freight management tools for businesses without a transportation manager
Managing freight costs and service problems can be challenging when transportation is just one aspect of your responsibilities. With the Inglis Logistics DIY Freight Management Toolkit, business owners, operations teams, and finance professionals can access essential freight management tools designed to facilitate freight cost analysis, monitor carrier performance through a carrier performance scorecard, and conduct a thorough freight health check to identify issues before they escalate into costly problems. This toolkit combines professional transportation-management methodology with user-friendly Excel tools and detailed instructions, making it accessible even to those without specialized transportation experience. Additionally, the inclusion of accessorial tracking helps in gaining a complete understanding of overall freight expenditures.
Start with the free Freight Health Check
Not sure where your freight management gaps are?
Complete the Inglis Logistics Freight Health Check to evaluate ten crucial areas essential for effective freight management tools, including:
- Freight-cost visibility through freight cost analysis
- Carrier invoice verification
- On-time performance
- Accessorial-charge control with accessorial tracking
- Carrier rates and service expectations
- Freight budgeting
- Claims management
- Backup-carrier planning
- Monthly management reporting with a focus on the carrier performance scorecard
The assessment helps pinpoint warning signs and recommends actionable steps to enhance your operations.
What the toolkit includes
Freight Health Check
Assess your current freight management practices using our freight health check to identify areas needing improvement.
Carrier Performance Scorecard
Utilize the carrier performance scorecard to track shipment-level performance metrics, including:
- On-time pickup
- On-time delivery
- Damage
- Carrier response time
- Performance by carrier and lane
Leverage objective data to support carrier reviews, instead of relying on isolated complaints or impressions.
Freight Cost Analysis
Conduct a thorough freight cost analysis to gain a clearer understanding of the actual costs associated with each shipment. Monitor:
- Base freight
- Fuel surcharges
- Accessorial charges
- Total shipment cost
- Cost per pound
- Costs by carrier, lane, and mode
This analysis can highlight cost increases, inconsistent pricing, and potential savings opportunities.
Accessorial Tracking and Audit
Implement accessorial tracking to monitor charges that extend beyond basic freight, including detention, appointments, layovers, residential delivery, liftgate service, redelivery, and reweigh charges.
This tool enables you to:
- Compare billed charges with approved rates
- Identify questionable charges
- Track disputes and recoveries
- Assign responsibility
- Record root causes
- Prevent recurring costs
Carrier Bid Comparison and RFP Support
Enhance your bidding process with carrier bid comparison and RFP support to assess competing carrier proposals beyond just the quoted base rate. The evaluation worksheet considers:
- Annualized transportation cost
- Fuel
- Expected accessorials
- Service capability
- Operational fit
- Risk
- Overall weighted score
This method promotes a more consistent approach for carrier selection and rate discussions.
Freight Budget
Establish a clear freight budget on a monthly basis using expected shipment volumes and cost assumptions. Regularly compare your plan with recorded freight spending to identify:
- Volume differences
- Rate changes
- Fuel effects
- Accessorial costs
- Shipment-mix changes
- Material budget variances
Claims and Service Tracking
Facilitate the resolution of cargo claims and service issues through diligent claims and service tracking. Monitor:
- Claim or case value
- Current status
- Assigned owner
- Last follow-up
- Days outstanding
- Amount recovered
- Required next action
Management Dashboard
The management dashboard consolidates key results into one accessible location, featuring:
- Freight Health Check score
- On-time pickup and delivery
- Damage rate
- Total freight spend
- Accessorial spending and disputed variance
- Budget variance
- Open claims
- Claim value and recoveries
Detailed step-by-step SOP included
What information to collect for accessorial tracking, where to find each piece of information, how to complete every worksheet relevant to carrier performance scorecard, which cells should and should not be changed, how to reconcile entries with carrier invoices, how to conduct a freight cost analysis during a monthly freight review, common problems and corrective actions, transportation terms in plain language, and when professional assistance may be worthwhile for a comprehensive freight health check using effective freight management tools.
DIY Freight Management Toolkit
The toolkit is designed for small and mid-sized businesses that:
- Ship or receive freight regularly
- Do not employ a dedicated transportation manager
- Want better visibility into freight spending through effective accessorial tracking
- Experience unexplained extra charges
- Need a consistent way to evaluate carriers using a carrier performance scorecard
- Have recurring delivery or service problems
- Want to prepare for carrier negotiations
- Need a clearer freight budget
- Have unresolved claims or operational issues
It can be used by owners, operations managers, finance teams, purchasing employees, customer-service leaders, and office administrators.
What the toolkit is not
The toolkit is not carrier-tracking software or a transportation management system. It does not book shipments, provide live tracking, or replace your accounting, warehouse, or order-management systems. Instead, it serves as a practical freight management tool that organizes information from those sources, enabling you to make better freight decisions.
From information to action
The objective is not simply to complete a spreadsheet. The objective is to understand:
- What your freight is actually costing through a comprehensive freight cost analysis
- Which carriers and lanes are performing well
- Where avoidable charges are occurring
- Which problems require immediate attention
- What your business should do next
Start with the free Freight Health Check, use the DIY Toolkit to organize the facts, and involve Inglis Logistics when the findings point to a larger opportunity.
