Lets begin with an article written on Parcel Industries website on Validation and Verification: Making the Most of Your Parcel Audit. The difference you may ask?

Validation in the parcel industry is “Everything done internally is correct, but the carrier has made a mistake.”

Verification is “The carrier has shipped the package exactly as specified, but the specifications given were wrong.”

Notice the difference? As mentioned in this article it says, “The first issue (validation) is what most people envision when they think of a parcel invoice audit. This issue arises when the charged amount does not match what the audit claims it should be.” At this point a credit can be requested for the difference. You may have experienced this yourself or heard the stories of companies finding they have lost millions but that is why these shipping auditors exist.

Shipware gives us some examples of what kinds of refunds carriers will issue;

• Late Deliveries:
• The parcel was delivered past its guaranteed delivery time and date.
• Non-Shipments:
• The parcel was entered into the carrier system and billed, but never shipped from the shipping company.
• Incorrect Saturday Charge:
• The parcel was supposed to be picked up on a Saturday, but was not.
• Duplicate Charges:
• A parcel was billed more than one time.
• Incorrect Address Corrections:
• The carrier charges fees for an address correction that was not necessary or was initially correct.
• Incorrect Dimensional Weight Charges:
• The carrier used the wrong dimensions or applied an incorrect DIM factor.
• Incorrect Rate:
• The carrier did not apply the correct discount which is stipulated in the shipper’s carrier agreement

The most ideal situation would be to not have any errors but as we discussed above between shipping validation and verification, there unfortunately will be some small room for error. You definitely do not want to be taken advantage of by a bigger company of any sort, which is why these auditors exist. Shipware lets us know, “Parcel auditing services reduces shipping costs and proper reporting improves the quantity and quality of business intelligence, which should empower the shipper to make additional cost savings decisions. These benefits can provide a competitive advantage to any company.”

Lastly the greatest benefit to be on top of which Parcel shares is, “By recreating the process with internal rules applied correctly, deviations can be identified quickly and the problems fixed in order to avoid these additional costs in the future.” Staying on top of your auditing and being aware of what you can get refunds for is a good place to start to help your company stay on top of its game.

https://www.shipware.com/what-is-parcel-auditing/
https://parcelindustry.com/article-5104-Validation-and-Verification-
Making-the-Most-of-Your-Parcel-Audit.html