These are updated recommendations designed to help you achieve your trucking invoicing goals.

TL;DR: We recommend having a single trucking rate administrator, conducting trucking time card audits (automating where possible), and using a 1-day billing period and 3-day invoice offset to optimize your invoicing.

Common Goals

Most customers share four core goals when it comes to trucking invoicing:

1. Accuracy: Ensuring invoices reflect the correct quantities and rates.
2. Stability: Minimizing changes to invoices after they are generated.
3. Speed: Generating and processing invoices quickly.
4. Efficiency: Keeping the process smooth and easy for everyone involved.

Balancing these goals can be challenging—accuracy can sometimes come at the expense of speed or efficiency, especially when additional audits are involved.

Features to Achieve These Goals

XBE has developed several features over the years to help you meet these invoicing goals:

1. Trucking Rate Agreements: Rates are automatically applied to tenders during dispatching, and then used to rate time cards and invoices. To handle diverse scenarios, the rate management process is necessarily complex but streamlined to minimize administrative work.
2. Billing Period and Invoice Offset Settings: The billing period determines how often time cards are aggregated for invoicing, while the offset determines how long after the billing period ends the invoice is generated. For example, a 1-day billing period with a 3-day offset means that invoices are generated every day, but with a delay of 3 days to allow for approvals and audits.
3. Trucking Time Card Approval Audits: Introduced in September 2022, this feature ensures that time cards are reviewed before invoicing, adding a second set of eyes to ensure accuracy and reduce incorrect charges.
4. Automated Time Card Reviews with Kathy: Kathy, our AI reviewer, was launched in May 2023. She helps streamline audits by analyzing shift data and suggesting start and end times for shifts, making manual reviews required less often, faster, and more accurate.

The Impact of Trucking Time Card Audits

Initially introduced to manage periods of high change or stress, trucking time card audits have proven effective at preventing over-billing and reducing unnecessary trucking costs—despite adding some administrative effort.

Over the past two years, adoption has grown significantly. Today, over 30% of time card approvals are audited, and 11 customers have audits enabled. We estimate a reduction in overbilling by 2% for most customers, translating to roughly 10 minutes per driver day saved—a substantial impact with over 1,000 audits daily.

Given the positive results, we recommend enabling time card audits, especially if rates are complex or drivers are paid by the hour which can increase ambiguity.

Kathy's Upgrade: Smarter Automated Reviews

Kathy, our automated time card reviewer, has recently been upgraded with OpenAI's o1-mini reasoning model, improving her ability to accurately determine start and end times for shifts. This upgrade allows Kathy to handle audits more effectively, reducing the need for manual reviews while increasing accuracy.

We recommend enabling automated audits for time card approvals, especially where manual auditing is already in place. Kathy’s conservative approach ensures accuracy while minimizing workload.

Billing Period and Invoice Offset Best Practices

Billing and offset settings are often chosen based on habit rather than optimal efficiency. We recommend that the settings be revisited from time-to-time and compared with your overall goals. Our general recommendations are:

• Billing Period: 1-day billing period. This allows you to identify and address issues quickly.
• Invoice Offset: 3-day offset. This provides enough time for approvals and audits without significantly increasing latency.

Shorter offsets can work, but should only be attempted once the overall invoicing process is stable.

The Importance of a Single Trucking Rate Administrator

Given the complexity of trucking rate agreements and the need for accuracy, we recommend designating a single trucking rate administrator. The administrator should have familiarity with the trucking process and would also have a high aptitude for detailed systems-based contract administration work. Having a single good administrator will ensure consistent oversight and minimize errors.

We're Here to Help

Setting up accurate trucking billing policies and settings is critical but can be complex. XBE supports a wide range of scenarios, and we’re here to help ensure your setup is right for your needs. These guidelines are just starting points—reach out, and let’s get it right together.