Logistics Tech Outlook

Intelligent Audit
A Strategic Approach to Cost Savings

Hannah Testani, Chief Operating Officer, Intelligent AuditHannah Testani, Chief Operating Officer
For any business, it goes without saying that timely payment of invoices forms the foundation of strong vendor relationships and effective financial control; however, organizations find it challenging to handle freight invoices and process payments on a day-to-day basis given the billing and contractual complexities compounded by the sheer volume of transactions. Here, accuracy in billing is a tough target to achieve amid continuous discrepancies that drive up costs for shippers. At the same time, managing exceptions and resolving disputed invoices can be cumbersome and resource-intensive too. Addressing these issues that pertain to freight management is Intelligent Audit, a logistics technology company that provides its clients with transportation invoice auditing solutions and advanced data analytics aimed at reducing costs, improving processes, and helping its clients ship smarter. “In addition to our comprehensive audit that verifies the validity and accuracy of every single charge, we also give shippers visibility to all of their global transportation activity across all modes,” says Hannah Testani, Chief Operating Officer of Intelligent Audit.

Established in 1996, Intelligent Audit has always had a consistent focus toward providing the leading audit and business intelligence platform to companies looking to eliminate wasteful spend and optimize shipping performance. Appropriate examination of data and utilizing it strategically is the company’s basis for assisting their clients in optimizing both costs and time-in-transit. The technology developed by Intelligent Audit visualizes a customer’s transportation data in customizable reports and dashboards and includes numerous KPIs across all carriers and services. It’s more advanced capabilities include analyzing the existing footprint of a business and providing detailed cost analysis and recommendations regarding the optimal footprint redistribution based on actual historical shipping activity.

Utilizing data science and machine learning techniques, Intelligent Audit’s software studies a shipper’s data for inconsistencies and searches for anomalies and potential issues. In the event of an anomaly, a dedicated account advisor examines the root cause and the platform allows customers to delve into the data at a macro and micro level in real-time to develop proactive solutions to resolve the issue. “Anomaly detection and real-time alerts have helped numerous customers identify issues faster, which dramatically minimizes the operational and financial impact on the business,” adds Hannah.

One of Intelligent Audit’s primary missions is to improve the relationship between the shipper and the carrier. With this in mind, the company has developed a dedicated carrier collaboration portal to improve transparency and visibility when service issues and billing disputes arise. The carrier collaboration portal helps keep carriers apprised of all outstanding balances and disputed amounts with supporting documentation to streamline and expedite claims resolution.

In a recent collaboration, one of Intelligent Audit’s clients who had just completed an acquisition approached IA for an analysis of the combined business in order to understand optimal network design and carrier/service mix. IA examined the footprint and distribution network for each of the shippers individually and on a combined basis and provided recommendations as to which locations should be closed and which carriers and modes would optimize cost and transit time. As part of the exercise, Intelligent Audit also supported the client in a carrier RFP and negotiation to ensure that contract terms were aligned with the new shipping profile of the combined business.

With more than 2,500 customers across various industries, Intelligent Audit has acquired expertise in transportation spend optimization and will continue to expand internationally across all industry verticals. In terms of future developments, the company sees an opportunity around blockchain technology for transportation invoicing and payments. Intelligent Audit believes this technology, applied correctly, will dramatically minimize exceptions and expedite invoice approval and carrier payments. From catering to Fortune 500 global companies to emerging e-commerce startups, Intelligent Audit has stopped at nothing to help its customers achieve maximum efficiency with best-in-class technology.

Deep Dive

Freight Audit Built for Faster Spend Decisions

Freight invoices now reflect far more than contracted line-haul rates. Accessorials shift, carrier rules change, fuel schedules reset, and routing decisions can alter cost before finance sees the invoice. At enterprise scale, small deviations disappear inside normal volume. A platform, therefore, has to do more than validate arithmetic. It must distinguish a bill that is technically correct from a spend that is unusual for the shipper’s own network, without forcing teams to review every exception by hand. Audit depth still matters because recovery starts with reliable invoice control. Buyers should look for systems that can ingest detailed carrier data across modes and test charges against negotiated terms at scale. Manual review becomes a weak link once shipment volumes rise or contracts vary by lane and service. The more useful platforms also preserve enough context around each exception to support resolution rather than producing a queue of unexplained flags. Finance teams need confidence in what is being paid, while transportation teams need to know why a charge surfaced. The harder buying question is what happens after conventional audit rules have done their job. Static controls can catch a rate mismatch, yet they may miss a sudden change in service use or a pattern that remains contract-compliant while pushing spend in the wrong direction. AI earns its place here when it learns normal shipping behavior and identifies deviations early enough to act. Explainability is equally important. An alert without the location and likely cause simply transfers the investigation burden back to staff. “Intelligent Audit’s audit platform combines normalized transportation data with DeepDetectAI, which learns shipping patterns and flags atypical activity for investigation.” Spend intelligence then becomes a test of decision speed rather than dashboard volume. Transportation data is often split across carrier feeds, internal systems, contract records and invoice histories. Executives should favor platforms that can connect those sources, normalize data, surface exceptions and let teams interrogate findings without waiting for a reporting cycle. Self-service analysis is most useful when it can expose cost-allocation problems or procurement mismatches while the underlying decision can still be changed. Faster access to normalized data can also sharpen bid timing by showing whether negotiated rates fit actual shipping behavior. Decision speed also depends on the contract context. Expiration dates, overlapping rates, surcharges and lane-specific terms can create spend leakage long before an invoice fails a formal audit. A credible platform should make those conditions visible early and tie them back to shipment patterns. Procurement alerts matter when they provide enough lead time to reassess lane economics against current volume, rather than merely reminding a team that a document is expiring. Human expertise still has a role when software surfaces a finding that needs carrier follow-up or a change in procurement practice. The point is not to replace judgment. It is to reserve judgment for the decisions that merit it. Intelligent Audit stands out as the premier choice for enterprises that want freight audit to extend into AI-led spend intelligence. Its audit platform combines normalized transportation data with DeepDetectAI, which learns shipping patterns and flags atypical activity for investigation. Contract Management 2.0 adds centralized agreement tracking and renewal alerts. Advanced reporting and analytics extends that analysis through real-time dashboards and ad hoc reporting. AI also makes transportation data easier to interrogate, while client success specialists help customers act on findings. For buyers trying to move from invoice recovery toward faster spend decisions, that combination is a strong fit. ...Read more

Intelligent Audit News

Intelligent Audit Joins the Ranks of BiTA

The incorporation of blockchain technology will enable organizations to introduce greater transparency and efficiency into their freight auditing process.
FREMONT, CA: The logistics industry is going through a revolution fueled by the emergence of robust modern technologies. Organizations are increasingly incorporating innovative technologies to automate their shipping operations, enhance supply chain visibility, and reduce the expenses involved in freight processes. Freight often takes up a significant portion of the budget. To ensure the optimization of costs, freight auditing has become imperative for organizations. Read More

Top 10 Freight Audit And Payment Companies - 2018

Company
Intelligent Audit

Management
Hannah Testani, Chief Operating Officer

Description
Provides best-in-breed transportation invoice auditing technology and advanced spend analytics aimed at helping clients reduce costs, improve processes, and ship smarter