Running an e-commerce business is a lot like juggling flaming torches while riding a unicycle—you have to keep everything moving smoothly, from accepting orders to delivering to customers, or things can get expensive fast. One major cost culprit? Shipping inefficiencies. This is why you need to conduct a shipping audit for your Purolator invoices.
Purolator, a trusted name in logistics, offers a reliable way to deliver products to customers, but even the best carriers aren’t immune to billing errors, unexpected surcharges, or inefficiencies. A Purolator shipping audit helps you uncover these hidden costs, ensuring you’re only paying for what you actually owe—nothing more.
In this article, we’ll break down the Purolator audit process, show you how to spot cost-saving opportunities, and help you navigate compliance risks. We’ll also highlight common challenges and best practices so you can streamline your shipping operations and boost your bottom line.
What is Purolator Shipping Audit?
Purolator shipping audits refer to verifying Purolator shipping invoices for billing errors, discrepancies, and service failures in order to raise refund claims with the carrier. This exercise can help you avoid paying for undue surcharges and incorrect shipping calculations and get compensated for delayed deliveries, lost packages, and other service failures.
Overview of Purolator Services
Purolator offers a variety of services to e-commerce businesses to help facilitate efficient delivery. Here’s a look at these services:
| Type of Service | Name of Service | Service Shipping Speed | Package Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
Premium | Purolator Mission Critical | As soon as possible | No limitations |
Parcel | Puro Post,
Puro Post Plus | 2-7 days,
2-5 days | Weight should be below 66 lbs. |
Courier | Purolator Express,
Purolator Ground | 1-3 days,
3-5 days | Weight should typically be below 150 lbs. |
LTL | Purolator LTL | Not available | Weight must be above 150 lbs. |
The Shipping Audit Process
So, how do you go about a shipping audit? Here’s the roadmap:
Step 1: Gather the required documentation
Start your shipping audit process by collecting all necessary details and information about your shipping operations. This includes your shipment details, receipts, carrier contracts, discount vouchers, etc., and your shipping invoice.
Step 2: Verify the Shipping Invoices
Now, it’s time to check your shipping invoices for irregularities. These could be anything from non-alignment with the contract to failure to apply promised discounts. Cross-checking your invoices with the documents mentioned in the previous step will help with this.
Step 3: Address Issues and Initiate Refund Claims
Once you’ve analysed the shipping invoices, you can go ahead and flag issues with your carrier or raise requests for refund claims. Be sure to be prompt about it, and keep all necessary documentation at hand should your carrier need it to process your claim.
Identifying Cost-Saving Opportunities
Shipping costs can quietly drain your profits if you’re not paying attention. A Purolator audit helps you spot billing errors, duplicate charges, and unnecessary surcharges hiding in your invoices. By analysing shipping invoices and documents, you can also identify cheaper service options and negotiate better rates, because every dollar saved on shipping is a dollar earned for growth.
Compliance and Risk Management
Shipping compliance isn’t just about following rules—it’s about protecting your e-commerce business from costly mistakes. A Purolator audit helps e-commerce businesses ensure that shipments meet carrier policies, international trade regulations, and contracts, reducing the risk of penalties or disputes.
By auditing invoices, you can identify inaccurately classified shipments, unexpected ancillary fees, and other charges before they become financial burdens. Further, staying on top of compliance helps you avoid delivery delays, maintain customer trust, and streamline operations.
Think of it as insurance for your logistics—a proactive step that keeps your shipping process efficient, error-free, and fully optimised for success.
Challenges in Shipping Audits
Shipping audits can be tricky and throw you curveballs that can easily slow you down if not derail you entirely. The solution? To know what these curveballs are. Here are some of the challenges that you can face during shipping audits:
Complicated Invoices
Shipping invoices can often be complex and riddled with multiple line items, surcharges, tariff rates, and the like that just go right above your head. You see, carriers may apply peak season fees, detention fees, and ancillary charges (for pick up of package or storage, etc.), which vary frequently depending on market conditions. When auditing, ascertaining which fees are valid and which aren’t can be a task.
Shipping Process Visibility Issues
As mentioned in the previous point, your carrier can, at times, levy ancillary charges for additional services rendered beyond shipping your packages. These include charges for storing your package, picking it up from your warehouse, etc.
Understanding whether these are false or miscalculated requires a complete and thorough understanding of your shipping process. If you don’t have visibility into this, deciding which charges are valid and which aren’t can be a task.
Complex Carrier Contracts
Carriers often have complicated pricing models that vary depending on your package’s weight, value, and dimensions, your customer’s location, chosen service, etc. Understanding how these pricing models work is no easy task, especially if Purolator is not your only carrier partner.
You see, with multiple carriers, you have to know each carrier’s unique pricing structure and policies to confirm invoice details. This complicates the process of shipping audits considerably.
Limited Claims Window
Carrier claims policies can be anything but straightforward sometimes. This lack of clarity can make understanding and benefiting from their claims processes challenging. One of the most important aspects to keep in mind when applying for claims is the window within which you can apply for them.
You see, most carriers have a strict window within which you must apply for claims for service failures. Once that lapses, your claims will most probably be denied, resulting in you having to bear the financial brunt of the carrier’s failures on your own.
Best Practices for Shipping Audits
Here are some strategies that can help you get the most out of your shipping audits:
Automate Your Shipping Audit Processes
Consider integrating a Parcel Audit and Shipping Refund software to automate your shipping claims processes. LateShipment.com’s solution takes the entire task of this off your plate by managing everything from identifying service failures and billing errors to engaging their expert team if claims get denied. The result is a 100% reduction in your time spent on claims management and 20% savings on shipping costs.
Keep a Goal in Mind
If you don’t automate your shipping audit process, getting buried under the paperwork and documents to sort through just to verify one shipping invoice can quickly make you lose focus of which way is up.
To ensure you don’t lose your way, decide on the goal of your shipping audit process. Is it to identify errors in the carrier invoice, is it to confirm the invoice is aligned to your contract terms, or something else? Having a clear goal to guide your actions ensures you stay on track.
Facilitate Efficient Data Organisation
If your shipping data is all over the place, you’ll likely end up spending too much time on shipping audits, only to realise you’re not confident about your learnings. Avoid this and invest in robust data organisation strategies and systems that can help you find the tiniest needle in the haystack if need be. This will not only help you speed up your shipping audit process but also ensure its accuracy.
Conclusion
We get it—shipping audits are probably the least exciting part of running an e-commerce business, but they’re also one of the smartest ways to understand how you can cut unnecessary costs and optimise your shipping processes. A robust Purolator audit helps you catch billing errors, uncover hidden savings, and ensure compliance—all while improving efficiency.
That said, conducting a manual Purolator shipping audit? Like courting the devil. It’s tedious, resource-intensive, and, did we mention, prone to errors? This is why you need LateShipment.com’s Parcel Audit and Shipping Refund software that automates the entire process, identifying overcharges and billing discrepancies, filing refund claims, and recovering lost dollars—so you don’t have to. No paperwork, no hassle, just money back where it belongs: in your e-commerce business.
Ready to stop overpaying for shipping? Let LateShipment.com handle the audits while you focus on what matters—growing your business (or finally deciding on which coffee machine should make it your break room!).
