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Service bill format for Logistics

all right in this video we are doing an invoice audit so we have Laura croak here of LC Innovative Logistics and how long have you been doing this for as far as reading like these invoices and seeing the weird stuff that's happening in them about 15 years okay so you've looked at hundreds if not thousands of invoices and you've kind of got the pattern recognition to see them right away I assume like oh like there's the three four five things that are always off and you know immediately that this person's probably getting worked over by some company oh yeah okay so we're going to throw up on the TV here um a invoice and you're going to walk us through it and just kind of some of the things that people should look for in this particular invoice what are you noticing right away on it um so on the terms it says prepaid so a lot of people think like okay I'm prepaying for my Freight um what you don't realize is that a vendor is calling it prepaid an ad so what they're doing is you're prepaying for your product but they're also adding in the freight charges so always look for that um um so that's the first thing and then what I like to do is um go to the actual vendor website and try to pull up a catalog page or some something on their website that shows me the product that that company that I'm running the rate for um I can compare it to cuz most of the time on these Freight invoices the unit cost will be um inflated because they so in this particular case you're seeing unit cost of $ 32.99 160 sometimes you'll find that on the actual website and it'll be like a lower number kind of thing correct okay correct do a lot of these companies post this publicly those numbers then they should they and then usually they'll if you go back and you ask them like why is this so much more and they're going to say well it's 10% margin and that you know blah blah blah blah blah this is how you know we figured it out because you're buying a quantity of three but we got you a discount and then you're like well where's the discount and then they'll immediately they'll go down to the freight cost so if you look at Freight and then you see obviously piece is one and the unit cost of it is $679 and then your cost is zero so they're saying oh well you got free freight and you didn't you're paying for it in the product cost and then there always will be something on the invoice that you didn't purchase so they'll say like oh the hardware kit comes with just as an example the hardware kit is what packages all of your product in there and then it's like marked up ridiculous so like your spending I mean I may have made it a little higher on this one but like uh it'll just be a higher amount you be like what is this and they're going to say oh this comes with it because you're going to need this to use you know X Y and Z product so that's the other thing too and then another option to look at when um reviewing it too is the packaging so they'll the packaging should always be included with the freight cost you should never be paying additional for them to wrap it that that's included in the freight so if you see that on an invoice right away it's like a red flag immediately for you okay um some of the stuff you're talking about too it kind of reminds me of like if uh I'm using door Dash and you're just kind of going through and you're like how many fees are there and you're just like well there already was a delivery fee but then there's a tip and then there's your fee and that's kind of like what you're looking for sometimes in these invoices is just finding all these little hidden fees that are throughout the invoice correct so uh I believe one of the things you do for your companies you actually do free invoice audits right yes okay so if somebody was interested they can check that in the description there'll be a link to your website go through that cuz it's probably something that you can spot it in 5 minutes but it's because you've been doing it for 15 years right yeah yeah okay and then if you scroll down on it um so I did an example um from Patterson New Jersey to Buffalo New York the freight cost they from what they're saying is $679 to me on one or two pallets that's extreme like I just know that just from working in um you know the industry for a really long time anybody who's shipping would be like oh what a great deal it's under $1,000 that's really high freight cost so um majority of the time when you look at uh a vendor they'll throw like a pallet dimension on there so on here I have 48x 40 x 56 um about 90% of the time whenever I get uh the invoice versus what we actually shipped it as the vendor always wrong with their weights and the specifications of what they're shipping yeah and that um that the dimensions and the weight and how many pallets you're shipping are how the freight companies will basically charge you for so if you're paying $679 on two pallets that are a standard siiz palette and normal weight you are being overcharged okay would you say like looking at the invoice though like CU somebody that doesn't have your experience what is the very first thing when you look at this that's the first red flag that like immediately somebody can look at their invoice and maybe be able to see Freight zero cost Freight zero cost okay so that's typically one like more than half of the time you're already like all right something's up right okay correct all right cool um any other tips or advice as far as like reading an invoice audit or things of that nature when you're like looking at the invoice um I mean just the freight cost I would ask you know I would ask them to show you the invoice of the actual like a similar shipment or if you've done it with them in the past just be like oh can I see your actual invoice from the carrier that shipped this for me just so you can kind of see because they are marking it up I mean that's how they're making their profit they you know that's always what they're going to do um and then sometimes they'll say um terms collect on an invoice and that usually means that the customer should be routing it and they're making a profit off of you as well so I use the example of prepaid where they prepaid and then add the freight to your invoice collect would mean that the customer is going to be sending in their own like logistics company basically and that should also be a red flag okay yeah so if somebody has an invoice and they want to get that checked out in the description of this video will be a link to Laura's company's website and they can get a free invoice audit right yeah and uh that's not something you're not asking for a credit card or anything just free invoice audit no strings attached so check out the description and we'll catch you in the next video