Freight and Landed Cost Verification Agent
Validates freight invoices and calculates true landed cost per shipment by reconciling carrier charges, customs duties, and negotiated freight rates against contract terms.
Freight and logistics invoices are notoriously error-prone, with carriers frequently applying incorrect fuel surcharges, accessorial fees, or duty classifications that deviate from negotiated contract rates, but procurement and accounts payable teams rarely have the capacity to manually verify every freight invoice line against contract terms, so overcharges routinely go unnoticed and unrecovered
Understanding the true landed cost of goods, which includes freight, duties, insurance, and handling on top of the purchase price, is also typically calculated only at a rough aggregate level rather than per shipment, obscuring which suppliers or routes are actually the most cost-effective once total cost is accounted for
This agent reconciles every freight invoice line item against the applicable carrier contract rate card and customs duty schedule, flags overcharges for recovery, and calculates true landed cost per shipment so procurement can make sourcing decisions based on total cost rather than purchase price alone
The agent is triggered upon receipt of a freight invoice or customs entry document, using OCR to extract line-item charges including base freight, fuel surcharge, accessorial fees, and duty amounts. It cross-references each charge against the applicable carrier contract rate card, negotiated fuel surcharge index, and customs duty schedule for the product's harmonized tariff classification, using LLM-based analysis to interpret contract rate terms and identify discrepancies. It calculates the fully loaded landed cost per shipment by combining verified freight, duty, insurance, and handling charges with the purchase price, and generates overcharge recovery claims for any confirmed discrepancy.
Extract Freight and Customs Charges
- Ingest freight invoices and customs entry documents via OCR
- Extract base freight, fuel surcharge, and accessorial fee line items
- Extract duty and tariff classification detail from customs entries
- Match each shipment to its corresponding purchase order
Validate Charges Against Contract Terms
- Cross-reference base freight charges against the carrier rate card
- Verify fuel surcharge against the negotiated surcharge index
- Check accessorial fees against contracted allowable charges
- Validate duty amount against the correct harmonized tariff classification
Calculate True Landed Cost
- Combine verified freight, duty, insurance, and handling charges
- Add the purchase price to calculate total landed cost per shipment
- Calculate landed cost per unit for comparison across suppliers and routes
- Compare landed cost against purchase-price-only cost assumptions
Generate Overcharge Recovery Claims
- Compile confirmed overcharge discrepancies into a recovery claim
- Route claims to the carrier or customs broker for dispute
- Track claim status through resolution and credit issuance
- Report recovered savings and landed cost trends to procurement