Accounts Payable (Freight)

Freight accounts payable is the subset of a company's AP function dedicated to processing carrier invoices. For a shipper working with 30, 50, or 100+ carriers, freight AP means receiving invoices in multiple formats – EDI, email, carrier portals – matching each one to a shipment, validating the charges, coding it to the correct GL account, obtaining approval, and disbursing payment. It's high-volume, detail-intensive work with real financial consequences when errors slip through.

The friction in freight AP comes from fragmentation. Each carrier invoices differently – some send EDI 210s, others email PDFs, some require you to pull invoices from their portal. Payment terms vary. Rate structures vary. Accessorial descriptions vary. An AP clerk processing freight invoices needs to navigate all of this while cross-referencing rate confirmations and shipment records. At scale, this is a full-time job – or several.

Late or inaccurate freight payments damage carrier relationships. Carriers that don't get paid on time deprioritize that shipper's loads during tight capacity. Carriers that have to fight through dispute after dispute may decline to re-bid on the next RFP. On the other side, paying invoices without adequate review means overpayments that are difficult to recover after the fact.

Shippers looking to reduce freight AP burden have two levers: automate the audit so only exceptions require human review, and consolidate payments through a freight pay service so the AP team makes one disbursement instead of dozens. Together, these can reduce freight AP processing time by 80% or more.