When a global multi-modal logistics company was unable to control its cash flow for a long time, it dug deep to understand the cause.
Surprisingly, the reason for losing grip on their cash flow and revenue was visible in plain sight; just that it wasn’t believable.
Little did the company know that not tracking their receivables and payables would lead to the trickling of revenue going unnoticed for so long.
It would be hard to trust that the company DID use software for managing their billing and yet ran into the issue of visibility. Turns out, visibility was not the only challenge faced due to the unorganized billing system.
Read on to know the other issues you could run into – if your bills and invoices are not tracked systematically – and solutions that you could use too.
Good for Them But Not Necessarily Good for You
We have a misconception that what is best for some is best for us as well. Think about an organization that uses popular accounting software. Now, ask yourself two questions:
- Is that software designed for use within the freight forwarding industry?
- Are my organization’s problems the same as the other organizations?
Your organization is unique and your customers value that. Likewise, your problems may be unique too. Before implementing a solution for your organization, it is important that your service provider understands your challenges and presents you with a solution that you are content with. Bill formats customized the way you’d like, direct posting from operations, and creating a draft and final invoices are features of some of the industry-trusted freight forwarding software.
Consolidating Invoices from Various Branch Locations
Every time you wish to understand how your company is doing from the finance perspective, you seek reports. Now, here’s where many companies encounter a problem when using billing/accounting software that is not freight-specific. The effort of collating data from your multiple branches means exporting data from each of the branches and manually compiling them into a report.
You could argue that – Not ever so frequently do we require master reports for big strategic decision-making. Truly so, but where do you stand to extract an Unbilled Job Report? You would require that monthly, weekly, or even on-demand right?
The laborious manual task of exporting branch-wise data and then collating surely does not justify your investment in software. It is error-prone, people-dependent, and could take a while to generate. What you must use modular freight solutions that are capable of displaying quick intuitive reports and graphs for accounts payable and receivable.
A single integrated solution that supports multiple currencies and multiple bill types.
As a facilitator of international trade, you come across transactions that consist of multiple currencies and even multiple bill types. If your application is unable to be agile, it may result in being skipped while collating data or cause inconvenience during audits.
An integrated freight forwarding software is one with a seamless flow of information from operations and it can print:
- Invoices
- Debit Notes
- Credit Notes
- Brokerage Bills
This ensures that all revenue-related information is directly posted on the bills.
How can I secure a compatible billing software for Freight Forwarding?
Get started by talking to the solution experts. We at Softlink Global, have heard the challenges faced by many freight forwarders like you and implemented the perfect solution, Logi-Sys.
It is a cloud-based modular application, has enabled more than 1000 Freight Forwarders & Logistics Companies in 50+ countries to manage their end-to-end billing. Implement the integrated freight forwarding solution designed for freight forwarders to handle air, land, and sea freight!