Ideally, invoicing shouldn’t be complicated. The carrier charges the shipper for the freight, the carrier gets paid, and life moves on. But in practice, all the complexities associated with LTL inevitably bleed into the invoicing process. It’s almost a matter of course that LTL will come with incorrect or avoidable charges. The third session in SMC³ LTL Online Education’s 2023 LTL203: LTL Freight Pricing live seminar hybrid series focused on the challenges of reconciling invoices in the world of LTL.

When you understand how LTL shipments are priced, it’s a lot easier to manage your transportation spend. This SMC³ LTL Online Education session worked to identify some of the drivers of LTL freight pricing, and how rates are determined.

Much progress has been made to digitize supply chains. Technology advancements like transportation management systems (TMS) and LTL freight APIs (application programming interfaces) automatically connect with carriers and open doors to digitize the shipment lifecycle from quote to delivery.

SMC³ recently talked with Niki Bolton, chief strategic operations officer and senior truck auditor at American Truck & Rail Audits, Inc. about how shippers can proactively reduce accessorial charges and invoice surprises.

The final day of Connections 2023 kicked off with Webb Estes, president and COO of Estes Express Lines, sharing insights from his career as a leader in the LTL market. Estes Express Lines is the largest family-owned trucking company in the United States and the fifth-largest LTL carrier with $4.4 billion in revenue. 

The second day of Connections 2023 opened with Mike Horvath, the EVP, CMO, and co-founder of Revenova, a CRM-based TMS company, identifying several trends that he saw shaping shipping and logistics, as well as certain risks that might be upcoming in the industry.