MachShip provides users with the ability to upload and reconcile the costs on a carrier invoice Versus the amount that was quoted from the carrier rate card. MachShip will clearly and concisely point out all the charge discrepancies and advise of the possible reasons allowing you to easily reconcile all your carrier invoices 

Below you will find a suggested step-by-step process that users can undertake when reconciling a carrier invoice. 

Step 1: Check that the carrier has provided the invoice in a data format that can be imported into MachShip

MachShip has the capability to import into the system any well-structured data files that can be read by a computer. Unfortunately, this does not extend to PDF files. Upon request, the majority of large transport providers will be able to provide the invoice in a data format that can be read by MachShip. some smaller providers may not have this capability. 

If the provider cannot provide an invoice in a format that is not PDF then you will be required to convert the invoice across to the MachShip Generic format. This is outlined here

If the transport provider has provided the invoice in a structured data format MachShip will likely have the invoice mapped and available for use with importing. Please check if this has been provided to you by checking your assigned company workflows. This is outlined here.

Should the invoice not be mapped up then you can map up and assign the workflow through the following instructions outlined in the article links below: 

How to create an Invoice Workflow Task

How to create a workflow

How to test a Workflow

How to assign a Workflow

Step 2: Ensure that Tolerances have been correctly set for the account. 

Reconciling carrier invoice charges can be a fantastic method that ensures that your business is able to recover incorrectly charged costs from transport carriers. This process can at times become cost neutral or even cost negative if it is not administered in an efficient way. In order to make the reconciliation process as efficient as possible, it is suggested by the MachShip team that your business utilizes tolerances to cut down on the number of charge discrepancies that your administration team has to deal with. 

Tolerances will be a dollar or percentage figure either above or below the quoted cost at which your business decides it would cost negatively for a team member to request credit from a carrier. 

These can be set up on an account-account basis and the instructions for their setup can be found here. 

Step 3: Upload the Carrier Invoice

The first required step when looking to reconcile a carrier's invoice is to upload it into MachShip. This process is outlined here.

Step 4: Deal with any Unmatched Invoice Entries

Unmatched Invoice Entries are invoice lines that MachShip was unable to assign to any consignment within the system. Users must either reject the entries, manually assign them to an existing consignment or create new consignments via the auto-create (where a carrier rate exists in MachShip) or the manually create (where no carrier rate exists) options. 

Step 5: Work through any Discrepancies

At this point in the process, users will have assigned each invoice entry to a consignment or rejected any errant charges. MachShip will have also reconciled all invoice entries within the set tolerances providing your team with only the exception charge discrepancies to deal with. 

These will appear in the Manage Carrier Invoices page as:

In the example above we have 22 Invoice entries on the invoice of which 18 on these entries have a price that matches up (reconciled) within the assigned tolerances and 4 invoice entries that are outside the set tolerances (unreconciled). 

In order to reconcile the unreconciled carrier invoice entries, we will need to drill down to view the consignments that have been attached.

To complete this select the cog and View Consignments

MachShip will present a grid with a list of all the consignments on the invoice. The grid will contain: 

MachShip Number, Consignment Number, Current Tracking Status, Invoice Status (either reconciled or unreconciled), Company, Cost (ex tax) by Machship, Cost (ex tax) by the carrier, discrepancy, Markup and  # Entries

As we only need to deal with the unreconciled carrier invoice entries we will set the Show Reconciled Consignments flag to be NO

This will leave the grid with only unreconciled consignments which need to be reconciled. To reconcile a consignment navigate to the Balance Screen through the drop-down cog on the right. 

The Balance Screen will contain all the details about the consignment that were entered into MachShip along with the details obtained from the carrier invoice. For a more in-depth discussion about the balance screen, please read the article at the following link. 

Through the Balance Screen, users will be able to ascertain the reasons for a charge discrepancy, some of these ways are outlined in the article at this link. Once the discrepancy has been established all charge discrepancies will be dealt with either through one of the following (detailed explanation for each of the below can be found by clicking on the link):

• Accepting the Charge Discrepancy
• Accepting Part of the Charge Discrepancy
• Rejecting the Charge Discrepancy
• Rejecting the Full Charge

Once all of the Unreconciled Invoice Entries have been dealt with the invoice will move to a status of Reconciled. The total of the rejected charges will appear in the column titled Due Difference.

Step 6: Download the MachShip Credit Request. 

The MachShip Credit Request file is a PDF that will list all of the charge discrepancies you are seeking an account credit for and the reason. 

This can be obtained by following the instructions here.