Logistics Research
Email us

On average, SMB shippers are overcharged 10% on freight. Find out if you're exposed — and how your AP effort compares.

Reply to the email in your inbox with a 30-second answer. We'll send a confidential benchmark that shows:

  • •Your overcharging exposure vs. comparable peers.
  • •How much AP time peers spend on invoice audits.
  • •Your audit coverage vs. other shippers (what % of invoices get reviewed before payment).
Action:
Hit Reply on the email you received and answer the question.
Saw this page from LinkedIn instead? Email research@logisticsresearch.org to participate.
What the benchmark clarifies
📉Exposure vs. peers
Compare your overcharging risk to industry norms.
⏱AP audit effort
Weekly hours spent on audits vs. comparable shippers.
🔎Audit coverage
Percent of invoices reviewed before payment.
🧭Next-step context
Where teams focus first when exposure is elevated.
Benchmarks are aggregated/anonymized across participants and informed by competitor/industry analyses.

What you'll learn in the benchmark

Audit time (hrs/week)
How many hours AP/Finance spend on invoice auditing.
Exceptions paid anyway (%)
Share of exceptions that still get paid — a driver of hidden leakage.
Process today
ERP/TMS used or manual spreadsheets.
Tolerance policy
Your write-off / variance threshold for invoice differences.
Results are aggregated and anonymized across participants and informed by competitor/industry benchmarks.

Want to go deeper? Unlock missed profit with a free research audit.

Selected participants can receive a confidential audit that pinpoints recoverable value and the fastest operational fixes.

Typical result
2–3% freight cost savings
Identified beyond current audit practices.
SMB proxy
$40k–$60k per $2M spend
Directional, not a guarantee.
AP workload
5–10 hours/week reduced
From fewer manual audits.
Identified profit leaks
Find where recoveries are most likely based on your context.
Time & effort baseline
Your audit effort with peer context.
Prioritized recovery plan
Ranked actions by impact vs. effort.
Contextual next steps
How to validate savings before committing resources.
Request the free research audit Limited slots. Research output only — not billed consulting.

How it works

Path A — Survey Benchmark (industry pulse)
  1. 1.Reply to our email with your 30-second answer.
  2. 2.We aggregate anonymized inputs with industry/competitor analyses.
  3. 3.Receive your confidential benchmark (target: ~2 weeks).
Path B — Free Research Audit (profit recovery)
  1. 1.Email interest to research@logisticsresearch.org.
  2. 2.10–20 min scoping call with the research team.
  3. 3.Receive a confidential profit recovery report with prioritized actions.

Who this is for

Finance & operations leaders at shippers handling roughly 50–2,000 invoices/month across LTL and TL — often on NetSuite, QuickBooks, or spreadsheet-driven workflows.

CFO / VP Finance
Bottom-line recovery & EBITDA visibility.
Controller / AP
Reduce recurring audit work; tighten exceptions.
Ops / Logistics
Align carrier policy; address detention/FSC/duplicate drivers.

What participants say

"The report showed where 2.4% of freight spend was recoverable." — CFO, Industrial Distributor
"We reduced AP audit time by ~6 hours/week with simple policy fixes." — AP Manager, Food & Bev
"Clear external view on detention/FSC items we'd normalized." — VP Ops, Consumer Goods