Advance Forwarding is a leading freight forwarding company that operates all modes of transport including imports, exports, courier and domestic freight. As its business grew, Advance developed a close relationship with UPS, and with significant expansion of its courier operation it was imperative that shipments were processed with speed and efficiency.
Before we came on board, Advance Forwarding manually entered supplier invoices from UPS. Any given courier shipment could have multiple cost lines for the various charges incurred from UPS, and with up to 1000 orders a week it was critical that these were processed accurately and invoiced out correctly. This is where we stepped in. Our intelligent Freight Management system, ForwardOffice, radically increases business efficiency for the freight and logistics operator.
WHAT WE DID
We worked with Advance Forwarding and UPS to understand the way they operated together, and analysed the format of the UPS supplier invoice. We then enhanced our existing EDI and Rating infrastructure to recognise this specific spreadsheet format, enabling us to process it accordingly. ForwardOffice now automatically intercepts the UPS invoices and creates all of the required shipment records, along with their associated cost lines. At the same time it auto-generates sales invoices based on a percentage uplift of the costs. It’s the perfect solution.
OUTCOME
Not only has the product ensured that shipments are invoiced with 100% accuracy, it has also made the process radically quicker too. What previously required two dedicated full-time staff now takes only a couple of hours’ work each week as a simple audit exercise, allowing those people to be re-deployed onto other profitable activities.
Now in our 30th year and with international experience with clients in Europe, the US, Canada and the Far East, we’re always looking to expand our client base and we’re never afraid of a challenge. With ForwardOffice, freight and logistics management needn’t be complicated.
WHAT THE CUSTOMER SAYS
ForwardOffice really has moved us into the 21st Century. It has enabled us to be more efficient, saving time and money. It has also enabled us to improve service to our clients, offering them a wide range of additional services that we couldn’t before. The system also allows us to be more pro-active with monitoring of both client and staff activity, meaning we can sort issues before they arise.
Forward Computers has catered to our every need and bent over backwards to ensure that we make full use of ForwardOffice, configuring it to suit our business and staff. They have even adapted their system just for us, so they are certainly very flexible – and worth every penny.
Gaz Hodson, Operations Manager, Advance Forwarding
