The Courier Invoice Reconciliation System (CIRS)

A system designed to streamline the process of reconciling courier invoices, identify billing discrepancies, and manage customer-specific courier settings.

The main thesis is that CIRS provides a comprehensive platform for businesses to automatically compare courier invoices against their expected costs, ensuring accurate billing and identifying overcharges or unmatched shipments.

Here's a breakdown of the system's key features and workflow:

I. System Overview & Initial Setup

• Dashboard: Provides an overview of system activity, user management, invitation logs, and settings (including billing API key).

• User Management: Ability to invite and manage users, track system actions via logs.

• Customer Management:

  • Import customers by linking a billing API key, pulling their data into the system.

  • Ability to "switch into" a customer's account to manage their specific pricing, zones, couriers, and weight settings.

• Courier Configuration (First Stop for Setup):

  • Add Couriers: Easily set up new courier profiles (e.g., DPD).

  • Define Courier Services: Create specific services under each courier (e.g., "DPD Classic").

  • Service-Specific Settings: Within each service, users can configure:

    • Zones: Define geographic zones (e.g., GB mainland).

    • Weight Classes: Set up weight tiers with corresponding prices. The system highlights any gaps in weight class definitions.

    • Volumetric Weight Settings: Input a divisor for volumetric calculations if applicable.

    • Surcharges: Create fully customisable surcharges (e.g., fuel, zonal, peak season, insurance, remote delivery) as either a percentage or a fixed amount.

• Rule Engine: Allows users to set up automated rules for invoice approval, such as automatically approving minor discrepancies (e.g., a surcharge billed less than the expected amount).

II. Invoice Processing and Discrepancy Detection

• Invoice Import:

  • Users select a courier and input the invoice number.

  • Upload courier invoice spreadsheets. The system intelligently attempts to map spreadsheet headers to the correct data fields (e.g., mapping "zone" to "postcode" for more accurate zone detection).

  • Handles invoices with multiple service types, acknowledging that surcharges may vary per service.

• Automated Reconciliation: The system processes imported invoices quickly, comparing billed amounts against the pre-configured courier rates and surcharges.

• Discrepancy Reporting:

  • "Discrepancy Detected": Highlights specific line items where the invoiced amount differs from the expected cost (e.g., overcharges on fuel surcharges or base costs), showing the expected amount, invoiced amount, and variance percentage.

  • "Ignored": Identifies shipments that cannot be reconciled due to invalid or unexpected data (e.g., an international shipment zone for a domestic service, or an impossible shipment date).

• Matching to Billing API: The system indicates if an invoice line has been matched to a charge in the user's billing API, ensuring that billed customer items are properly reconciled with courier costs.

III. Reporting and Data Management

• Dashboard Metrics: Provides real-time statistics on total invoice lines, matched lines, unmatched lines, and current match rates.

• Discrepancy Review: Summarises the number of actual discrepancies and ignored lines for quick review.

• Historical Data: Displays trends for overcharges, undercharges, and invoice volumes over time.

• Export Capabilities: Users can easily export reconciled data and discrepancy reports into CSV or other spreadsheet formats, with customisable columns.

• Customer-Specific Pricing: When fetching customer data, their unique rates (which may include a margin) are automatically pulled and can be viewed or amended within the system.

• Invoice Templates (Optional): While the system attempts to auto-match headers, users can create and save custom invoice templates for specific couriers if needed.

The CIRS system aims to provide a robust, customisable, and automated solution for managing courier invoices, highlighting billing errors, and ensuring efficient reconciliation.

Support & Next Steps 📞

Need Help?

• Contact Support.

• Developers: See API Documentation.

• Billing Questions: Contact your account manager.

What Happens Next?

Once you understand the concept, head to one of the following:

• Quick Overview.

• New Users Guide.

• Business Owners Guide.

• Developers Guide.

• Warehouse Staff Guide.