)){kind=small}
Your organisation runs on volume and precision. Every day, you process orders across multiple warehouses. Goods are received, stored, picked, packed and shipped using your own transport or external carriers.
Increasingly, additional services are added, such as installation, returns, or delivery under specific conditions. Your warehouse management system (WMS) and transport management system (TMS) capture all of this accurately, giving you full visibility into your day-to-day operations.
But when those same activities are translated into billing, a different picture emerges. Not all executed activities are fully or correctly billed. A form of revenue leakage where revenue generated in operations does not fully return in billing.
The operation captures exactly what happened. It’s in the translation to billing that value disappears.
The challenge is not in operations, but in billing
The complexity lies not only in what you do, but in how you translate it into billing.
Each customer has their own agreements and pricing structures. Storage is billed differently from pick & pack. Value-added services, returns and delivery under specific conditions each have their own pricing. Transport rates vary depending on volume, route, time window or conditions. When external partners are involved, order characteristics must also be translated into the correct compensation for subcontractors.
These agreements are documented in contracts and systems, but are rarely directly linked to the operational floor. In practice, this means billing is created from a combination of:
- WMS and TMS data
- Exports and manual checks
- Manual processing and individual expertise
Where logistics billing structurally breaks down
The core issue is the missing link between operations and billing.
Activities, especially exceptions and additional services, are not consistently billed. Contract agreements are not always applied fully or consistently. In self-billing arrangements and partner settlements, discrepancies arise and invoices are often disputed.
As a result, invoices require corrections and explanations afterwards. Not because operations fail, but because the connection between what was done and what was charged was never properly established.
The impact of revenue leakage on finance
For Finance, this goes beyond inefficiency:
- Revenue is not fully realised
- Margins are difficult to manage
- Billing is time-consuming and dependent on individual expertise
- Disputes with customers or partners increase
And this is reflected in your numbers. Publications in Forbes*, based on insights from EY and MGI Research, show that organisations structurally lose 1 to 5% of their realised EBITDA due to revenue leakage in the order-to-cash process.
From operational problem to structural solution
The lack of translation from operations to billing is not an operational problem, but a structural challenge in how the two are connected. The solution is to establish that connection. Not as a workaround, but embedded directly into the process.
Operational events from WMS and TMS are no longer interpreted after the fact, but are validated in real time and linked directly to the correct service, customer agreement and pricing logic. Every activity and additional service is automatically recognised and translated into a billable item.
Contract agreements, pricing tiers and exceptions form the foundation of the calculation. Contract terms and pricing structures become the engine of the calculation, not something that needs to be interpreted afterwards.
Billing as a natural outcome of operations
Billing is no longer a translation, but a logical outcome of what happens operationally. Everything you do becomes traceable and correctly billed, without manual intervention.
This is immediately reflected in:
- higher realised revenue: what you deliver gets billed in full (revenue assurance);
- faster and more predictable billing: no more end-of-period pressure (cash flow);
- reduced dependency on manual processing and individual expertise (efficiency);
- more accurate, traceable invoices: fewer disputes and faster payment (customer satisfaction);
- clear insight into the relationship between operations and margins (control).
In short
Your operations already know what was delivered. Now your billing needs to catch up.
* Forbes (2021) – Slow The Drip Of Revenue Leakage In Recurring Revenue
https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2021/08/16/slow-the-drip-of-revenue-leakage-in-recurring-revenue/
