GT Nexus Adds Integrated Freight Audit to Global Logistics Portal

Strategic Expansion Launches "On-Demand" Software to Capture, Audit Electronic Freight Bills, Measure Contract Compliance, Streamline Invoice Processing for Global Ocean, Airfreight

GT Nexus, the leading provider of on-demand software and services for international logistics and supply chain management, today announced the general market availability of its new Global Freight Audit management system.

Deployed over the GT Nexus web portal as a network-based service, the system leverages an industry-proven platform to deliver a new solution for management of complex global ocean and air transportation charges.

"Global shippers can finally retake control of their freight costs," noted Greg Johnsen, vice president of GT Nexus. "With this platform users can systematically audit and resolve freight charges directly against their negotiated contracts, accurately and efficiently, in one streamlined, automated process. Since it is on-demand software, the entry cost is low, deployment is rapid, and the Web-based tools easily learned and intuitive to use -- from anywhere in the world."

System delivers benefits across importers, exporters and logistics providers

The system is designed for importers and exporters as well as third party logistics providers, all of whom are struggling to effectively control escalating international freight costs as global trade volumes increase. According to a recent Aberdeen Group benchmark report, managing global freight spend -- in particular, ensuring that actual freight charges align with contract rates and service commitments -- is one of the most difficult tasks facing companies today as they accelerate sourcing and shipping of goods internationally.

"Most companies don't have an automated freight audit process, so spend management of international transportation is inefficient and incomplete, impacting costs and carrier service performance," says Beth Enslow, Aberdeen vice president an author of the report. "As international freight budgets grow with increased global trade, we are finding that these costs are coming under more financial scrutiny. Given GT Nexus's global contract management capabilities, integrated freight audit is a natural and timely extension of their platform."

Limitations of traditional freight audit

Traditional freight audit software and services historically have focused on domestic transportation -- which lacks the unique contractual complexities and variables inherent with international freight services. Adapting these "domestic" solutions to work effectively for global transportation has been problematic at best. Today, companies typically employ one of three approaches to doing freight audit:

1) Manual match -- Pay for in-house staff to manually process invoices
   and conduct audits, with costs, errors and unrecovered charges rising
   as international transportation volumes grow;

2) Buy packaged software -- Pay an upfront license to acquire a software
   package, and then install, operate and maintain the software, rates,
   and electronic integrations to carriers, using expensive internal
   resources; or

3) Outsource -- Pay fees to a third-party firm, send them freight
   invoices, and then absorb additional costs and time to administer
   the service, track discrepancies, recoup unrecovered charges.

How it works: purpose-designed for global, delivered over the Web

Online contract management and electronic invoice presentment is the standard in many other industries. With the GT Nexus platform importers and exporters gain a system to enable this for complex ocean and airfreight. For a 3PL or any medium-to-large business involved in global trade, expenses for international transportation can run into tens of millions of dollars annually.

It also creates a powerful incentive for transportation service providers to be more disciplined in their rate management practices. By interacting with their customers over collaborative online platforms, and using the system's tools to keep the customer's contracts up-to-date, they get paid faster and more accurately, and avoid expensive, time-consuming billing disputes. The financial impact can be significant: one analysis of industry billing practices found that up to 11 percent of international freight bills were presented with incorrect rates or charges.

The GT Nexus platform delivers an integrated system that automates and streamlines the capture, correction, validation and analysis of global freight charges, enabling more precise and reliable cost management. Global freight invoices are first captured electronically from service providers in a central data store. Actual charges are then compared automatically against digitized freight contracts, which are represented as "structured" data and stored in the same system. Exceptions based on customer-set thresholds are identified, discrepancies then managed to resolution. The system improves upon traditional freight audit approaches in several fundamental ways:

1) It is specifically designed for global trade and the complexities
   of cross-border, multi-party international freight transportation.
   This includes handling multi-mode, multi-leg shipments.

2) It leverages a pre-connected network of ocean carriers and
   airfreight forwarders over an industry-backed integration
   platform, which facilitates receipt of clean and standardized
   electronic information from all parties, while minimizing IT work
   for the shipper/customer.

3) It utilizes the industry's leading online contract management
   system for international freight, adopted globally by
   importers and exporters to manage hundreds of millions of
   dollars of freight spend.

4) Software tools are delivered as an "on-demand" service.  Access and
   use is through simple web browser. No hardware or software is
   installed at the customer.

5) Contract rates, freight charges and actual shipment execution data
   is centralized in a unified data hub, enabling auditing and
   resolution workflows to be automated.

6) Powerful analytics and reporting tools are built in. These
   integrated tools enable companies to measure partner performance
   with greater precision and confidence, forecast freight spend,
   expense accrual and cash impacts faster and more accurately, and
   quickly identify when actual spend is out of compliance with plans.

The system also supports other flexible reporting needs and can provide insight and understanding into monthly freight spend, variance by lane or product line or carrier, the impact of new accessorials or fuel surcharges, etc. Aberdeen's Enslow points out that these tools are increasingly being demanded by finance executives to ensure proper spend management and compliance with financial reporting laws. The information also has value not only to logistics personnel, but also for other corporate departments such as sourcing, finance and merchandising.

Lastly, since the audit tools are part of a larger, integrated GT Nexus technology portfolio for end-to-end global freight management -- all delivered on demand -- the system can enable users to better organize and conduct the entire process of procuring, managing, executing and auditing global freight contracts and services, bringing even more savings to the bottom line.

The global freight audit system is in production today and available to customers worldwide. For more information, write to information@gtnexus.com

ABOUT GT NEXUS -- GT Nexus is the leading provider of hosted, on-demand software and services for global transportation, logistics and supply chain management. Founded in 1998, the company provides integrated software products and IT services, provisioned through a single Web platform, used by enterprises and their partners to control, optimize and manage the flow of goods and information from order to delivery, worldwide. The GT Nexus platform is backed by an industry consortium of leading ocean carriers who transact over the system with some 70 3PLs, hundreds of freight forwarders and over 6,000 importers and exporters to manage and execute international shipping. For more about GT Nexus, visit www.gtnexus.com

Distributed by Market Wire