U.S. Bank has allegedly signed up more than 5,000 carriers to use its freight-payment trade finance service. The appeal for carriers of getting on board this system is that they’re guaranteed to be paid. Once e-invoices are cleared, the bank pays the carriers and sends the shipper a consolidated invoice for all shipments made through the system.
Benefits, thanks to einvoicing
Benefits of the freight-payment trade finance service are:
- It eliminates the need for carriers to arrange their own factoring or other financing of the invoices.
- The bank claims the system can decrease days sales outstanding on a carrier’s freight invoices to five or less.
- The lookup application allows freight carriers to view the status of shipping invoices online, download payment details for groups of invoices, and export information in Excel or CSV format for record keeping or to update payment information in a carrier’s receivables system.
- Carriers can also consolidate payment information from all shippers that use the U.S. Bank Freight Payment service, according to the bank.
- It makes it easier for carriers to identify invoices that have been flagged as exceptions by the bank’s automated auditing system, so issues can be cleared through the system and the carriers can receive payment.
To use the service, carriers submit e-invoices which are then audited against a set of business rules. Exceptions are flagged and pulled out of the processing stream for issues to be cleared. Once issues have been resolved, the bank pays the carriers, and shippers pay the bank monthly on a consolidated freight invoice. The bank also offers other invoice-automation and financing services to customers through the e-invoicing hub.
Now in Europe too
In September, U.S. Bank expanded the freight-invoice trade finance service into Europe through its Elavon Freight Payment subsidiary. The European version, is available on German, French or English-language platforms, includes VAT support and handling of other Europe-specific business, legal and regulatory requirements.
