For most organizations, inbound freight has been the hardest part of logistics spend to manage. Learn how to get control.
As a large organization managing high volumes of inbound freight, you face a persistent challenge: freight invoices arrive outside your ERP systems, with no reliable way to systematically verify whether each shipment is tied to an authorized purchase order.
Inbound freight invoices are fundamentally messier than outbound. With outbound, you control the carrier selection, the TMS generates structured shipment records, and invoices often arrive via EDI in clean formats. With inbound, suppliers choose the carriers, invoices arrive in whatever format that carrier uses (PDF, scan, email attachment, fax image), and there's no TMS record to match against. This data fragmentation problem creates compound challenges, which most legacy FAP vendors fail to solve for inbound freight.
Without the right data and systems to perform the necessary verification, three problems occur when you fail to audit inbound freight:
A Fortune 100 food manufacturer receives significant inbound freight volume in the form of raw materials shipped to its plants by suppliers. Under their accounting policy, freight tied to direct materials must be capitalized to inventory rather than expensed immediately. With their legacy system, this was no easy task and left them searching for a solution that could link every inbound invoice back to a valid and verified PO.
That linkage used to be manual. The team had no systematic way to validate POs on inbound freight invoices, and the cost was concrete: $8–9M in inbound freight that should have been capitalized to inventory wasn't, purely because the validation didn't exist.
The customer retired a 25-year-old legacy system in favor of Loop, which now processes 100K+ invoices, manages $50M+ in spend, and covers close to 75 carriers. PO validation is live for direct suppliers, with all three inbound policies discussed earlier running across freight and parcel.
But you don’t need to be this size to have challenges with inbound freight management. The types of shippers that are most susceptible to these problems usually they have one or more of the following characteristics:
Loop’s purpose-built automation and review workflows are designed to address inbound data fragmentation challenges. Legacy freight audit providers are optimized for outbound freight, they were not designed for the added complexity of inbound freight. Inbound requires a different foundation: a platform that can identify PO numbers across inconsistent document formats, validate them against records, verify delivery locations, and build a complete auditable record.
Loop ingests inbound freight and parcel invoices from any carrier or supplier via EDI, email, SFTP, API, or manual upload, in any file format. Shipment details come from the BOL, charges come from the invoice, and Loop ties them together into a complete, auditable record. Without accurate data extraction and the ability to tie these fragmented documents together, everything downstream fails.
Loop's next-generation extraction agent, DUX™ 2.0, is designed for exactly this problem. It uses an AI-driven approach that adapts to each document rather than following fixed extraction logic, so varied carrier formats require less manual configuration. It's designed to push automation rates higher on the unusual formats and edge cases that are common in inbound freight. This flexibility also allows Loop to quickly ingest documents not typically used by legacy FAP vendors, like purchase orders (POs) that contain critical inbound transportation data.
Once data is extracted, Loop automatically links invoices, BOLs, and proof-of-delivery records to the correct shipment. Mismatches between what was shipped and what was billed are flagged for review. Document requirements are configurable per carrier or mode.
Using the extracted data, Loop's audit capability can now check whether an inbound freight and parcel invoice is tied to valid purchase orders before they are approved for payment. When an invoice arrives, Loop first determines whether a PO is expected based on your-configured rules. If a PO is expected, Loop runs up to three policy checks. If all pass, the invoice clears for auto-approval. If any fail, Loop surfaces an exception with the necessary details to your team.
Loop supports PO validation across all modes, including LTL, FTL, parcel, ocean, air, and rail. For parcel, some carriers do not classify PO numbers as a distinct reference type, so you define a pattern Loop uses to identify them on the invoice. Which suppliers require PO validation is controlled per your team by tagging supplier organizations in Loop.
Before enabling PO validation, Loop partners with your team to establish:
Invoices that pass all checks can be auto-approved, reducing processing time and accelerating payment cycles. You also gain a systematic, auditable record of how every inbound invoice was evaluated and why it was approved or flagged.
This moves Loop toward three-way invoice matching, the standard AP control framework: PO, invoice, and receipt. Most freight audit providers stop at rate audit: did the carrier bill the contracted rate? PO validation adds the authorization check: did we actually order this? Delivery and receipt verification round out the framework, and Loop already ingests proof-of-delivery data as part of the document audit pipeline.
Loop also handles the downstream workflows that keep inbound invoices moving:
An increasing number of our clients are realizing that inbound spend management is a black box to them. We are seeing an increase in customers prioritizing inbound and outspend spend visibility. Here are a few other examples of how we’re helping other shippers:
A global climate technology manufacturer uses Loop to transform GL coding across 9 business units, automating month-end cost allocation for inbound freight. The work previously required a manual reconciliation pass that depended on deep institutional knowledge.
A global toy and entertainment company runs inbound freight payment and audit on Loop across the U.S. and Canada. They came to Loop because no legacy FAP could accurately audit the detention, demurrage, and chassis accessorials on their inbound ocean and drayage moves, leaving meaningful overcharges uncaught and accruals stuck in manual spreadsheets.
A specialty materials manufacturer uses Loop's PO presence validation on all inbound spend and runs a parallel sales-order-number check on the outbound side, meaning they have one unified platform covering both directions of spend.
For most organizations, inbound freight has been the hardest part of logistics spend to manage: high volume, inconsistent documentation, and no reliable way to tie invoices back to what was actually ordered. Loop closes that gap with a purpose-built workflow that handles everything from document ingestion to PO validation to payment approval in a single, auditable platform.
Getting started is straightforward. Loop connects to existing carrier EDI feeds, email inboxes, and SFTP endpoints without requiring changes to how suppliers send documents. Enabling PO validation only requires a supplier reference table, a PO reference feed, and reference addresses for location matching. Loop handles the rest.
If you’re trying to get control of your inbound spend management, get started with Loop today.
