The operation in this walkthrough is illustrative, built to reflect a typical small or mid-sized manufacturer, distributor or warehouse: Brayvale Steel Products, a 44-person maker of powder-coated steel shelving and racking, shipping about 85 outbound LTL shipments a month on its own carrier pricing. The consignee, Calderhook Build Group, is an active construction site. The workflow and arithmetic are real. The companies are not.
The Shipper's Manifest reported this morning, in Quote-to-Invoice Gaps and the Discrepancy Record to Keep, that a freight invoice discrepancy report should hold an entry for every invoice line that differs from its quote: charge type, amount quoted, amount billed, difference, and the documentation the carrier cites. A line stays open until a cited table, certificate or inspection reference explains it. Here is one invoice assembled into that record.
The line
One outbound shipment, 6 handling units, quoted dock-to-dock.
- Quoted: linehaul $1,700.00, fuel surcharge at 48.5 percent (0.485 x 1,700.00) = $824.50, no accessorials. Total $2,524.50.
- Billed: linehaul $1,800.00, fuel surcharge at 50.0 percent (0.500 x 1,800.00) = $900.00, limited access delivery $95.00. Total $2,795.00.
The gap is $270.50, 10.71 percent of the quoted total, in three charge types.
The gap, by charge type
- Reclassification, linehaul difference: $1,800.00 - $1,700.00 = $100.00
- Fuel surcharge difference: $900.00 - $824.50 = $75.50
- Limited access delivery, never quoted: $95.00
$100.00 + $75.50 + $95.00 = $270.50.
The $75.50 is not all a surcharge error. Part is fuel riding on the higher linehaul: 0.485 x $100.00 = $48.50. The rest is caused by the table step itself: 0.015 x $1,800.00 = $27.00. And $48.50 + $27.00 = $75.50. Attribute fuel to its cause, or the same money is counted twice.
What each line can actually say
Fuel table step, $27.00: provable. The operation's contract names the EIA U.S. average on-highway diesel price for the pickup week, which ended October 5, 2026 at $6.199 a gallon. The surcharge billed matches the week ending September 28 at $6.382, which is $0.183 higher and three full $0.05 steps up the operation's own table, 1.5 percentage points. The quote, invoice, contract table and a public number settle it.
Limited access delivery, $95.00: a question for the shipping desk. It is on the invoice, not on the quote or the shipping instructions. That does not make it wrong: the delivery was to an active construction site, so the service may well have been performed. The record proves only that it was never priced. Was the site condition known and left off the request? The delivery receipt copy the consignee signed can confirm or contradict the service.
Reclassification, $100.00 plus $48.50 of fuel riding on it, $148.50 together: flagged, pending documentation. The invoice cites no certificate and no inspection reference. NMFTA's Docket 2026-2 Disposition Bulletin, posted October 9, 2026, moved a significant number of items to full scale density, so class corrections are in the news this week. Measured on the dock before tendering, the shipment was 6 handling units at 48 x 40 x 45 inches, 4,620 pounds. Each unit is 48 x 40 x 45 = 86,400 cubic inches, divided by 1,728 = 50.0 cubic feet. Six units make 300.0 cubic feet, so 4,620 / 300.0 = 15.4 pounds per cubic foot. The quote used the class that measurement supports. The invoice names neither the weight nor the dimensions its higher class was computed from, so the record cannot close this line. It stays open, flagged, never claimed.
The fix
The record's value is five fields per line and a named next step, not a refund total.
That is the record to keep. When you run an invoice audit, LanePilot does the line-against-line part. It needs both documents, the carrier invoice and the original quote for that shipment, and matches them to the shipment on record. It audits outbound freight on every plan, including Free. LanePilot is a TMS and WMS for small and mid-sized manufacturers, distributors and warehouses, and the invoice audit is one part of it. A check against a filed rate table only confirms the carrier applied its own tariff. It cannot see a shipment quoted at one price and billed at another, because it never had the quote.
The audit identifies discrepancies by type: undisclosed accessorials, fuel surcharge variance, and reweigh or reclassification charges. A reclassification with a cited certificate or inspection reference is a legitimate correction, not an overcharge; one with nothing behind it is flagged for you to verify. It itemizes quoted against billed by charge type and drafts a dispute letter, an administrative request to review a billing discrepancy. You review it and file it. LanePilot does not contact, negotiate with, or file anything with the carrier on your behalf. LanePilot runs no countdown against a filing deadline, so when you send is your call.
Run this on your own dock
One. Split your last over-quote invoice by charge type.
Two. For each line, name the document that explains it.
Three. Check whether anyone measured the freight before tendering.
A total without lines is not a finding.
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The operation described is illustrative. Quote, invoice and shipment records are demonstration data.