When you receive an invoice from Shippit, you want to be able to reconcile the charges on it against your own business records. This article discuses the line items in delivery and misdeclaration invoices, and how you can verify that these line items have been charged correctly.
Reconcile a delivery invoice
Delivery invoices list each of your bookings, along with the initial quoted price that you received at the time of booking.
Delivery invoices are sent weekly, on the 7th, 15th, 24th, and the last day of the month. If you are on a pay as you go (PAYG) account, the invoices are grouped by manifest instead.
To reconcile your delivery invoice, you need:
Shippit rate card for the carrier
Serviceability card
💡 Note: If you don't have them on file, you can get both the rate card and the serviceability card from your Shippit account manager, get in touch with us using the chat in your Shippit account, or reach out to Shippit support. When you request the files, make sure you have your merchant name and Shippit ID ready.
Shippit rate card
Your Shippit rate card uses a matrix to show how much a parcel of a certain weight costs to ship between and origin and a destination. For each line item on your delivery invoice, check the origin and destination, then find the appropriate weight column to calculate the base cost of shipping. The prices given on the rate card do not include fuel surcharges, additional surcharges, or GST.
This is an example of a rate card provided by TNT Overnight Express. The rate card for your carrier might look different, but they usually contain the same information.
At the bottom of the rate card, there is a section for additional surcharges. Some of the surcharges that carriers can include are:
Security surcharge
Oversized surcharge
Length surcharge
Residential delivery
heavyweight residential delivery
Remote area pickup and delivery
Manual handling (MHP)
Dangerous goods surcharge
It's important to note that the surcharges can fluctuate, and in some cases you need to verify the charges with the carrier. For example, the fuel surcharge fluctuates each month, so to reconcile the fuel surcharge, you need to go to the carrier's website and check the exact figure with your carrier. If you get surcharges for remote area delivery or pickup, you should also confirm the zones on the carrier's website directly.
For more information about the kinds of surcharges, see the Misdeclaration and additional charges article. For more information about the rates charged by different carriers, see the Carrier surcharge matrix article.
Serviceability card
The serviceability card is a directory of postcodes and corresponding zones. You can use these to check the origin and destination zones, so you can check them in the rate card.
This is an example of a serviceability card provided by TNT Overnight Express. The serviceability card for your carrier might look different, but they usually contain the same information.
Reconcile a misdeclaration invoice
Misdeclaration invoices are raised if a carrier has charged additional fees to complete a delivery. For more information about how and when misdeclaration charges happen, see the Understanding misdeclarations article.
Shippit reconciles these post-booking carrier charges for you, which are usually issued 3-4 weeks after the booking was first billed on the delivery invoice. However, this can vary depending on when the carrier bills the corresponding booking, and the same order can have components billed separately over different misdeclaration invoices.
If you need to reconcile post-booking charges, you can compare the listed surcharges in the misdeclaration invoice against the Misdeclaration & Additional Charges article for criteria, and the carrier surcharge matrix for current pricing.
If there is no weight variance between the declared charged weight and carrier charged weight, you might need to check the description on the invoice to find out what the additional surcharges are. These can include length declaration, wait time, or dangerous goods.
To confirm the carrier's measured weights and dimensions, or to dispute a misdeclaration charge, contact your Shippit account manager, get in touch with us using the chat in your Shippit account, or reach out to Shippit support.
Performing the reconciliation
🪧 For this example, we are going to reconcile this delivery:
Date: 2/07/2024, Order Reference: Parafields DFO rw , Recipient: Store Manager, Pickup Suburb: Leichhardt, Pickup Postcode: 2040, Delivery Suburb: Parafield, Delivery Postcode: 5106, Weight: 5.0, Volume: 0.015, Number: 1
Look up the pickup and delivery postcodes on your serviceability card:
Leichhardt 2040 - SYD
Parafield 5103 - ADL
Work out the charged weight. The charged weight is the greater of the dead weight and the volumetric weight:
The deadweight is given in the dimensions as 5kg.
To calculate the volumetric weight, multiply the volume given by the cubic ratio of 250, and round the number to the nearest kilogram. In this case, the volume of 0.015 x 250 is 3.75kg, so the volumetric weight is 4kg.
Because the deadweight is greater than the volumetric weight, the charged weight in this case is 5kg.
Determine the shipping price using the rate card:
SYD to ADL for 5kg is $25.53
Calculate the fuel surcharge using the carrier website:
In this case, the rate is 27.2%, so the fuel surcharge is $6.94
Add additional surcharges:
Security surcharge of 9.4% is $2.30
Residential delivery surcharge is based on the charged weight, in this case it is $5.50
Add any other applicable surcharges such as remote pickup and delivery, or dangerous goods.
Add any applicable length, oversize, or manual handling surcharges. The declared dimensions are not listed on the delivery invoice, so you might need to refer to the order to determine the dimensions. For example, if the length is over 1.5m, you need to add a $15 oversize fee, and a $14.50 manual handling fee.
Add the shipping price and the surcharges together to get $40.27
If applicable, add 10% GST, for a total of $44.30
Misdeclaration examples
Here are some examples of measured freight with corresponding additional charges.
Example 1: Heavy residential delivery
In this example, the declared details are:
Quoted Price: $29.46 inc GST
Declared deadweight: 5kg
Declared volumetric weight: 19kg (also the charged weight)
When the carrier picked up the item, they found the charged weight to be 52kg, and requiring heavy residential delivery. The misdeclaration invoice is constructed like this:
Freight difference of 33kg, charged at $12.08 ex GST. You can check this figure using the same method as above.
Heavy residential delivery greater than 30kg, charged at $59 ex GST.
Total charge is $71.08 ex GST.
Example 2: Manual handling and oversize delivery
In this example, the declared details are:
Quoted Price: $50.67 inc GST
Declared deadweight: 10kg (also the charged weight)
Declared volumetric weight: 9kg (based on the declared dimensions of 20 x 15 x 115 cm)
When the carrier picked up the item, they found the charged weight to be 32kg, and requiring manual handling. The misdeclaration invoice is constructed like this:
Freight difference of 22kg, charged at $41.99 ex GST. You can check this figure using the same method as above.
Manual handling, charged at $14.50 ex GST.
Oversize greater than 1.5m, charged at $15.00 ex GST.
Heavy residential delivery greater than 30kg, charged at $59 ex GST.
Total charge is $130.49 ex GST