WHAT ACCURACY COSTS — THIRD-PARTY LOGISTICS
None of the inventory is yours. All of the accuracy is.
Put in what you know: how many orders you handle, how many go out wrong, what one costs once the credit and the chargeback land, and how much work leaves the building without reaching an invoice. Everything updates as you type. Nothing you enter leaves your browser unless you choose to email yourself the result.
Whatever unit you are actually measured on.
Wrong item, wrong count, wrong label, wrong address.
Rework, return freight, the credit, and any chargeback the customer passes back.
Not all of them. A wrong ASN is wrong before it reaches you.
Anyone whose week includes walking racks to find out why a number is wrong.
Not their whole job — just the hunting.
Wage plus benefits and payroll costs.
Be conservative. Some counts will always need a person.
Re-wraps, rush pulls after cut-off, storage that rolled into another period.
Some of it is goodwill you would waive anyway. Only count what you would invoice.
RECOVERABLE A YEAR
$157,770
$36,720 of errors a check would catch, $99,450 of count-chasing time a system could take back, and $21,600 of unbilled work you could invoice, at the shares you entered.
ERRORS STOPPED A MONTH
36
Out of 60 that go wrong, at the share you said is catchable.
COST OF ERRORS AVOIDED A YEAR
$36,720
Rework, freight, credits and chargebacks that never happen.
HOURS RETURNED A YEAR
2,925
Worth $99,450 at the hourly cost you entered.
ACCESSORIAL REVENUE RECOVERED
$21,600
Work you already do, reaching the invoice. This one is revenue, not cost.
WHAT THE YEAR IS MADE OF
$36,720
Errors a check would catch · 23%
$99,450
Count-chasing time a system could take back · 63%
$21,600
Unbilled work you could invoice · 14%
YOUR NUMBERS, NOT OUR CLAIM. UNTIL YOU CHANGE AN INPUT THE FIGURES ARE AN EXAMPLE; AFTER THAT THEY ARE YOUR OWN INPUTS MULTIPLIED OUT. NOTHING HERE IS A GUARANTEE OF A RETURN. CHECK IT AGAINST YOUR OWN RECORDS BEFORE YOU BELIEVE IT.
WHERE THE STARTING NUMBERS COME FROM
They describe a mid-sized independent warehouse: four thousand orders a month at a 1.5% error rate, five people each losing three hours a day to count discrepancies, three-quarters of which a system could take back, and three thousand dollars a month of work that never reaches an invoice. An operator inside a retail compliance programme will recognise a far higher cost per error than the $85 this opens with — a single major-retailer chargeback often exceeds it on its own.
The model separates three kinds of money on purpose, because they behave differently. Errors are cost avoided. Chasing discrepancies is labour returned. Accessorial work captured at the point it is performed is revenue — the only line here that makes you money instead of saving it, and the one operators most consistently underestimate.
What it deliberately leaves out: detention and dock scheduling. That is real money, but it belongs to the carrier’s model rather than the warehouse’s, and it is already covered by the cash chain model. Counting it here would double it for an operator who runs both.
The 3PL page sets out the five problems these numbers come from, and what replaces each one.
THE PAGE THIS WAS BUILT FOR
INDUSTRY
3PL & Warehousing
Mis-picks and count errors on client stock come back as chargebacks.
Read the page →WHERE WE WOULD START
- Build & Run →
Put the systems in, and keep them running.
- Owner’s View →
Your whole business on one screen, and an agent you can ask.
- Agent-Run Back Office →
We run the desk. You clear the exceptions.
Bring us one bad week.
Book a pilot call. Tell us where the week goes wrong, and we’ll tell you what an Operations Diagnostic would map and measure.
The first paid step has a clear scope and an end date, and the pilot after it is one workflow — not a platform, and not an open-ended retainer.
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