Berman, Blake Associates

Since 1972, Berman, Blake Associates has brought together the technology, people, and desire to deliver the best-in-class freight bill audit, carrier payments, and management information services. Service is our business. A unique perspective on customization within a controlled environment.

A perfect paradigm is a partnership between Client, Carrier, and BBA.

Why Berman, Blake Associates?

The services provided by BBA are services that we feel we can provide more economically, and more efficiently because of a combination of factors; our specialization, our industry expertise and our economies of scale.

Certainly, you improve your cash flow by the payment of timely and accurate freight bills. You pay only the corrected amount, eliminating duplicate payments and overcharges prior to payment. Recovery from pre-audit will exceed the cost of the service.

You reduce clerical expenses associated with researching freight bills to avoid duplicate payment, and carrier inquiries regarding past due or balance due bills are handled via our Web site. Eliminates A/P costs both in labor and materials, while improving your control procedures.

We tie information together and generate management reports for accurate management decision-making and planning purposes. Our reporting will provide increased visibility of your expenses. Reports bring expenses to the surface that need to be monitored. Any reduction represents an opportunity for improvement.

At BBA we view ourselves as transaction processors and as a source of information. We will act as a gateway for our client's migration to EDI sophistication.

Cost savings are definitely an advantage of outsourcing. However, by establishing a strategic partnership with BBA, technological services are available sooner and with less risk. You can have real time transportation information, on-line access or PC download.

In today's competitive environment outsourcing freight payment and information technology will help you to become more focused and more competitive. Your accounting, information systems, and transportation personnel will be able to focus on core responsibilities to maximize efficiency. In short, BBA gives you the ability to focus on management, not on clerical functions.

About Our Company

For over 30 years, Berman, Blake Associates (BBA) has been recognized as one of the leaders in the freight bill pre-audit, carrier payment, and information processing industry. BBA uses state-of-the-art technology and sophisticated transportation software to provide a system customized to fit your individual needs and current environment. BBA has the ability, expertise, and desire to provide you with systems that can assist you in effectively managing your transportation costs. Our only focus is to provide our clients with the premier control freight payment service.

By outsourcing to BBA, our clients gain valuable time to focus on their priorities, while BBA maintains the responsibility for accurate carrier payments, invoice inquiry, and state-of-the-art reporting services. This is one of the prime reasons clients have selected BBA; the value of BBA's customized management reporting expertise.

Services

BBA recognizes that different information needs exist among Information Systems, Finance, and Traffic departments. BBA will work with all of these departments to ascertain their individual needs, and to exceed departmental expectations.

BBA provides a comprehensive, flexible, and cost-effective processing service that enables our clients to develop the data to control their transportation and distribution expense. As one of the first freight payment services to offer on-line access to information for exception bill processing and management reporting, we are committed to research and development efforts to reduce our clients' costs of doing business.

Quality is what makes an information system work, and quality service at BBA begins with our client. The direct involvement of our principals in day-to-day operations and our commitment to ongoing training and professional development for our staff ensures that every BBA employee is focused and dedicated to delivering the very finest customer service.

BBA's objectives are to eliminate the paper freight bill, improve the efficiency of customer operations, and to capture and provide easy access to information for management reporting. All data capture and information processing systems at BBA are dedicated to providing the data controls and information necessary for error-free processing, payment and reporting. Through our perpetual engineering efforts, BBA continually identifies processes that reduce costs, increase efficiency, and most importantly, improve the quality of information management for our customers. BBA's management information services are sophisticated and responsive, and generate clear, effective tools for informed decision-making.

Our dedicated and motivated staff of approximately 100 trained freight bill payment and MIS support specialists just last year processed over 20 million freight bills, totaling more than seven hundred million dollars for our clients. They definitely have the industry expertise to provide the data controls and information necessary for error-free processing, carrier payment, and third party logistics management reporting necessary to exceed your expectations.

Freight Payment

All BBA systems are custo-designed with our clients. Each client establishes their unique criteria for paying transportation/distribution bills.

Source Documents

Prepaid outbound shipments can be pre-loaded to the database with the client's bill of lading. Original freight bills are matched to bill of lading prior to payment.
Collect inbound shipments are either pre-loaded to the database using a "key receiving"number or a stamped copy of the delivery receipt is provided with the original freight bills.

Duplicate Payment Controls

If your company has the capability of generating an automated shipment file, we will utilize the data to create an unbilled shipment file in our database. All outbound carrier invoices are matched to the open file, prior to payment, so that we are effectively controlling all payments based on your shipment file. A similar system can be created for inbound shipments. This not only eliminates duplicate payments but enables us to generate information for freight accruals or other transportation needs.
BBA has established control procedures that will eliminate the following types of duplicate payments:
- Two carriers paid for the same shipment: If more than one carrier handles the shipment, only one carrier will be able to present our customer's bill of lading. Thus, one and only one carrier will be paid.
- Paying the same freight bill twice: Our computer system is designed to pay an invoice only one time. The history file is maintained on-line for a minimum of three years and hard copy for an additional three years. The freight invoice number is checked for duplication prior to payment.
- Paying a bill if the carrier submits two different freight pro numbers for the same shipment. This is accomplished by checking the bill of lading number for each shipment.

Pre-Audit

BBA combines automated rating with manual audit to achieve the highest degree of accuracy and greatest savings for our clients.
Pre-audit recovery pays for the service: client's recovery may exceed BBA's service fees.
Control payment procedures will eliminate carrier overpayments.
All bills are audited regardless of dollar amount.
Corrections are made prior to payment and only the corrected amount is paid.
Audit savings belong 100% to our client. We do not share the recoveries.
Bill of Lading/Source Document is used to create the freight charges, therefore, each shipment is rated.
Smaller shipments are handled in the same manner as truckloads, enabling BBA to maximize its customers return on service investment.

Carrier Payment

Payments to the carriers are made by BBA either once or twice a week depending on client requirements.
BBA does the mailing and all carriers are paid by our system.
Carriers are paid based on your decision and timing for the disbursement. You control the cash flow.
You pay only the audited amount, eliminating duplicate payments and overcharges prior to payment.
BBA handles all research and responds to all inquiries regarding balance due bills, past due bills, payment information, etcetera.
Payment information can be accessed via an on-line inquiry system.
Carrier remittance advice contains the following information:
- Name of Payer
- Probill Number
- Amount Billed
- Amount Paid
- Tariff Authority, if amount paid is less than amount billed
- Original check date and number if bill has been previously paid

Information Systems

Information is the basis for future cost savings and our reports and database management systems provide this valuable information at very reasonable costs.

All information is delivered in a method and format which meets our clients requirements.
Information is provided for finance, transportation, distribution and marketing.
The freight expense can be captured and provided in various formats based on origin, destination, plant, distribution center, division, product, location, general ledger account code, etcetera.
Information can be furnished in hardcopy or electronic media.
Unlimited reporting capability that is customized and tailored to each client's needs.
Key information is provided in a timely fashion with a high degree of accuracy.
Web-based report generation or in-house database files for corporate sponsored reporting tools are available to all BBA clients.

Systems Design and Data Processing

The process begins with quality systems design. BBA works closely with our clients to carefully analyze the data fields, determine the criteria for validation or system-generation, and develop any other necessary control elements.
The data entry system is a network-based data capture system which provides field and character validation as well as blind keystroke verification. All fields that require double keystroke verification are re-keyed by a second data entry operator. Verifications may include probill field, mapping, and logical multiple-field validations. After complete data capture, secondary data validations and rate audits are conducted on BBA's mainframe.
BBA's flexibility and our personal commitment ensures that we meet the changing data needs of our growing customer base.

EDI Migration Path

BBA's technological innovations, state-of-the-art information management systems, and dedicated operations teams provide the foundation to significantly enhance your freight payment processes.

EDI transition is critical to reaching strategic freight payment goals. BBA provides the infrastructure for our clients to convert manual freight bill processing to automated rating and EDI invoice submission.
BBA has the resources and technology in place to bring your company the efficiency and cost reductions associated with an aggressive EDI migration path.
EDI transactions from FedEx PowerShip® or similar carrier shipping systems may contain all delivery detail information for the purposes of service failure audit. Converting PowerShip® data to EDI is simple and cost effective.

Customer Services

BBA provides a carrier inquiry department that handles questions regarding past due invoices, unpaid bills, and balance due bills.
An individual account representative is assigned to your account.
An implementation/conversion team is assigned to facilitate the early stages of our relationship.
Our management team, including senior levels and principals of BBA, is available for client support on a regular basis.
Our in-house programming staff is constantly designing new reports to meet customer requests.
BBA can develop customized interfaces for inquiry and/or other analytical purposes.

Value-Added Services

BBA has identified itself with quality and value-added servicing for more than 30 years. Operations that lead to process improvement, exceeding quality standards, and achieving efficiencies translate to cost reductions and an increased bottom line; this is our definition of a successful partnership with our clients.

Value-Added Means:

Reducing annual inbound and outbound transportation costs.
Reducing the cost of transaction processing.
Improving internal operating efficiencies.
Improving your profit potential over time.
The availability of information on-line and our 24-hour carrier and client support. BBA's Web site access can provide both clients and carriers with the ability to retrieve data and supporting payment information directly from the database.
BBA recognizes the value of relationships between shippers and carriers. As an enhancement to this relationship, we have begun to develop a program of sharing information with the large carriers for our clients and plan to expand it over time.
BBA provides processing, follow-up and reporting services for loss and damage claims, relieving the client of the burden of processing claims while gaining control of the claims process.
As inbound programs increase visibility of customer dollars spent, it becomes necessary to control that spending by establishing routing guides and enforcing these requirements with your carriers. BBA can provide assistance in developing an inbound program as well as through the administration of controls and information in this process.

Additional Services

Automated claim filing.
Automated supplier routing and chargeback system.
Automated vendor terms file.
Imaging of paper bills.
Express air courier performance audit.
Freight accruals and rate tables.
BBA provides a fully automated Loss and Damage freight claims system. Our dedicated processing staff review the paperwork and prepares the claim for processing. Automated tracers or claims are filed with the carrier. Constant status updates trace the progress of the claim process through final disposition. Complete control is maintained by the customer through periodic reporting or through our optional dial-in status and reporting system.

We have established a Quality Plus program for the evaluation and improvement of our services to our clients. Our employees measure and report conformance to client requirements, implement corrective action, and also learn and teach quality improvement techniques.

At BBA we strive for superior, error-free services to our clients and their carriers. Our Quality Plus program evaluates the accuracy of the Audit, Coding, Data Entry, and IT Departments. The records processed are checked and balanced four times: prior to Data Entry, after processing, in the database, and again in the Quality Assurance Department. Quality Assurance balances daily and weekly transactions processed between Data Entry and EDI to the weekly clients reports. Client reports, as well as internal reports, are reviewed by Quality Assurance to verify accuracy and totals prior to report distribution to our clients. The data transfer process from Data Entry, EDI, and other electronic media is also audited and all transfer control totals are logged and checked daily.

BBA's definition of Quality is conformance to our client's defined requirements.