Manifest Vegas: Q&A with RateRunners' Karolina Smith

During Manifest Vegas, Karolina Smith of RateRunners joined the conversation to discuss the persistent complexities of shipping invoice reconciliation.

Drawing from her extensive background in the operations world, Karolina highlighted a common struggle for both brands and third-party logistics (3PL) providers: the difficulty of digesting and understanding shipping invoices, which often represent one of the hardest line items to manage.

To address this, RateRunners has developed a dedicated shipping reconciliation platform designed to provide total transparency into how invoices are constructed. 

Can you tell us about your background and what led to the creation of RateRunners?

I came from the operations world and what we tended to walk into is a lot of brands and 3PLs asking us about their shipping invoice. That is one of the hardest line items to understand and to digest.

So what we did is we created a shipping reconciliation platform for this industry for brands and 3PLs to understand how their invoices are put together, why, how and how to prevent that of happening. So we created RateRunners.

What is the specific problem you are solving regarding shipping invoices?

When you look at invoices, especially within shipping, you see an invoice coming in for US$5. That's the expected rate because we know the dimensional size, we know the weight and we know which carrier you're shipping with. But, when it comes back on the invoice, it suddenly says US$7.

So what RateRunners does is really focus on what happened in between and tells the story. With that story, brands and 3PLs can now finally control the invoices and how they spend their money.

Could you share a real-world example of how this transparency impacts a business?

One of our clients discovered that they had US$200,000 in assessorial surcharges. That was an extra not expected charge that came in just one week time.

So what RateRunners did is it uncovered that this was happening in that specific week. And what we were able to do is tell them the story how it happened, when it happened and what to do to change that from ever happening again.

How does this change the way companies should view their supply chain?

It makes your shipping invoices transparent, easy to understand and you are able to control it. Treating supply chain as a financial problem, not just an operational one.

The companies that will win are the ones that understand where where they're spending the money, how they're spending the money and once they do that, they have full control and can protect their margin.