Your freight invoice came in higher than the quote. Find out which part of it is actually explained.
ChargeBasis reads your freight quotation and final invoice, normalises every charge against a freight-specific dictionary, and applies evidence rules built for ocean and LCL billing. You get a line-by-line account of what the documents support, what they do not, and exactly which document would settle the difference.
Both free · No account needed to start
Cheaper still: check the quote first. A charge you get in writing before booking costs nothing. The same charge questioned after the invoice arrives costs a negotiation — and often you lose it.
Charge types normalised
22
Ocean and LCL freight, origin and destination handling, accessorials, government and pass-through charges — each with its own evidence standard.
Evidence rules
7
Rate mismatch, unquoted charges, duplicates, weight and volume, pass-through, day-counted charges, and currency conversion.
Finding classifications
4
Every charge lands in exactly one, and missing evidence prevents anything reaching 'ready to question'.
Price
$99/month
One plan, flat. No success fee and no percentage of anything you recover.
How it works
Upload the quote and the invoice
Add the freight quotation and the final invoice. Bills of lading, arrival notices, packing lists, measurement certificates and forwarded emails all help, but two documents are enough to start.
Every charge is matched and checked
Charge descriptions are normalised against a freight dictionary, then run through deterministic evidence rules. Arithmetic, duplicate detection and day counts are computed in code, not guessed.
You get findings, not a number
Each charge is classified as supported, needing clarification, needing information from you, or ready to question — with the document, page and line behind every conclusion.
The charges ChargeBasis understands
A generic invoice comparison sees two rows of text. Freight billing needs to know that THC, DTHC and terminal handling are the same charge, that a pass-through disbursement is held to a receipt standard rather than a quoted rate, and that detention is counted from gate-out while demurrage is counted from the last free day.
Ocean freight
The base port-to-port move. Should tie directly to a quoted rate and the bill of lading.
LCL freight
Billed per freight tonne (greater of tonnes or cbm). The chargeable basis is the single most disputed input on LCL invoices.
Origin charges
Bundled origin-side handling. Ask for the component breakdown when it exceeds the quoted allowance.
Destination charges
Destination-side handling. Frequently excluded from an origin-only quote — check the quote's inclusion scope before treating it as unquoted.
Documentation fee
Per-document charge. A second documentation fee on one bill of lading is a common duplicate.
Terminal handling charge
Terminal-set tariff. The provider should be able to point at the published terminal tariff for the arrival date.
CFS / deconsolidation
LCL deconsolidation, usually per freight tonne. Compare the CFS-measured basis against the quoted basis.
Drayage
Port-to-door truck move. Waiting time and dry-run charges on top of drayage need a driver record.
Final delivery
Final leg. Accessorials such as liftgate or inside delivery should match what was actually requested.
Fuel surcharge
Percentage or per-unit surcharge. Check the percentage applied and the base it was applied to.
Security surcharge
Small fixed surcharge. Usually valid, but should still appear in the quoted inclusion list.
Customs clearance
The broker's own service fee — distinct from the duties and taxes they advance.
Examination / inspection
Pass-throughCannot be quoted in advance, but must be evidenced: an exam notice plus the exam-site receipt.
Storage
Day-counted. Needs a start date, a free-time allowance, and an end date to be checkable.
Demurrage
Container sitting inside the terminal past free time. Requires availability date, last free day, and gate-out date.
Detention
Container held outside the terminal past free time. Requires gate-out and empty-return dates.
Chassis
Day-counted equipment rental. Same date evidence as detention.
Reweigh / remeasurement
The classic LCL surprise. Only checkable against a dated measurement certificate that names who measured and where.
Currency adjustment
Needs the agreed rate source and conversion date, not just a converted total.
Duties and taxes
Pass-throughGovernment money advanced on your behalf. Should reconcile to the customs entry to the cent.
Pass-through / disbursement
Pass-throughMoney the provider advanced. The standard is a receipt at cost, plus any separately agreed advancement fee.
Credit / reversal
A negative line. Recognised so it can cancel out an apparent duplicate rather than inflate variance.
Each entry carries its own synonyms and abbreviations as they appear on real documents. See the full glossary.
Four outcomes, and why the difference matters
Most of the value is in refusing to call things disputable. A finding only becomes ready to question when nothing is outstanding — missing evidence holds it back, by design.
The documents explain the charge. A quotation clause permits the rate to move, or the day count reconciles to the dates on the arrival notice. These are set aside, not padded into a total.
The charge cannot be assessed until the provider produces something specific — a measurement certificate, an exam notice, a third-party receipt. The question names the document.
Part of the answer sits with you, not the provider. Whether a delay came from your own delivery instructions decides whether storage days are questionable at all.
The documents themselves establish the point — a documentation fee raised twice on one bill of lading needs no further evidence to ask about.
Managed recovery pricing
The first freight invoice scan is free. Managed recovery — where ChargeBasis prepares the correspondence, tracks the provider's replies, and records what actually comes back — has no upfront charge.
Standard is $99/month. That is the whole commercial relationship: no success fee, no commission, and nothing that varies with what a case is worth. A percentage model prices the same work at a few dollars on a small credit and a great deal on a large one, and it cannot charge at all for the check that stops a charge before you book.
What is never charged
- A fee on gross variance between your quote and invoice.
- A fee on a “potential” or estimated recovery.
- A fee on an amount a provider offered but has not delivered.
- Anything at all if nothing is recovered.
Before managed recovery starts you accept an authorization agreement and add a payment method. The payment method is only used once a recovery has been verified.
Security and privacy
Freight documents carry your suppliers, your volumes, and your landed costs. They are treated accordingly.
- Private storage only
- Documents live in a private bucket and are served through short-lived signed links that also re-check your organization membership. Nothing is ever placed on a public path.
- Organization isolation
- Every record is scoped to your organization, enforced in the query layer and by row-level security policies in the database.
- Server-side processing
- Documents are read on the server. No storage key, service key, or model key is exposed to the browser.
- Documents are untrusted input
- Text inside an uploaded file is data. It cannot alter instructions, trigger actions, or change what a finding says — and instruction-like text is flagged for review.
- Automatic deletion
- Uploads made without an account are deleted automatically after 24 hours. You can delete your organization's documents and analysis at any time.
- Audit trail
- Uploads, downloads, approvals, verifications and fee charges are recorded. Document contents never enter the audit log.
Questions importers ask
Is the variance between my quote and invoice the amount I can recover?
No, and treating it that way is the main mistake in freight invoice review. A variance is arithmetic. Some of it will be explained by the quotation's own terms, some by charges that were legitimately excluded, and some will genuinely need evidence. ChargeBasis reports gross variance and the potentially disputable portion as two separate numbers, and never presents the first as money you are owed.
Do I need an account to check an invoice?
No. The first check is free and needs no account. You will see the totals, how many charge lines matched, how many charges are new or changed, how many findings need evidence, and a carefully worded potentially disputable amount. Creating an account saves the shipment and opens every finding, its citations, and the evidence checklist.
What happens to my documents if I do not sign up?
Documents uploaded without an account are held in private storage and deleted automatically after 24 hours. They are not indexed, not public, and not used for anything except producing your preview.
How does the pricing work?
Quote checks are free and unlimited, on every plan. The free plan also includes one full invoice check a month. Standard is $99/month for unlimited invoice checks, managed recovery and benchmarks. There is no success fee, no commission, and no charge that depends on what you recover: if you recover a great deal you pay the same, and if you recover nothing you pay the same.
Will this damage my relationship with my forwarder?
The correspondence is written to avoid that. Drafts ask questions and request documents in neutral commercial language. Words implying wrongdoing are blocked outright. Nothing is sent without your approval, and most cases begin as a request for clarification rather than a dispute.
Does a language model decide whether a charge is wrong?
No. Models are used to read documents — classifying them, pulling fields into a strict schema, locating source text, and suggesting a category for an unfamiliar charge description. Every determination that matters (arithmetic, totals, duplicate detection, evidence requirements, readiness, fees) is deterministic code you can read and test.
Evidence for every freight charge.
Upload one quote and one invoice. You will see what the documents support and what they do not, before you decide whether to do anything about it.
Check a freight invoiceResults are document-based assessments. They are not legal advice and not a guarantee that any amount will be recovered.