Drowning in excel? The cost of manual invoice checks revealed.
Fact: manually managing shipping invoices is no longer just inefficient—it’s practically impossible at scale. Yet, many retailers and 3PLs still rely on outdated tools and manual processes to cross-reference massive excel datasets. Drowning in excel rows, leaving themselves vulnerable to wasted time, skyrocketing costs, and costly errors.
The Problem: Cross-Referencing Massive Datasets
Imagine your shipping operations generate two Excel spreadsheets, each with 1,048,576 rows. Cross-referencing these spreadsheets to ensure accuracy and accountability might seem straightforward, but the numbers tell a very different story.
What Does It Take to Cross-Reference Two Spreadsheets?
Rows to Compare:
Each spreadsheet contains over 1 million rows, meaning a total of 1,048,576 comparisons to be made.
Time Per Cross-Check:
Assuming it takes 1 minute per row to manually cross-reference (a conservative estimate), the time quickly adds up.
Total Time for One Person:
1,048,576 minutes, or approximately 2,184.5 days—nearly 6 years of work.
Team Effort:
With 5 people: It still takes 436.9 days (1.2 years).
With 10 people: 218.5 days (7 months).
With 20 people: 109.2 days (3.6 months).
Even with a team of 20, completing the task requires over three months of dedicated, full-time work. This means you can’t help but cut corners or make assumptions.
The real costs: time, money, and accuracy
1. Time
Manual cross-referencing eats up valuable hours that could be better spent on higher-value activities. The time commitment is staggering, even for teams of 10 or 20 people. And as shipment volumes grow, the task becomes exponentially harder.
2. Money
Time is money, and inefficiency comes at a high cost. Paying a team to work for months on something that could be automated is a financial drain. Plus, errors that go unchecked in shipping invoices—such as incorrect charges or missing claims—further eat into your bottom line.
3. Accuracy
Humans make mistakes. When dealing with over a million rows of data, even the most careful manual processes can miss errors or introduce new ones. These inaccuracies can lead to unpaid claims, overcharges, and poor decision-making due to unreliable data.
All of this is hitting your bottom line and impacting your profitability.
The smarter alternative: automate and optimise
Relying on manual processes for tasks of this scale isn’t just inefficient—it’s unsustainable. Businesses need smarter, faster solutions to handle invoice accountability, claims management, and data analysis at scale. Here’s what the right tools can do:
1. Automated Cross-Referencing
Automation removes the need for manual comparisons, delivering faster and more accurate results. Errors are flagged in real time, ensuring discrepancies don’t slip through the cracks.
2. Simplified Claims Management
Automated tools streamline the claims process, reducing manual hours and ensuring you recover money faster. With pre-set rules and triggers, claims are filed and processed with minimal effort.
3. Data-Driven Insights
Automation doesn’t just save time—it provides visibility. With all data centralized and analyzed, businesses gain actionable insights into courier performance, SLA adherence, and fraud risks. This leads to smarter decision-making and stronger operational control.
The bottom line: it’s time to evolve
Manual processes might have been enough in the past, but today’s logistics demands require modern solutions. Cross-referencing two maxed-out Excel spreadsheets highlights just how overwhelming manual methods can be. Whether you’re losing time, money, or accuracy, the message is clear: there’s a better way.
Investing in automation and data tools not only eliminates inefficiencies but also empowers your business to operate smarter, faster, and more profitably. Are you ready to make the shift? Let Anansi help you deliver accountability, protect your bottom line, and transform your logistics for the future.
Ready to leave manual processes behind? Discover how Anansi’s accountability platform can revolutionise your supply chain.
