Methodology
Validated by independent freight-audit practitioners
We pay working practitioners — ex-carrier operations, terminal billing, and freight audit — to attack the leakage engine on redacted real cases under mutual NDA. They are not endorsers. They are paid to find where the logic is wrong. This page records what they broke and what we changed, because a recovery estimate from a stranger is only worth what its method can survive.
Who reviewed it
Senior ex-Maersk export operations
8 years in cross-border supply chain and freight-cost auditing; carrier-side tariff and demurrage administration.
Scope
Demurrage and detention clock construction, tariff tier application, free-time anchoring.
Terminal billing and container cost-structure practitioner
Container terminal cost structures across DP World, APM Terminals and PSA operating models.
Scope
Ancillary fee stacking, off-dock storage triggers, reefer monitoring and shifting charges.
Freight audit and intermodal operations reviewer
Terminal appointment systems, drayage exception handling, and marine-traffic-based dwell reconstruction.
Scope
Availability anchoring against terminal portals, route and dwell evidence quality.
Reviewers work under a mutual NDA and see redacted case files only — counterparties, rates and identifiers are removed before review. Names are withheld unless the reviewer has consented to attribution.
What they broke, and what changed
Leakage tools over-index on obvious demurrage clock errors and miss the ancillary fees that actually drive the disputed amount.
Before
The engine scored demurrage and detention day counts, and treated line-item surcharges as context rather than as recoverable exposure.
Now
Ancillary fee stacking is a first-class test class. Reefer monitoring, container shifting, off-dock storage triggers, chassis splits and congestion surcharges are each extracted, stacked and tested independently of the demurrage clock.
Free time was being anchored to vessel discharge, which is not when the box became collectible.
Before
Free-time day one was derived from the discharge timestamp in the AIS/port record.
Now
Free time anchors to 'Full Available for Delivery' from the terminal record, with discharge retained only as a fallback. Days between discharge and availability are no longer billable to the cargo owner, and that gap is now itself a claim class.
Accessorials, not base ocean freight, carry most of the recoverable error on a freight bill.
Before
Base rate and demurrage were the primary comparison targets.
Now
Nine dedicated freight-invoice tests run on every bill: BAF ratio against the bunker index for the sailing window, double-charged THC at origin and destination, FX spot conversion against the tariff-stated rate, congestion surcharge validity against the friction index, and duplicate line detection.
Terminal appointment and slot systems change the factual record after the fact.
Before
Terminal state was read once at ingestion.
Now
Availability and appointment timestamps are re-observed and versioned, so a retroactively edited terminal record does not silently destroy the evidence for a claim.
How the audit runs
- 1. Evidence in. You send freight bills, arrival notices and terminal records. We reconstruct the timeline from independent sources — AIS berth calls, terminal availability, tariff filings — not from the carrier’s own summary.
- 2. Exceptions out in 72 hours. Each exception cites the clause, the tariff tier and the timestamp it fails against.
- 3. Human sign-off. No AI output leaves draft state. A comptroller approves before anything is filed with a carrier.
- 4. You pay 15% of what you actually recover. Nothing recovered, nothing owed.
Are you a freight-audit or terminal-billing practitioner? We pay for scoped technical review, and reviewers who introduce a cargo owner earn 20% of the success fee on the first recovery. Contact sales@gdcs.me.