The money is almost never in the rate. It is in the charges nobody queried.
A better rate saves you a percentage on one line of the invoice. What actually moves your landed cost is everything sitting around that line, the demurrage that was never your fault, the customs stop nobody investigated and the fees that got paid because they arrived on an invoice and invoices get paid. That is where we look and it is usually where the money is.
Get your free landed cost auditFour places importers lose money without ever seeing it on a rate sheet
None of these show up when you compare quotes, which is exactly why they survive year after year. Each one is something we manage as a matter of course rather than something we charge extra to look at.
Demurrage that was never yours to carry
When a container sits somebody has to pay for it and the invoice usually lands on the importer without anyone establishing whose delay it actually was. Free time at the South African ports has been getting shorter rather than longer, so the meter now starts sooner than most people budget for.
What we do: we manage the process, establish where responsibility genuinely sits and make sure demurrage that was not caused by you is not quietly passed on to you.
Line items on the invoice that nobody has ever questioned
Communication fees, agency fees, interest charged on duties and VAT laid out on your behalf and shipping invoices that never get attached, so you cannot see what was actually paid against what you were charged.
What we do: you get the breakdown, including the underlying charges, so every line on your invoice is one you can account for rather than one you simply pay.
Five suppliers and nobody who owns the problem
A transporter, a clearing agent, a warehouse, a shipping line and a forwarder all doing their own piece properly is still a chain with four gaps in it and cost collects in the gaps while everybody explains why it was not their part.
What we do: one accountable operator from origin to final delivery, with a dedicated logistics manager whose job is the whole shipment rather than one leg of it.
Finding out what it cost only after it has cost it
Most importers reconcile backwards, working out what went wrong once the charges are already on the account, by which point the only decision left is who absorbs it.
What we do: the TSI Digital Control Tower connects clearing agents, transporters, ports, airlines and customs with live integrations, so you can see where your cargo stands while there is still time to do something about it.
What this has actually been worth to clients who were not looking for it
The client behind the first figure had used the same agent for more than twenty years and told us what almost everybody tells us, that they were happy and saw no reason to change. They were not wrong about their agent either, who was doing the job they were asked to do. The money was simply not leaking anywhere anyone was looking.
Every business imports differently, so these are what we found for those particular clients rather than a figure we can promise anyone else. What the audit does is tell you what is sitting in your own numbers.
You may be paying more than you should. Find out in 48 hours.
TSI will audit your current import costs at no charge. We identify where you are overpaying on freight, duties, port charges and customs and we show you the numbers before you commit to anything.
No obligation. No sales pitch. Just a clear picture of what your imports actually cost and what they should cost.
TSI Central Station, 1 Bell Street, Unit C7, Meadowdale, Johannesburg 1401
+27 (0)11 868-2444 ·
pricing@centralstation.co.za