Background
Operating across more than 20 countries in Europe and beyond, this global freight forwarder serves over 14,000 customers from its Dubai headquarters. Like many forwarders at scale, the company had offshored parts of its back-office work to shared service centers to control costs but by the time its accounts payable operation reached this size, that approach had hit a ceiling.
80%
of invoices cleared for payment automatically, and rising
20+
countries running on one AP workflow
40
person finance team freed from manual reconciliation
Zero
extra headcount needed to handle more volume
Challenge: Payment processing was slowing down as volume grew
Many forwarders offshore back-office work to shared service centers to cut costs, but at scale that approach reaches its limit. For this forwarder, the bottleneck sat in accounts payable, where a 40-person finance team was dedicated entirely to processing carrier invoices by hand, reconciling billing formats from drayage providers, ocean lines, and ground carriers against a custom ERP system.
The manual model carried three risks:
- Keying thousands of supplier invoices introduced reconciliation and settlement errors
- Every document needed a manual touch, so payments were slow and carrier relationships suffered
- Volume could only grow by adding headcount
Across 20+ countries and 14,000+ customers, that was a burden the company could not sustain.
Solution: AP Automation — One automated workflow, from invoice intake to settlement
To modernize its financial supply chain, the forwarder turned to PayCargo, replacing fragmented manual touchpoints with a single AI-powered pipeline. The platform digitizes invoice intake, extracts the details, and validates them in real time:
- Digital settlement: Instead of chasing manual payouts, the forwarder settles carrier payouts through an electronic workflow, speeding up settlements and strengthening carrier relationships
- Automated invoice capture: With PayCargo, the forwarder digitized invoice intake across every carrier format it worked with, eliminating manual data entry entirely
- Connected to existing systems: PayCargo integrated with the forwarder’s logistics systems, enabling faster implementation and lower disruption for the team, rather than a full system replacement
- Automated rate verification: Every invoice is cross-checked against the forwarder’s contracted rates and actual shipment data automatically, helping the team catch overcharges and other discrepancies more quickly
Result: 80% straight-through processing across the network
Measured results:
- 80% of invoices are now cleared for payment automatically, and rising
- 20+ countries run on one AP workflow
- 40-person finance team has been freed from manual reconciliation
- Zero extra headcount needed to handle more volume
Strategic Outcome:
By automating the standard, high-volume billings, the forwarder removed the transactional bottleneck and can absorb growing volume with no extra administrative effort. The finance team now applies its judgment to the complex 20%, while faster, more accurate settlements strengthen carrier relationships across the network.
