Stop accessorial leakage by defining triggers, matching invoices to operational truth, disputing unsupported fees, and sustaining controls monthly.

Primary outcomes:

• Cost reduction: reduce “surprise fees” and margin-on-margin behavior
• Risk mitigation: fewer billing disputes and cleaner vendor accountability
• Carbon impact: not applicable

Common accessorial leakage patterns

• fees applied without trigger evidence
• “special handling” used as a catch-all
• minimums misapplied
• rework billed but caused by vendor quality issues
• detention/expedite fees without documented cause
• duplicate accessorial line items

30-day accessorial cleanup sprint

1. Pull last 3 invoices
2. List top accessorials by $
3. For each, define:

• trigger condition
• evidence required
• dispute criteria

1. Dispute unsupported fees
2. Update rate card and accessorial definitions for the future

Templates (copy/paste)

1) Accessorial Top 10 Review

2) Dispute snippet (unsupported accessorial)

Copyable template (TEXT)
Copy
We are disputing the accessorial charges listed below because the required trigger evidence was not provided.
Please provide the evidence per our agreed definitions or issue a corrected invoice/credit.

Related resources (guaranteed to exist)

• 3PL and Warehouse Spend Controls Kit (threepl-warehouse-spend-controls-kit)
• 3PL Accessorial Overcharge Checker (threepl-accessorial-overcharge-checker)
• Invoice Integrity Copy Pack (invoice-integrity)
• Disputes + Credit Recovery System (disputes-credit-recovery-system)

Definition of Done

• accessorial triggers and evidence requirements are explicit
• unsupported fees are disputed quickly
• accessorial share trends down over time