How a US 3PL Provider Issued $260K in Previously Missed Invoices
A US third-party logistics provider was doing billable work it never invoiced. Tying warehouse events to billing led to $260,479 in additional invoices over eight months; the $570,000 full-year figure is an illustrative model, not cash collected.
An anonymized engagement the Aigenrix founder took part in outside Aigenrix — not a client project contracted or delivered by Aigenrix.
- Additional invoices issued
- $260,479
- Over 8 months; part paid, part outstanding
- Illustrative annual opportunity
- $570,000
- 3.8% of annual revenue; not realized revenue
- Days sales outstanding
- ~30 days
- Down from approximately 40–50 days
- Remaining billing leakage
- <0.5%
- Reported, as a share of annual revenue
The challenge
A US third-party logistics provider with approximately $15 million in annual revenue and 120 employees faced weak margins and cash-flow pressure. Warehouse staff performed repacking, relabeling, kitting and non-standard pallet handling, but those activities were not consistently recorded or invoiced.
Detention and accessorial charges were also inconsistently billed. Manual handoffs between the warehouse management system (WMS) and billing led to omissions, disputes and delayed invoices.
Why billable work went unbilled
- Billable operational events had no mandatory capture or supporting evidence.
- Customer rate schedules and accessorial charge rules were not consistently mapped to operational data.
- Billing relied on manual reconciliation, often long after the work had been completed.
What changed
- 1.Mandatory handheld scanning, with supporting evidence, for additional billable warehouse activities.
- 2.WMS-to-ERP integration that turned validated activity records into invoice line items, with more frequent billing for eligible services.
- 3.Standardized contractual schedules for value-added services and recoverable detention charges, backed by timestamps and operational evidence.
- 4.Small employee incentives to reinforce accurate, timely recording of additional services.
Work performed → Recorded inconsistently → Manual reconciliation → Invoice missed or delayed
Work performed → Scanned with evidence → WMS-to-ERP line item → Invoice issued on cycle
Observed outcomes
- Within about 45 days, better activity capture and a faster billing cadence were associated with an early pace of about $20,000 a month in additional invoicing. The main operational changes were in place by month six; measurement continued through month eight.
- Over eight months the company issued $260,479 in additional invoices for previously missed services and charges. By the observation date some of those invoices had been paid; the rest were outstanding receivables.
- Days sales outstanding (DSO) moved from approximately 40–50 days to approximately 30 days. Reported remaining billing leakage after implementation was below 0.5% of annual revenue.
Annualized potential and EBITDA sensitivity
- Observed
- $260,479
- Invoices issued over 8 months
- Illustrative
- $570,000
- Annualized opportunity
- Conditional
- $3,420,000
- Valuation sensitivity at 6×
The $570,000 is a modeled full-year opportunity, not twelve months of realized invoicing or cash collection, and not independently verified EBITDA. It should not be added to the $260,479 observed over eight months.
Because the underlying services had already been delivered, much of any additional billing could flow through to EBITDA. How much actually does depends on implementation and ongoing costs (systems, scanning, incentives, billing support) and on how much of the invoiced amount is collected; these were not independently reconciled.
The $3,420,000 figure is an illustrative sensitivity only: it applies only if $570,000 became sustainable incremental annual EBITDA and a 6× multiple applied. It is not a verified valuation, sale price or achieved outcome.
Key insight
The leakage was not in pricing or in the work itself. It sat between the warehouse floor and the invoice: services were delivered, but nothing forced them to become a billable, evidenced record.
About this engagement
This is an anonymized real engagement from the professional experience of Aigenrix founder Ivan Melnykov, who took part in solution design and implementation outside Aigenrix. It was not contracted or delivered by Aigenrix. Client identity and commercially sensitive details are withheld. The figures are as reported for the engagement and are not presented as independently audited results.
Could the same gap exist in your business?
Unbilled work and unrecovered charges rarely show up in a P&L; they have to be tested against operational and billing evidence. Aigenrix approaches this in two stages.
Step 1 · Free
Free Profit Leakage Scan
A short screening questionnaire about how your business runs. You receive a preliminary report of signals and hypotheses worth testing — not findings, and not a measured amount.
Step 2 · Where justified
Discussion, evidence review and a scoped diagnostic
If the screening points to material exposure, a free 30-minute review covers what the signals could mean and the evidence needed to test them. Where the potential economic impact justifies it, we propose a fixed-scope, paid Margin Leakage Diagnostic that tests the signals against your actual data. Not every screening leads to a paid diagnostic.
The free Scan is a preliminary screening, not a financial audit, and it does not promise recoverable revenue.
30 minutes, free and without obligation. We look at your situation and decide together whether a paid next step makes sense.