Expedited payables, expedited freight
How a US expedited logistics provider’s AP team keeps pace with a growing coast-to-coast network
Business Overview
A US logistics provider with more than six decades in the business, the company provides customised, expedited domestic logistics across a coast-to-coast network, with international freight, customs brokerage and tradeshow logistics alongside.
Case Study Product Focus
Raft Finance (Accounts Payable): Agentic AI that reads every carrier and agent invoice landing in the company’s payables inbox, splits consolidated and multi-shipment bills across the right jobs, validates each charge against estimated costs, and posts clean invoices to the TMS for payment, routing only genuine exceptions to the team.
The problem
Expedited freight is sold on speed, and every shipment leaves a trail of carrier and agent invoices behind it. At this provider, those invoices arrived in a shared payables mailbox. A member of the AP team opened each one, found the shipment, keyed the charges into CargoWise and checked them against the estimated cost on the job.
The hardest were the invoices covering more than one shipment: a consolidated or multi-shipment bill had to be split line by line across every job it touched before it could be approved. A wrong split meant a partner paid the wrong amount or a job’s margin misstated, and every new lane added to the pile.
This pain point became heightened as the company grew ambitiously with three acquisitions since mid-2025, and every new station and shipment lands more carrier and agent invoices on the same payables team in CargoWise.
Why they chose Raft
When the company set the direction for its payables operation, its leadership used the same terms they use for freight: dependable, accurate and in control. They were clear from the start what success meant: every invoice type the team handles, single-shipment, consolidated and multi-shipment, running through one process into CargoWise.
Their criteria followed from that: it had to read invoices as they arrive in the mailbox, match them against the estimated costs already on the job, work inside the team’s existing CargoWise workflow, and handle the invoice types other tools leave on the desk.
The timing came from the company’s ambition. With new offices opening and three logistics businesses joining the group since mid-2025, it wanted a payables operation that each new station and business could plug straight into, so the back office runs as smoothly as the freight while the network expands.
“Our people are the reason customers stay with us. Our payables team is excellent, and as we grew, we didn’t want their talent tied up keying invoices. We wanted it to go into our carrier relationships and make sure every partner gets paid right, and on time.”
What its teams do now
The AP team starts the day with its invoices already read. As carrier and agent invoices land in their Raft payables inbox, the team’s queue fills with packs that are extracted, matched to the shipment and its estimated cost, and ready to push into CargoWise for payment.
In the last 12 months the team put more than 150,000 invoice packs, and north of 450,000 documents, through the Raft platform. Three in five packs needed no human touch at all, 91.5% needed one touch or less.
That changes what growth asks of the back office. Its AP specialists spend their time on the consolidations that need a judgement call, on carrier queries and on getting partners paid accurately, and each station or business the company adds brings invoices that are processed as they land in the Raft inbox, rather than hours of keying for the team.
The company set a high standard for every invoice, and that standard is now built into how Raft’s agents work, so the Raft agents and the AP team apply it consistently and at speed, every day.
“Technology will never replace what our team does, but it makes them better at it. Every new station and every acquisition brings more carrier invoices, and now they arrive already read and matched. Our team spends its time on the ones that need judgement, and our back office keeps pace with the business.”
