About Billing Management

Billing Management enables you to oversee aspects of customer invoicing and payment collection for goods or services provided via outbound parcel delivery. Shipium's billing management system ensures that billing is accurate and enables your organization to make cost-optimization decisions in your operations.

To efficiently handle and streamline financial transactions associated with billing, our platform adheres to the following key goals:

• Accuracy. Billing information is correct, including rates, quantities, and total amounts, to minimize errors and discrepancies.
• Efficiency. Automation and optimization of the billing process reduce manual effort, speed up invoicing, and enhance overall operational efficiency.
• Timeliness. Prompt generation and delivery of invoices helps to avoid delays in payment and improve cash flow.
• Reporting and analysis. Reports and billing data analysis provide insights into financial performance and trends.

Who uses Billing Management

Billing Management is available to organizations that need to manage carrier cost reconciliation and customer invoicing for outbound parcel shipments. This includes:

• 3PL organizations. Third-party logistics providers who manage shipping for multiple tenants (customers) and need to generate invoices, apply markup rates, and track margins across their customer base. 3PL users typically configure billing contracts at the partner level, then set up tenant contracts, sell ratesheets, and billing schedules to automate invoicing for each of their customers.
• Enterprise organizations. Large shippers who want to reconcile carrier invoices against their shipment data, track shipping costs, and gain visibility into carrier billing accuracy.

Your organization's use case determines which Billing Management features are most relevant. Contact your Shipium representative to discuss your requirements and ensure the platform is configured for your needs.

SSO configuration is the first step

Prior to your organization using billing management features in the Shipium Console, you'll need to complete single sign-on (SSO) configuration for your network and users.

Initial configuration

Billing Management requires initial configuration by Shipium before your organization can begin using the platform. This includes carrier account mapping, billing preferences, and other foundational settings. Your Shipium representative will work with you to complete this setup during onboarding.

Within Billing Management, your organization can:

• Create invoices and view invoice details
• Add tenants and view tenant contracts (primarily for 3PL organizations)
• Add and view billing schedules
• Add and view sell ratesheets (primarily for 3PL organizations)
• Add and view service level mappings
• Configure carrier zone mapping
• View and reconcile billing errors

Set up your fulfillment context

You will need to configure network settings via Shipium's fulfillment context workflow to use Billing Management.

Carrier Selection customers

The Billing Management service is currently optimized for customers using Shipium's Carrier Selection service. If your organization does not use Carrier Selection, contact your Shipium representative to discuss Billing Management configuration options for your use case.

Partner and tenant views

What you see in Billing Management depends on how your organization is configured. Shipium configures your organization during onboarding based on your use case:

• Partner view is for organizations that manage their own shipping and billing without tenants. You'll see billing data and configuration options for your organization's shipping operations.
• Tenant view is for organizations (such as 3PLs) that manage billing across multiple tenants (customers). You'll see tenant-specific billing data and configuration options for managing individual customer relationships.

Partner view navigation

Organizations configured with a partner view have access to the following Billing Management features:

• Invoices. View and manage invoices for your organization.
• Carrier Transactions. Search and manage carrier transaction records.
• Billing Contracts. Configure carrier billing contracts for the partner, including currency and applicable date range.
• Billing Schedules. Set up automated invoice generation schedules.
• Billing Webhooks. Register webhooks to receive invoice event notifications.
• Service Level Mappings. Map carrier service levels to standardized categories.
• Zone Mapping. Configure billing zone mappings for rate calculations.
• Billing Errors. Review and resolve billing errors.

Tenant view navigation

Organizations configured with a tenant view have access to the following Billing Management features:

• Invoices. View and manage invoices at the partner level and for individual tenants.
• Carrier Transactions. Search and manage carrier transaction records, with the ability to filter by tenant.
• Tenant Contracts. Configure billing contracts specific to each tenant.
• Sell Ratesheets. Define the rates charged to each tenant for shipping services.
• Billing Schedules. Set up automated invoice generation schedules for your tenants.
• Billing Webhooks. Register webhooks to receive invoice event notifications.
• Service Level Mappings. Map carrier service levels to standardized categories.
• Zone Mapping. Configure billing zone mappings for rate calculations.
• Billing Errors. Review and resolve billing errors.

Feature availability by view

Most Billing Management features are available in both views, but some features are specific to how your organization is configured:

In addition to navigation differences, some pages display different filters and columns depending on your organization's view.

Getting started with Billing Management

When you first access Billing Management, a guided tour helps you understand the key features and recommended setup sequence.

Billing console overview

To access the guided tour at any time, select Billing Console Overview from the bottom of the lefthand navigation menu.

Select Start Tour to begin the guided walkthrough. The tour introduces six key components of the billing system in the recommended setup sequence: Sell Rate Sheets, Billing Zone Maps, Service Level Mappings, Schedules, Tenants, and Invoices. The tour is oriented toward tenant view features.

Recommended setup sequence

For new Billing Management users, we recommend completing setup in the order presented in the tour: start with sell rate sheets and zone maps, then configure service level mappings and schedules, followed by tenant setup. Once configuration is complete, you can begin generating invoices.

Access Billing Management

To begin, you'll log in to the Shipium Console and select Billing Management from the lefthand navigation menu.

On the Billing Management home screen, a summary of your invoices shows how many invoices you have in Draft, Pending Approval, or Approved status, along with your cost margin. You can filter invoice sets by tenant and date range. Each invoice status card displays whether the number of invoices has increased or decreased since the previous time period.

Pending Actions

The Pending Actions section at the bottom of the home screen highlights items that need your attention, with direct links to resolve them:

• Draft invoices. Invoices ready to transition to Pending Approval status.
• Billing errors. Transactions with configuration issues (such as missing sell rate sheets).
• Unattributed transactions. Carrier transactions that need tenant assignment.

Each pending action displays a count and a brief description of what needs to be done.

In addition, you can create an invoice from this page by selecting the + Generate Invoice button.

The Cost vs. Billable Overview section provides key financial metrics at a glance:

• Carrier Cost Total. The total amount charged by carriers for all shipments within the selected time period.
• Billable Total. The total amount billed to your customers for all shipments within the selected time period.
• Margin. The percentage difference between your Billable Total and Carrier Cost Total.

Invoices

On the Invoices home screen, you can generate a new invoice, take action for listed invoices, and search for invoices using available filters. Invoice data is retained for 15 months in the Shipium platform.

Filters by view:

Organizations with a partner view see an Invoice column with invoice IDs on the invoice list.

With invoice management, you can:

• Generate and manage invoices for your organization and tenants (if applicable)
• Track billing amounts and payment status
• View complete invoice history and audit trails
• Download and export invoices in multiple formats

Invoice lifecycle

Invoices in the Billing Management service move through a defined lifecycle, with each status determining available actions.

Invoice statuses:

• Draft. The initial state of a new invoice. In this state, the invoice is mutable and can be modified.

• Send for Approval. Submits the invoice for review, changing the status to Pending Approval.

  • Cancel. Cancels the draft invoice, changing the status to Canceled.

• Pending Approval. The invoice has been submitted for review and is awaiting approval.

  • Approve. Approves the invoice, changing the status to Approved.
  • Cancel. Cancels the invoice, changing the status to Canceled.

• Approved. The invoice has been approved and is considered final.

  • Cancel. Cancels the approved invoice, changing the status to Canceled.

• Canceled. The invoice has been canceled and is no longer active.

Create an invoice

If you selected Generate New Invoice on the Invoices home screen, you'll see a popup requesting information about the invoice, including the timezone where the invoice is being created and the dates of service.

View an invoice

If you select an invoice to view, you'll see the Invoice Details screen, with an opportunity to download a CSV file of the invoice and search the invoice's line items.

Send an invoice for approval

You have the option to send invoices in a draft status for approval. On the Invoices homepage, you can select the Send for Approval button for the desired invoice.

Approve an invoice

To approve an invoice, you'll select the Approve button for it within the Invoices primary page when the Status filter is set to Pending Approval.

Cancel an invoice

You can cancel an invoice in Draft, Pending Approval, or Approved status by selecting the Cancel button for the desired invoice. Canceling transitions the invoice to Canceled status and triggers the invoice_voided webhook.

Carrier transactions

You can search carrier transactions, perform batch tenant functions, and import a carrier invoice within this section of the Billing Management platform.

Carrier transaction search

The filters on the Carrier Transactions page allow you to search by shipment date, status (Pending Review, Invoiceable, and Excluded from Invoice), carrier, tracking number, reference value, cost above, and cost below.

View carrier transaction details

When you expand a carrier transaction, you can view detailed information about the shipment and associated costs.

Transaction statuses

Carrier transactions progress through several statuses during their lifecycle:

• Pending Review. Incomplete transactions that are missing required data and need manual review before they can be processed for invoicing.
• Invoiceable. The transaction has been matched to a tenant and is eligible to be included in an invoice.

Batch tenant attribution

Using this feature, you can upload tenant information in bulk. This is particularly useful for 3PL organizations that need to assign carrier transactions to the appropriate tenant for invoicing.

Import carrier invoice

If you would like to manually upload an invoice, you can do so using this feature. You'll choose the invoice format and then upload the file.

Tenant contracts

The Tenant Contracts homepage displays your organization's tenant contracts. Within this feature, you can add new tenants and edit current contracts.

With tenant contracts, you can:

• Manage billing contracts for each tenant
• Assign sell rate sheets and billing zone maps
• Configure invoice generation settings
• Set up tenant-specific billing rules and preferences

If you select the + Add Tenant button, you'll be prompted to provide a tenant name, description, and optional reference identifier. You also can add a billing schedule by selecting an already configured one from the dropdown menu.

Billing schedules

The Billing Schedules homepage lists any billing schedules your organization has configured. Billing schedules can be configured at the partner level and for individual tenants. You can select existing schedules to edit them, and you can create a new billing schedule by selecting the + Add Billing Schedule button.

With billing schedules, you can:

• Set up recurring billing cycles
• Configure automated invoice generation and delivery times
• Customize billing rules and payment terms for different customers

Create a billing schedule

If you selected + Add Billing Schedule, you'll be prompted to provide a name, description, and schedule frequency. The system will display a human-readable description of your schedule and show upcoming invoice generation times.

Billing webhooks

The Billing Webhooks page displays your configured webhook endpoints. Each webhook shows:

• Name. The webhook identifier.
• Request URL. The endpoint that receives webhook notifications.
• Event Type. The invoice event that triggers the webhook (e.g., Invoice Finalized).

Sell ratesheets

The Sell Ratesheets homepage lists any ratesheets your organization has configured. With sell rate sheets, you can:

• Define custom pricing tiers based on shipping zones and service levels
• Create special rates for specific customers or groups

To add a new sell ratesheet, you first must select the type of sell ratesheet you wish to create.

Service level mappings

You'll find a list of your organization's carrier service level mappings in the Service Level Mappings homepage. You can select any one of them to view details and edit properties.

To add a new carrier service level mapping to your settings, you'll provide a name and description. Optionally, you can provide a reference identifier.

Zone mapping

The Zone Mapping homepage lists your configured carrier zone mappings. You can create a new mapping by selecting the + Add Billing Zone Map button. With billing zone maps, you can:

• Map carrier shipping zones to your customer-facing zones
• Create custom zone structures for different regions and markets

Add zone mapping

To add zone mapping, you must provide a name and description. The next step involves downloading the billing zones template and uploading it to the system.

Billing errors

The Billing Errors page displays transactions that encountered issues during billing processing. You can filter billing errors by error type, tenant, tenant billing contract, and sell ratesheet.

The error list displays:

• Error. The error type and a detailed message describing the issue.
• Tenant. The tenant associated with the transaction.

Error types:

• Weight Out of Range. The shipment weight exceeds the configured rate table limits.
• Failed to Find Tenant Billing Contract. No active billing contract exists for the tenant.
• Failed to Map Zone. The shipment origin or destination could not be mapped to a billing zone.

Resolving billing errors typically requires updating the relevant configuration.