All blog articles
The hidden drain: How logistics companies can spot and stop revenue leakage

The hidden drain: How logistics companies can spot and stop revenue leakage

If you're in logistics, you know the margins are thin and the operations are dense. It's easy for revenue to slip through the cracks. Not because someone’s messing up, but because the system is overloaded with manual steps, disconnected tools, and exceptions that never get resolved. ‍We call this revenue leakage. And while it might sound like a finance problem, it’s really an operational one.

Tomaz Suklje
May 7, 2025
TIME TO READ:
MINUTES

If you're in logistics, you know the margins are thin and the operations are dense. It's easy for revenue to slip through the cracks. Not because someone’s messing up, but because the system is overloaded with manual steps, disconnected tools, and exceptions that never get resolved.

We call this revenue leakage. And while it might sound like a finance problem, it’s really an operational one.

For companies managing fleets, warehouses, and complex supply chains, even small workflow gaps or data handling mistakes can quietly drain profits.

Revenue leakage isn’t just lost dollars. It’s a sign of operational blind spots. Fix the process, and the profits follow.

What causes revenue leakage?

It shows up in places where complexity meets manual work. Think: billing errors, missed warranty claims, inventory mismatches, or siloed contract data.

Some common drivers:

  • Manual processes: Mistakes in invoice processing and reconciliation, warranty tracking, freight auditing.
  • Disconnected systems: People’s minds, inboxes, spreadsheets, TMS, WMS, ERP - all operating in silos.
  • Contract compliance gaps: Missed reimbursements, unenforced penalties, outdated terms.
  • Operational gaps: Overpaying for freight, underutilized capacity, delivery delays.


So how do you find and fix it?

1. Start with high-risk workflows

There are 3 core areas where manual work and complexity collide:

  • Warranty & maintenance: Match repair invoices against warranty terms. If annual repairs cost $1.2M and 20% are warranty-eligible but unclaimed, the loss amounts to $240K.  
  • Freight billing: 3–5% of freight charges often contain errors. On a $10M freight spend, that’s $300K lost.
  • Inventory discrepancies: Bad data leads to stockouts, overstocking, or just plain guesswork.

2. Track the right metrics

Look at KPIs like:

  • Warranty recovery rate
    → Manual: up to 20% missed reimbursement
    → Automated: 80% fewer misses, 10% recovered revenue
  • Billing accuracy
    → Manual: 3–5% error rate
    → Automated: <1%

3. Quantify the direct and indirect costs

Use simple math to spotlight the direct losses and don’t forget to also consider the indirect costs. For example, you can analyze labor inefficiency having in mind that manual invoice processing costs range from $15 to $40 per invoice, whereas late deliveries due to manual route planning can increase churn by 10–15%.

How to plug the leaks

This isn’t about reinventing your tech stack. It’s about automating what should already be automated and making your systems work together.

Tools that help:

  • Warranty claim automation: Match repair invoices to warranty terms in real time.
  • Automated freight auditing: Validate every invoice against shipment data and contracts.
  • Unified data layer: Connect your inboxes to ERP, TMS, WMS to kill silos.

Because at the end of the day, it’s not just about catching errors. It’s about fixing the blind spots in how your operation runs. That’s exactly what we’ve built at Nordoon.  

We use vertical AI Agents to plug into your existing systems and automate the workflows where revenue leakage hides:

→ Warranty claims, freight invoices reconciliation, contract audits - you name it.
→ No massive integration. No learning curve. Just clear, auditable automation.


Our agents aren’t just extracting data; they’re applying business logic and reason through it like a subject-matter expert would; they flag mismatches and route exceptions only when human input is needed; they structure insights that would otherwise stay buried.  

Bottom line?

Revenue leakage costs logistics companies 3–15% of annual revenue - and that’s just the top-line impact.

When it hits your bottom line, it’s even more noticeable:

  • Ernst & Young: 1–5% of EBITDA lost to inefficiencies and billing errors
  • McKinsey (Healthcare): 3% of revenue lost in fragmented billing
  • PwC (Telecom): Reconciliation gaps and commoditized ops are top leakage risks.


With the right mix of automation, visibility, and integrated systems, you don’t just stop the leaks. You build smarter operations that protect margins and let you scale. Let’s build systems that don’t just move goods, they move the needle.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tomaz Suklje

Enjoyed this read?

Subscribe to our newsletter, and we will send AI automation insights like this straight to your inbox on a regular basis.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.