Premium Freight Incident Log Worksheet for Automotive Suppliers
Premium freight is the cost nobody budgets for and everybody pays. This worksheet gives you one place to log each expedited shipment, tag the cause and see the running total, so the monthly review is based on data rather than memory.
| Ship date | Part number | Customer / plant | Mode | Primary cause | Charged to | Freight cost | Action owner | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Add one row per shipment. Keep the cause list honest: most customers expect a root cause and a countermeasure for every premium freight event, and many charge back when the cause is on the supplier side. Export to Excel to pivot by cause or customer.
Automate the premium freight report from your ERP
An optional review of how to pull freight invoices and expedited POs from your ERP into this log automatically.
Optional. The tool and every export work without this. No spam.
How to use the log
Add a row the day the shipment leaves, not at month end. Capture the part number, customer plant, transport mode and the actual invoiced cost. Pick the primary cause from the list and name an owner who will close the countermeasure. The totals bar sums the cost column and the summary shows the average cost per event. Export to Excel when you want pivots by cause, mode or customer, or to PDF for a management review pack.
Why the cause code matters
Customers with a premium freight authorization process usually require a documented root cause, an approver and a recovery plan. A log without cause codes cannot support a chargeback dispute and cannot drive Pareto thinking. Aim for one dominant cause per event even when several contributed, and review the top two causes every month.
- Separate supplier late delivery from your own downtime
- Record who actually paid, not who should have paid
- Link repeat part numbers to a corrective action
- Track customer-driven schedule changes so they can be claimed
Reading the totals
A rising average cost per event usually means events are shifting from truck to air, which points to late detection rather than more problems. A rising event count with a flat average points to a chronic cause such as an unreliable sub-supplier. Compare the total against your plant premium freight budget, which is often set as a percentage of sales, and escalate when it is exceeded two months running.
Common mistakes
Teams often log only air freight and miss expedited trucks and courier runs, which together can exceed air. Others record the quoted rate rather than the invoice. Another trap is booking the cost to the wrong plant, which hides the true source. In an ERP, premium freight should post to its own expense account or cost element so the log can be reconciled to the ledger.
Frequently Asked Questions
What counts as premium freight?
Any transport spend above the normal planned mode and lane, such as air instead of ocean, an expedited truck instead of a scheduled milk run, or a dedicated courier. The test is whether the shipment was faster or more expensive than the plan because something went wrong.
Who normally pays for premium freight?
It depends on the cause and the contract. Supplier-caused events are usually charged to the supplier, customer schedule changes can be claimed from the customer, and internal failures are absorbed. Your customer terms and purchase order conditions decide the details.
Can I export this log to Excel?
Yes. Every worksheet on this site exports to Excel, PDF and CSV directly from the browser. Nothing is uploaded to a server, so the data stays on your machine.
How often should premium freight be reviewed?
Weekly at the plant level for open events and monthly for the trend. Review each event within a few days while the cause is still fresh and the countermeasure owner is reachable.
If premium freight events already exist as purchase orders or freight invoices in your ERP, Netray can build a read-only report that fills this log automatically.
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