Ask a room of logistics executives if AI and automation will help their business, and the vast majority will say yes. Ask a group of truckers, and you might face more skepticism.
Outgo believes it has found a way to use these transformational technologies to make lives easier for carriers: That’s by fixing factoring.
“Discussions about AI and trucking focus too much on the impact for large enterprises – for example a cost-cutting initiative at a big shipper,” said Marcus Womack, CEO of Outgo. “We looked at it differently: What if AI and automation could radically improve the financial side of running a trucking business? The first step is reinventing factoring to be faster, a better value for truckers and more tailored to their financial needs.”
Outgo believes that traditional factoring has failed to deliver for carriers. Factoring has relied on outdated processes and technology to get truckers paid. Today’s factoring companies continue to run hundreds of manual processes, from confirming loads by calling brokerages one by one to reviewing documents by hand. This is time-consuming and expensive, while creating numerous opportunities for human error.
That harms carriers in two ways. First, elevated cost structures at these companies keep rates high. “From our analysis, approximately 40% of factoring revenues among the large factoring companies is spent on operational costs.” Womack said. “But it’s carriers that actually pay the price.”
Second, these manual processes take time, which slows down payments. This is a recipe for disaster for small carriers and owner-operators, who tend to operate with tight margins and rely on timely funding.
Fortunately, these costly manual processes are prime candidates for AI and automation, and Outgo is seizing the opportunity to simplify payments for carriers. Over the past years, the company has steadily driven down the cost of factoring by deploying technology and products into every step of the invoice life cycle.
But why should this matter to carriers? Because Outgo is dedicated to passing along the benefits of technology to its customers. Today the company is a market leader with its transparent, low rates, but also offers all carriers a way to lower their rate even further to 1% when they use the Outgo card.
Outgo has also demonstrated its leadership on funding speed and recently announced the fastest funding speeds in the industry. The company guarantees four-hour funding at no extra charge, but 50% of the time customers have cash ready to spend in just 90 minutes.This speed is possible precisely because Outgo has removed manual processes wherever possible.
Womack describes signing up for Outgo as “hiring our software to run a carrier’s back office, with an added bonus of getting incredible speed and savings on factoring.”
“AI and automation are incredible technological advances. But to make a difference in the lives of carriers, the tech needs to be pointed at the right problems,” continued Womack. “When carriers work with Outgo, we’re putting those tools to work on their behalf.”
Outgo’s dedication to technology does not mean it has lost sight of the importance of the human experience. In fact the opposite is true. Because Outgo has done so much to digitize the back office, it can invest in having real humans where it matters: providing dedicated support and adding new capabilities to its product.
Truckers have seen new technology doing little to help their business, and Outgo is changing that by using technology to bring savings, speed and transparency to those who need it most.
Click here to learn more about Outgo.
The post AI is coming to trucking. Can it fix factoring for carriers? appeared first on FreightWaves.
