How to Save Money on Your Inbound-Freight Program

7. Develop and enforce a vendor-routing guide. Routing guides help you control costs and improve receiving efficiency. The guide itself should be simple and on one page. It should include proper routing instructions telling your vendors exactly which carriers to use by transportation mode and in priority order. Use the guide to enforce vendor compliance. Clearly state the rewards for strict adherence and the consequences, such as chargebacks, for those who neglect your routing instructions. Your routing guide will be distributed to vendors' shipping departments. And single-carrier choices will be entered into your vendors' order-processing systems. Your routing guide should be included with the purchase order as a separate item.