Client
Air-import operator
Industry
Air Freight
Timeline
The payment queue first
Key takeaway
Every shipment charge has one status: ready, waiting on approval, blocked, or in recovery.
Paying a shipment charge should be a decision. For this air-import team it was a search. The right destination, the right card, the receipt, and the person who could approve it all lived somewhere else, and finance heard about the spend after the fact. We built an internal workspace that keeps the shipment and the payment together: what is ready to pay, what is blocked, what needs approval, and what still has to be recovered.
The challenge
Staff had to know which portal a charge belonged in before they could pay it, then prove later that it had been paid. Ready work, blocked work, and missing receipts looked the same until someone opened the right system. Refunds and uncertain outcomes had no owner. Finance could not see exposure, documentation gaps, or recovery without reconstructing them from the portals.
A charge with several front doors
Destination, fees, and allowed cards changed by portal, so the first task was figuring out where a payment was even allowed to go.
Exceptions with no name on them
Routing conflicts, missing receipts, and payments that did not land had to be remembered, not queued.
Finance after the fact
Spend, card exposure, receipts, and refunds were visible only by visiting the same portals operations had just left.
What we built
Each shipment charge opens into a shared workspace. The team reviews it, follows the route it should take, and pays under the approval and card rules that apply. Receipts stay with the charge. Anything blocked, uncertain, or due back is assigned as follow-up finance and operations can both see.
- One status for every shipment charge, with the shipment context beside it
- Queues for ready, blocked, approval-required, and follow-up work
- Guided routing to the payment destination that charge belongs in
- Approval and card rules applied before a payment goes out
- Receipts and confirmations kept on the charge they prove
- A finance view of exposure, missing documents, and recovery still open
Before & after
Before
- Staff moved between payment portals to find where a charge could be paid
- Receipts, refunds, and uncertain outcomes were hard to see together
- Follow-up depended on someone remembering the charge that did not clear
After
- Payment activity and its evidence sit on the shipment
- Approval, exception, receipt, and refund work is visible as a queue
- Finance can review exposure, missing documents, and recovery without a portal tour
Built with
Our approach
01
Audit
We followed a charge from the moment it was owed to the moment finance could prove it, including the ones that bounced.
02
Build
We built the queue, the routing, the approval rules, and the evidence around the shipment.
03
Pilot
A limited set of charges ran through the workspace until ready, blocked, and recovered outcomes were trustworthy.
04
Support
We stay on exception handling, receipt follow-up, and the finance review as volume and destinations change.
Frequently asked questions
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