Episode 5: Exceptions ≤3%, Disputes Down — The Upwell Freight AR Playbook

In this episode of Leveraged Supply Chains, Andrew Stroup sits down with Charles “Charley” Dehoney, Co-Founder & CEO of Upwell, to demystify freight brokerage AR and show how operators pull exception rates below 3% and drive disputes down—without piling on back-office burden. Definitions (freight brokerage AR): exception rate = % of invoices rejected at submission by the payer’s AP (portal/EDI/email) for rule/format issues, missing docs, or rate/PO mismatches; dispute rate = % of submitted invoices later challenged for amount/terms or documentation (accessorials, detention, lumper, POD).You’ll hear about:The submission flow where exceptions are caught early (ingest → validate → enrich → route → submit/collect → reconcile) and what to automate vs. leave human-in-the-loop.Upstream root causes that create both exceptions and disputes (missing references, wrong formats, absent docs) and a practical “block-and-tackle” playbook to fix them.A real-world scale example: an enterprise brokerage reducing manual touch to ~4% of ~42k monthly invoices by auto-presenting the rest—freeing experts to focus on the true edge cases.Where automation won’t move the two numbers yet, and how to stage your rollout to get wins now while you clean the data and rules.Team design: exception queues, SLAs, and capturing tribal billing knowledge so improvements stick across lanes and payers.On-air benchmarks to track:Exception rate ≤3% (scrutinize weekly if you’re above it), dispute rate trending down, top exception/dispute reasons, documentation completeness, and first-pass submission quality.🔔 Subscribe to Leveraged Supply Chains for more real-world, numbers-first conversations on AI, supplier performance, and operational excellence.