Managing Freight-In and Freight-Out Separately in ERP

In building materials distribution, freight isn’t just a line item—it’s a margin lever. With volatile transportation costs, mixed-mode deliveries, and customer-specific agreements, accurately managing freight-in and freight-out is critical to understanding true product cost and profitability.

Yet many distributors treat freight as a flat rate or lump it into overhead—blurring visibility across inventory valuation, customer pricing, and job profitability. That’s where Buldix ERP makes the difference: by separating and automating the tracking of inbound and outbound freight, it enables more precise costing, better freight recovery, and smarter sourcing.

Why Freight-In and Freight-Out Must Be Tracked Separately

Freight-in refers to the cost of transporting goods from the supplier to your warehouse or yard. Freight-out is what it costs to deliver goods to the customer.

Blending these together leads to:

Inaccurate product cost calculations, affecting pricing and margin reports

Misaligned customer freight charges, especially on partials or complex drops

Under-recovered freight, when outbound costs exceed what’s billed

Lost visibility into vendor and carrier performance

As freight becomes more dynamic, especially with regional carriers, fuel surcharges, and third-party logistics (3PL) involvement, tracking the two separately is essential.

How ERP Separates and Automates Freight Management

Buldix ERP is designed to track freight-in and freight-out as distinct cost and revenue elements tied to each transaction. Here’s how it works:

1. Freight-In Allocation at Receiving or PO Level

When goods are received, the ERP captures associated freight charges and allocates them across SKUs on the PO—either by weight, volume, or value. This updates the item’s landed cost, ensuring COGS is accurate.

2. Separate Freight-Out Entry During Order Fulfillment

At shipping, the ERP records actual outbound freight costs per order, with support for flat-rate, per-mile, zone-based, or carrier-specific charges. This data is tied to the customer invoice but tracked separately from product revenue.

3. Custom Freight Recovery Rules

Buldix allows you to define markup or passthrough logic for outbound freight by customer type, order size, or delivery zone. You can recover true costs—or offer bundled freight incentives—based on clear data.

4. Real-Time Margin and Profitability Visibility

Because inbound and outbound freight are tracked separately, your ERP dashboards show gross margin before and after freight. That helps pricing teams and finance make better decisions on pricing thresholds, delivery minimums, or vendor terms.

5. Carrier Performance and Freight Cost Reporting

Buldix ERP logs actual costs by carrier and lane, enabling reporting on per-order freight cost trends and identifying areas to renegotiate or consolidate deliveries.

Use Case: Managing Mixed Freight for a Multi-Site Order

A contractor places a multi-drop order of drywall, fasteners, and insulation to three sites. Buldix ERP applies inbound freight based on the original PO and splits outbound freight by delivery route and load size. The ERP calculates landed cost per SKU, allocates outbound freight per drop, and compares billed freight charges to actuals. The sales team recovers freight correctly—and the finance team sees true profitability by job.

SEO and AEO Keyword Integration

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These keywords align with finance managers, procurement leads, and ERP users responsible for transportation cost control.

What Buldix ERP Delivers

With Buldix ERP, freight becomes a strategic advantage—not a margin mystery. The system allows you to:

Separate and allocate inbound vs. outbound freight per transaction

Embed freight into landed cost and customer billing logic

Monitor freight recovery performance and cost-to-serve per job

Improve vendor selection with real data on true landed costs

Maximize profitability by understanding your total freight picture

In a cost-sensitive market, freight can make or break your margin. Buldix ERP ensures you manage it with clarity, accuracy, and confidence.