Freight Spend Tracker

Lane-dependent, but the trend matters more than the level: fuel, peak-season, congestion and currency surcharges have historically run 15–35% of ocean invoices, spiking in disrupted markets. If your surcharge percentage climbs while base rates hold, you're experiencing rate inflation by another name — and surcharge lines are individually auditable against announcements in a way blended rates never are.

Three passes: concentration (lanes/carriers where volume justifies renegotiation or tender), leakage (the D&D column plus surcharge lines that don't match announcements — auditable refunds), and structure (LCL that should consolidate to FCL, air that should be ocean-with-better-planning, courier creep). Each pass needs exactly the fields this tracker captures; none needs software beyond the CSV export.

Visibly and separately, yes — hiding it in 'other logistics costs' is how it survives. D&D isn't freight; it's the cost of process failures (late pickups, slow returns, missed appointments) and it responds to operational fixes, not negotiations. Companies that report it as its own line next to base freight consistently shrink it, because named numbers attract owners.

Your own trend, segmented by mode and lane — external benchmarks mislead because cargo profiles differ wildly. Compute it from this log quarterly (total spend ÷ shipments, per mode), and watch the trend against rate-market indices: if your cost-per-shipment rises faster than the market index for your lanes, the gap is yours to investigate — mix shift, surcharge creep or leakage.