Is there a recommended way to process third party freight bills but keep the freight costs connected to the original POs and ordering centers? For example, a FedEx\UPS bill might contain 50 shipments for different vendors and PO numbers, where we asked the suppliers to ship on our account number rather than charge freight through their processes and carriers. What would be the best way to pay the invoice to the freight carrier but tie the individual package charges back to the associated vendor and purchase order? We would have the PO number as part of the detail information for each line but the carrier invoice would carry a single blanket/dummy/freight PO number in the actual PO field.
We want to be able to drill-around by department and PO to view freight expenses, which we can easily do when the freight is billed by the supplier as part of the total order cost. But when using our carrier the freight needs to be paid to a different vendor than the products, on a separate invoice number, and each invoice may contain charges that should apply to dozens of different PO numbers and vendors. We can journal the dollars but how do we create/maintain a good detailed data relationship for the drilling and reporting capabilities?
Could we process a single invoice but allocate individual charges to the specific PO's and vendors while using "Pay to Vendor" to pay the carrier? Or would they have to each have a unique invoice number?
Thank you for any recommendations, ideas on things to try or advice.