U.S. Bank to acquire Schneider freight payment service

U.S. Bank to acquire Schneider freight payment service    Schneider National, the largest U.S. truckload carrier, plans to sell its freight audit and payment service to U.S. Bank, which electronically processes more than 25 million freight documents worth more than $5 billion each year through its PowerTrack payment system, the two companies said.
   Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
   PowerTrack retrieves electronic bills of lading from a shipper’s enterprise resource system and matches them with the carrier’s delivery and invoice information, speeding up the time-consuming accounts payable process of double-checking whether the final bill accurately reflects contract rates or whether service requirements were met before a payment is authorized.
   The PowerTrack and Schneider services have enabled carriers to sharply reduce billing cycles to the point where they are paid within days of the invoice date instead of the traditional practice of waiting 45 days or more for payment.
   U.S. Bank officials said the deal brings a large customer base to PowerTrack, increases its ability to handle paper-based transactions, and adds an outsourced management capability for the first time.
   Previously, Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank could not offer a complete outsourced auditing services for customers that did not want to deal with resolving exceptions found by the system, said Bob Fleischman, vice president of marketing and communications. Under the deal, 200 freight payment specialists will transfer from Schneider to U.S. Bank.
   The deal will diversify PowerTrack’s portfolio, which is 60 percent based on work done for the Defense Department and its commercial carriers. The value of invoices paid by Schneider Payment Services is more than $7 billion, bringing PowerTrack’s freight payment levels to $12 billion.
   U.S. Bank charges shipper’s a flat fee for each transaction and carriers a percentage (just above 1 percent) of their invoice.
   The Schneider Logistics subsidiary created its automated freight payment service by acquiring a payment service from Tranzact Systems Ltd. in 2000.
   Schneider Logistics is selling the payment services unit for North America but will continue to offer its direct payment services in Europe and Mexico, President Tom Escott said. Schneider Logistics will be a preferred customer of U.S. Bank and use PowerTrack to help its logistics customers audit and pay their freight bills.
   Schneider Payment Services will be renamed U.S. Bank Freight Payment Services and eventually the two products offerings will be integrated. The sale is expected to close on July 1.