Analyst Freight

Overview

As a Fortune 500 company, Packaging Corporation of America (PCA) is an ideas and solutions company. Our corrugated packaging business seeks to be the leader in helping our customers — large and small — package, transport and display products of all kinds. Our white paper business delivers Paper With Purpose by providing the highest level of customer service and operational excellence.

We have approximately 15,000 team members in more than 100 locations in the United States that strive to meet the local needs of our customers. Our mission is to serve the needs of our customers, today and tomorrow, with products and services that exceed expectations for performance and environmental responsibility.

People
• Customers
• Trust

This position follows a hybrid work model, with 3 days per week onsite at our Lake Forest, IL office. The specific onsite schedule may vary based on team needs and individual responsibilities.

This job is necessary to support the automated freight payment process for the Corrugated Division. Staff is required to control the quality and flow of carrier contract rate documents, bills of lading, invoices, funding, business rules, financial controls, other 3rd-party factors needed to rate and pay carrier invoices; address carrier invoicing problems. Staff focus is to keep invoice payments through the system accurate and timely.

Support plant accounting staff with system training and use.

The automated freight payment process involves controlling the quality and movement of a few thousand carrier contract specifications between the plants/corporate and the freight payment company for approximately 300 carriers for 80 box plants, plus warehouses, for the invoices of about 376,000 shipments per year. The annual freight spend through this process is $164mm. This process alleviates the review, preparation, approval and payment of invoices manually by the individual plants.

The environment is constantly changing with new/changed rates, new/changed carriers, 3rd-party software updates, security requests, business rules, audits, and financial/process controls of the system. Controlling the resulting obligations and funding on a regular basis is critical. Having a small central corporate staff provides consistency and control on the environment that affects a significant cash expense for the Company.

Reconcile the freight payment funding requests (obligations) to actual carrier invoice processing results prior to authorizing funding to be released from PCA’s bank account. The obligation from the freight payment vendor needs to be compared to the G/L feed sent to PCA, to the control reports sent to the vendor’s database, to the history of regular fundings from Corporate twice per week.

This reconciliation assures that funds can be moved timely to allow subsequent ACH and check transactions to carriers to be released on time, and that PCA G/L entries for expenses and accruals are current. Update control reports and logs with each funding.

Control contract rates from the plants/corp to the freight payment company. The rates are essential to the calculation process, but in lieu of GM approval of locally paid invoices, the rate approvals and rate specifications need to be clear. Rate updates are cataloged at corporate, either accepted or rejected, with escalations and tracking done as necessary. This procedure helps prevent unilateral rate increases from being instituted in the system directly by carriers.

Knowing exactly what rates are in the system is essential for accurate invoice payments.

Address payment disputes and issues. Using rates, policies, business rules, the freight payment website, and any other tools or contacts as required for defining and resolving not just single invoice concerns but problems that have carrier-wide or Company-wide impact.

Monitor the payments and pending/holding status for the “top 20” carriers at least twice per week, looking for payment backlogs or gaps in payment flow that could result in a carrier declining to do business with PCA. Address or elevate with plant, corporate, or carrier staff as…