From the Client Scorecard team
Notes on client profitability, quote-vs-actuals tracking, 3PL contract drift, and what your WMS actually can — and can't — tell you. Honest writing for warehouse operators and commercial directors.
You priced what they said. You're stuck with what they do.
3PLs sign contracts in good faith. Then volumes drift, the pick mix changes, storage stretches, and nobody documents what was promised vs what happened. By renewal, it's a he-said-she-said. Here's the document that fixes it.
Steven Sharp
You bill them by the line. You grade them by gut feel.
3PL billing engines capture every storage pallet, every pick, every accessorial in granular detail. Almost none of that data flows back to the commercial team as an analytical view. Here's why — and what the operators who close the gap do differently.
Steven Sharp
Your top 10 clients by revenue aren't your top 10 by profit.
3PLs rank clients by revenue. They rarely compute true per-client profitability. The lists almost never overlap. Here's why — and the math that reveals which "top accounts" are actually loss leaders.
Steven Sharp
The industry KPIs your WMS can't actually calculate.
Every vendor blog publishes a "Top 9 KPIs" list. Most of them require timestamps your WMS doesn't capture, condition codes that aren't populated, and ASN reconciliation data that lives elsewhere. Here's an honest audit.
Steven Sharp