{
  "id": 18093846,
  "title": "The Cash Flow Fix Hiding in Your Operations Data",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/04/the-cash-flow-fix-hiding-in-your-operations-data",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-11-04T08:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Supply Chain Brain",
    "slug": "supply-chain-brain",
    "url": "https://www.supplychainbrain.com/logistics/logistics-outsourcing/blog/15883210/the-cash-flow-fix-hiding-in-your-operations-data"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The money from your sales is slipping away without anyone noticing. Many business leaders think finance should handle this issue, but the truth is that looking at your operations data first can help improve cash flow. Rising costs, tariff changes, and labor expenses have made cash flow a valuable control for companies. However, there are often unnoticed leaks in the systems that manage your operations before finance even creates an invoice. Revenue is generated by various activities throughout the delivery process, such as transportation charges, storage fees, handling fees, and usage-based fees. These activities are recorded in systems like transportation management systems, warehouse management systems, or yard management platforms. For instance, if a trailer stays in a yard longer than allowed, it generates a detention fee. If the yard system isn't connected to billing, the fee might not appear on an invoice. This makes it difficult to spot revenue leaks, as missed events don't generate exceptions or alerts. MGI Research found that revenue leakage is typically 3% to 5% of a company's revenue across industries, with up to 7% in transportation and logistics due to manual handoffs. Contract terms have become more complex, with bundled services and varying pricing, making billing accurate and timely challenging. Disputes and slower billing cycles can result from mismatched operational data, contracts, and billing. This impacts working capital, days sales outstanding, and compliance with revenue recognition standards. To address these issues, start by auditing where events are lost, mapping bundled contract terms, and reducing manual reconciliation between operational and financial systems. AI agents can help automate this process, flagging anomalies and resolving routine discrepancies, ultimately improving cash flow without adding headcount. Treating operational data as a strategic asset can give supply chain leaders a competitive edge in an unpredictable market.",
  "summary": "Supply chain leaders who start by looking at how their own events become invoices will likely find the answer to a cash flow problem...",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}