CTSI-Global finds the money hiding in your freight bills

The medical-device company was doing something perfectly ordinary. Sales orders arrived throughout the day, and shipments went out separately. Many started at the same place and ended at the same place. Each order had its own journey, its own paperwork, its own cost. The carrier could charge correctly, the accountant could pay correctly, and the company could still spend too much.

CTSI-Global helped consolidate those orders with Honeybee TMS, its transportation management system. A 2021 account in Inbound Logistics reported a 26% reduction in freight cost per pound and $3 million in annual savings. The interesting discovery was the pattern of orders traveling separately. The opportunity sat between departments, where a shipping decision became a financial result.

A $20,000 business with a very large paper trail

In 1982, Ken Hazen bought Continental Traffic Service, an existing freight payment company. Armstrong & Associates later described a one-person operation in a 220-square-foot office. The price was $5,000 down and $15,000 later. It is a pleasingly modest opening for a business whose raw material would become the spending of multinational companies.

Hazen bought the company’s first computer under his leadership in 1983. Computing offered a way to expand a business built around repetitive, detailed work. A freight invoice might look unremarkable to anyone outside transportation. Inside transportation, it is a small contract examination: route, rate, weight, discount, service, and the additional charges that can make the final number so disagreeable.

The logic survives in the current offering. CTSI-Global captures invoices, checks them against contracts, resolves exceptions, allocates costs, and processes payment. Alongside that work, it sells software and expertise that can influence what gets shipped next. The accumulated bill becomes evidence for tomorrow’s transportation decision.

The invoice has two stories to tell

The first story is about accuracy. Did the carrier apply the agreed rate? Did a charge appear twice? Does an extra fee belong here? CTSI-Global’s freight audit service advertises a 45-point audit, with data arriving through electronic interchange, optical character recognition, an upload portal, or data entry. Flagged exceptions can be approved, rejected, or modified before the appropriate correction is made.

The second story is about behavior. An accurate invoice can still describe a shipment that used an unnecessarily expensive service, traveled on an inefficient lane, or could have shared a load. Accounting accuracy and operating efficiency are related, but they require different questions. CTSI-Global’s proposition is to put the evidence for both within reach.

Its Strategic Data tools bring shipping information into a central warehouse, with carrier report cards, parcel dashboards, and customized reporting. The Supply Chain Intelligence Unit adds three layers: market context, transportation benchmarks, and logistics forensics. That last phrase covers investigations into such matters as carrier cost anomalies, detention, extra charges, routing compliance, and the choice of transportation mode.

The practical distinction is between knowing what happened and deciding what to do. A chart of expenditure has limited value if nobody can explain the increase or change the process behind it.

The $3 million question: why ship separately?

Honeybee TMS works earlier in the journey. Users can receive and schedule orders, consolidate loads, choose carriers using price and performance criteria, tender shipments, track events, and manage shortage or damage claims. It gives a logistics team tools to act on the patterns that an audit or dashboard exposes.

The medical-device example makes that connection unusually clear. The intervention was order consolidation. The reported benefit was lower freight cost per pound. The lesson a reader can copy is to group shipment records by origin, destination, and dispatch window, then ask which orders could travel together.

That exercise requires operational judgment. Orders with incompatible delivery windows cannot simply wait for one another. Product handling requirements, service commitments, and the cost of holding stock can outweigh a cheaper load. A useful consolidation decision protects the delivery promise while changing how the goods travel.

There is also a revealing historical example from BE Aerospace. A 2012 account described a phased CTSI-Global freight payment rollout across 30 sites, beginning in the United States and expanding internationally. A shared data repository helped the manufacturer combine its spending with freight forwarders for negotiations. The bill-checking project gave procurement a better view of its buying power.

A discount is a charming distraction

Parcel spend management addresses a different temptation: treating the discount percentage as the verdict on a carrier contract. CTSI-Global examines shipping history and package characteristics, models rate changes and surcharges, supports negotiations, and provides ongoing specialist review. The question is how a contract behaves against the parcels a customer actually sends.

In a company-published 2024 example, an unnamed pharmaceutical eye-care business received a shipping-history analysis, RFP support, and a multi-carrier strategy with rate comparisons. CTSI-Global reported 17% lower annual parcel spend, a 40% reduction in specialized-service surcharges, and 15% fewer customs-related delays. Those figures describe that engagement; they do not establish a standard outcome.

Parcel execution is another part of the offering. In October 2022, CTSI-Global announced a ShipEngine partnership for Honeybee TMS Parcel Management, covering rating, address validation, labels, and tracking. The launch described connections to more than 350 parcel carriers. Negotiating the contract and executing the shipment are separate tasks that benefit from sharing data.

Keep the computer. Change what surrounds it.

CTSI-Global encountered its own version of the coordination problem. In Cleo’s account of its technology modernization, the company had become too dependent on its IBM iSeries environment for functions that needed greater flexibility. Integration was the constraint: a large network of carriers and trading partners needed to exchange information with different systems.

CTSI-Global adopted Cleo Integration Cloud and managed services while retaining its existing processing investment. Cleo’s case study reports that about 70% of the technical team’s time was freed for other work. The transferable idea is quite specific: identify the function restricting change, then separate it from the dependable machinery around it. A system can be excellent at processing and awkward at connecting.

“people still play a huge part”Kristy Brown, then VP of Freight Payment Operations, 2021

People appear throughout this business: audit specialists resolving exceptions, parcel experts reviewing contracts, and managed-service staff handling work a client chooses to outsource. CTSI-Global’s careers page describes teamwork and career development. Its customer offering makes the same organizational bet: expertise must accompany the software if an observation is going to become an operating change.

Buying the connection

CTSI-Global competes with freight audit and spend-management providers such as Cass Information Systems and Trax Technologies, as well as the option of assembling separate software and service providers. Its appeal is the combination of proprietary TMS, payment operations, analytics, and consulting. Competitors also offer data and advisory services, so a buyer should examine the actual workflow and responsibilities.

The commercial model mixes B2B software with outsourced services. A 2008 site visit described TMS setup charges and per-transaction fees; those historical terms are useful context, not a present-day quote. The current parcel offering provides a free initial data analysis. A sensible evaluation would compare the full proposal with recoverable charges, operational savings, implementation work, and the staff time needed to act on findings.

Recent moves extend that combination. June 2026 brought new branding and a Strategic Partner Program with interfaces customized to partners’ brands. An August Trust Center launch gave clients access to security policies, compliance documentation, and system statuses. A July announcement put annual transportation spend processed at $32 billion across more than 120 countries. That measures the freight spending passing through the service.

For a small shipper with simple rates and little repeated activity, the potential savings may not justify a broad implementation. For a business with many carriers, locations, and recurring orders, the information can support quite different decisions. The useful test is to bring a real invoice, its contract, and the shipment record to a demonstration. Ask the team to follow the discrepancy all the way to resolution.

Then bring an invoice that is entirely correct. Ask what the shipment could teach you. That is where the more interesting conversation begins.