Securing Savings Before Year-End

As the calendar winds down, most finance and operations leaders assume shipping spend is “locked.” Budgets are set, invoices are paid, and peak season is already driving costs up.

But the truth is: there’s still time to capture savings before year-end. Carriers profit when shippers believe nothing can be done in Q4 — and that’s when the biggest leaks go unnoticed.

Refunds Don’t Expire with the Calendar

FedEx and UPS both offer late-delivery refunds, but they only allow about 15 days to file. That means every week you wait is money you’ll never get back.

If you’re still reviewing invoices monthly, you’re too late. By the time the paperwork lands on your desk, most refund opportunities have already expired.

Example: If just 2% of your express shipments arrive late, and you ship 5,000 parcels a month, that’s 100 eligible refunds. Wait too long to file, and those refunds — worth tens of thousands — vanish into carrier profit.

Even in Q4, filing daily or weekly ensures those credits post back into this year’s budget, not lost forever.

Peak Season Surcharges Quietly Erode Margins

Holiday surcharges on additional handling, large packages, and residential deliveries kick in by September and climb through December.

These fees are often buried inside invoices, and most teams don’t fully see the impact until after peak season is over. By then, finance is left asking why December shipping costs blew past forecast.

Tracking and breaking out surcharges weekly makes the invisible visible:

How many packages are triggering “additional handling”?
Are residential surcharges hitting commercial addresses?
Did last week’s new zone surcharge quietly spike costs?

Catching these patterns now lets you adapt in real time — instead of explaining the overrun in January.

Contract Discounts May Be Misaligned

Year-end is the perfect time to check whether your discounts match your actual shipping mix.

If your team shifted volume to different service types or zones this year, your deepest discounts may be sitting on services you barely use, while your core services get only modest breaks.

Carriers rarely volunteer to fix this. But spotting the misalignment before renewal season gives you two wins:

Immediate savings by adjusting how you choose services in Q4.
Negotiation leverage heading into 2026.

Year-End Reviews Protect Next Year Too

Auditing your spend now doesn’t just recover money in 2025 — it arms you for 2026.

By identifying where refunds are missed, surcharges stack up, or discounts don’t match spend, you enter negotiations with proof of where the carrier’s terms failed you. That data is hard for carriers to ignore, and it resets the table in your favor.

Closing Thought

Carriers count on year-end chaos to mask costly leaks. But with just a few weeks left, there’s still time to recover refunds, reduce surcharges, and lock in savings before the books close.

Don’t assume 2025 is finished. The right audit now can still move the needle — and give you a stronger start in 2026.

‍