A settlement nobody checks
You ship a load of copper and brass to a merchant. Your weighbridge says one weight. Three weeks later, a settlement arrives by email: the buyer's weight is lower, and the price is applied to that. Your office pays attention to the price and the total, and posts it.
Nobody compares the buyer's weight with yours, load by load. If they did, they would see that one buyer's weights are consistently lower than yours, while another buyer's are almost always the same. They might also see that the buyer applied a deduction nobody discussed.
Across a year of loads, those small differences on every settlement become a large amount of material you shipped and were never paid for.
When someone does notice a big gap on one load and rings the buyer, the conversation goes nowhere. The buyer has a weighbridge ticket from their end. You have a ticket from yours, but no photos, no bale list and no record of how your weights compared with that buyer's on the previous twenty loads. The buyer's figure stands.
Why weight differences go unnoticed
Weights are recorded at both ends, but the two records are never put side by side.
- Settlements arrive as PDFs or emails, weeks after shipping.
- Your outbound weight is on a ticket in a different system.
- Loads are identified differently by you and the buyer.
- Agreed tolerances are in a contract nobody looks at.
- Differences are small per load, so no single one seems worth querying.
What unchecked weights cost
Weight differences on high-value metals add up quickly. Even on lower-value grades, a consistent shortfall across many loads is a significant loss. Some difference is normal, from moisture loss or weighbridge tolerance. A consistent pattern beyond that is money you are not collecting.
Without evidence, you cannot raise the issue with a buyer. With evidence, you can have a factual conversation, and sometimes decide to sell elsewhere.
Your own weighbridge matters here too. If your weights are consistently higher than every buyer's, the problem may be at your end, and it is better to find that out from your own data than from an argument.
How we match settlements to your weights
What we build compares every settlement with what you shipped.
- Settlements are read from PDFs or emails, extracting load reference, buyer weight, deductions, price and total.
- Each settlement line is matched to your outbound load by reference, date, vehicle or container number.
- Your weight, the buyer's weight and the difference are shown side by side, with the agreed tolerance from the contract.
- Differences outside tolerance, and deductions not covered by the contract, are flagged for a person to query.
- Queries are logged with the evidence: your ticket, loading photos, bale records if you have them.
- A report shows weight differences by buyer, grade and period, so patterns are visible.
| Your weight | Buyer weight | Tolerance | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| From your weighbridge | From settlement | From contract | Within: accept |
| From your weighbridge | From settlement | From contract | Outside: query with evidence |
| From your weighbridge | Deduction applied | Not in contract | Query |
The next settlement
A settlement arrives. It is read and matched automatically. Most loads are within tolerance. One is outside, and the flag shows your weighbridge ticket and loading photos. The office queries it with the buyer, attaching the evidence.
At the quarterly review, the report shows one buyer's weights running consistently below yours. The sales manager raises it with the buyer, with the data, and agrees to a check weighing on the next few loads.
Are buyer weights ever checked?
- Settlements are posted without comparing weights.
- You do not know your average difference with each buyer.
- Deductions appear on settlements that nobody agreed.
- Settlements are hard to match to your loads.
- You have never queried a buyer's weight with evidence.