Where ShipBob invoices go wrong (and how to check them)
ShipBob does not send one monthly bill. You get a Monday weekly for shipping, inbound, additional fees, returns and credits — and a separate warehouse-storage invoice around mid-month and month-end. If you only glance at the card charge, you will miss the errors that live in the lines.
This is the checklist we run on every ShipBob month. None of it requires trusting or distrusting the warehouse. It requires joining invoices to shipments.
1. The weekly that is dated month-end but does not close the month
A shipping invoice dated 31 August can still only cover charges through 30 August. The last day of the month lands on the next Monday weekly. If you “close August” on the 31st invoice, you file postage without that day and storage without the end-of-month snapshot. Wait for a charge invoice dated after month-end.
2. Postage priced on the wrong card
UK TIER1 (zone 5001) is domestic Great Britain. Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Gibraltar and AE billed as UK domestic is the same pound figure — and the wrong claim if you do not have an international card. Checkout “Express Delivery – DPD Next Day” is DPD, not Royal Mail 24, even when the invoice line says something that looks like TIER1 Ground.
Weight: if the billed ounces are fractional, rounding down into the cheaper band manufactures a flag. Use ceil.
3. Storage is two invoices, not one
ShipBob bills warehouse storage on a snapshot (often the 15th and the last day). A mid-month invoice is not the month. Claiming storage on the 17 August invoice leaves the expensive half of the month on the table.
4. Receiving hours vs pallets
Inbound (WRO) fees are hours. The contract for palletised dust is typically 20 minutes per pallet, first two hours flat. Mixed-SKU pallets and estimate noise below a materiality floor should not go into a formal claim. The billed £ can converge before every WRO row has detail — that is normal, not a reason to invent lines.
5. Credits that never net
ShipBob issues credits as their own invoice type, often a week later. A “duplicate” that already has a matching negative adjustment is not recoverable. Match credits to the original shipment or WRO id before you write to support.
What to do with a month
Export or sync the weeklies, wait for the tail invoice, then compare billed vs contracted on postage (GB only), storage, WRO and B2B case pick. That is a ShipBob invoice audit — the same process as a generic 3PL invoice audit, with ShipBob’s calendar attached.
Book a discovery call if you want that run on your last closed month.