Slide deck
The standalone summary of Freight Close — the same deck that bookends the walkthrough. Watch the full walkthrough, flip through the slides here, or download the PowerPoint.
Calibrated freight-accrual engine + month-end close · Ridgeline Foods
Numeric Finance Engineer Cup — Round 1
Chris Dougherty · freightclose.dogsled.dev
The problem with the old accrual
Ridgeline accrues freight at month-end, before the carrier invoices arrive.
Price what actually shipped — calibrated from invoices
Instead of trusting stale printed rate cards, recover the real effective rates from the carriers' own history.
Then reconcile: when the invoices land, the estimate is trued-up and the variance feeds next month's calibration.
April 2026 — the close
A point estimate with a band, not a single guess. Every figure ties to shipment-level backup.
160 shipments priced · 811 invoice lines calibrated · all 8 tie-outs pass · reproduces six months of invoices to the cent.
Messy data, handled — and flagged
DATA is graded. Nothing is dropped or defaulted silently; every assumption raises a flag.
23 flags this month · 0 blocking · the register reads “ready to close.”
Every dollar ties to a shipment
Denise's number is a black box. Here, any booked dollar drills to the shipment that produced it.
Controls, not just an estimate
Automating an estimate without controls just automates the errors faster.
Honest about accuracy
A finance judge would test this — so we say it plainly.
We do not beat Denise's headline error — a trailing-3-month average smooths rate noise a per-shipment engine can't foresee.
Where we win: ties to a shipment · adapts to rate changes · carries controls · repeatable · near-unbiased · reconstructs 6 months of invoices to the cent ($0.32).
Book it, lock it, archive it
A controlled close-out — and a routine accrued liability, not a contingency.
Adaptability — the May fuel spike
Same 160 shipments, two rate worlds — Peak fuel surcharge 14% → 19%.
A trailing average physically can't do this — same shipments, a known and explained change in the number.
The honest head-to-head
Engine, Denise, and actuals side by side — including where she still wins.
| Out-of-sample MAPE | Accrual bias | Verdict | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freight Close | ≈15% | −0.23% (near-unbiased) | transparency · control · adaptability |
| Denise (trailing avg) | ≈8% (wins) | −3.18% (chronic under) | lower error, but a black box |
Quarantined to one tab — we automate Denise's judgment with controls and adaptability, not a louder accuracy claim.
What I'd add with more time
The core is real and shipping today; these are the next steps.
Prices what shipped · calibrates from invoices · ties every dollar out · carries the controls · adapts when rates move.
freightclose.dogsled.dev
Thank you.