Freight Cost Analysis and Shipping Profitability for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
Dynamic Ship captures your actual freight cost and the amount you charge the customer on every sales order, then reports the two side by side in Dynamic Ship Analysis, a free Power BI app included with Dynamic Ship. This is a completely free app from Insight Works for Business Central. Shipping managers and controllers use this to answer one question directly: Are you making or losing money on freight, by customer, carrier, service level, and region?
At a Glance
- See actual freight cost against what you charged, per order and per shipment.
- Break profitability down by customer, carrier, service level, and region.
- Spot markup and discount rules that are quietly losing money.
- Free with Dynamic Ship, built as a Power BI app you can extend.
Have a Question about Freight Cost Analysis?
Key Capabilities
Cost versus charge reporting. Every sales order freight line stores your actual carrier cost (Unit Cost) alongside what you billed the customer (Unit Price), so the freight margin is visible, not buried.
Profitability by customer. Identify which customers or price groups are shipped at a loss once markups, discounts, and free-freight rules are applied.
Profitability by carrier and service level. Compare which carriers and service levels actually protect margin versus which ones erode it.
Regional spend and trend views. Track shipment frequency, total spend, and average spend per shipment weight over time, with year-over-year comparisons.
Power BI foundation. Dynamic Ship Analysis is a Power BI template app, so your team can extend the reports or add company-specific visuals.
No separate license required. The app is free for Dynamic Ship customers on Business Central Cloud running Dynamic Ship 2.5 or newer.
Order-level detail without Power BI. If Power BI isn’t in place yet, the Freight Information report on the Insight Works License Plates list shows actual cost and charge for individual shipments.
How Freight Cost Analysis Works in Dynamic Ship
- When a shipment is rated and labeled, Dynamic Ship records the actual freight cost the carrier charged.
- The freight price rule applied to that order (markup, discount, flat rate, or free-freight campaign) determines what the customer was billed.
- Both figures post to the sales order freight line, cost and charge, and roll up automatically into Dynamic Ship Analysis.
- Your team reviews cost-versus-charge dashboards by customer, carrier, service level, or region to see where freight is profitable and where it isn’t, then adjusts freight price rules accordingly.
Why Dynamic Ship Freight Cost Analysis Stands Out
Most shipping tools stop at showing you a tracking number and a total spend figure. Dynamic Ship goes further by pairing actual freight cost with what you actually charged, on every order, so the profitability question has a real answer instead of a guess.
That pairing matters because freight pricing rules, markups, discounts, and free-shipping campaigns change what a customer is billed independently of what the shipment costs you. Without cost-versus-charge visibility, a generous free-freight rule can quietly erode margin for months before anyone notices. Dynamic Ship Analysis surfaces that gap by customer, carrier, and region, so pricing rules can be corrected before they become a habit.
The reporting lives in a Power BI app you already have access to at no additional cost, and it connects directly to the shipping and pricing data captured in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Who Uses Freight Cost Analysis
Operations managers and controllers use it to assess whether freight pricing rules are effectively protecting margins across the customer base. Shipping managers use it to compare carrier and service-level costs when deciding which options to configure or recommend. Supply chain analysts pull the customer, carrier, and regional trend data to spot patterns and forecast freight spend. Customer service reps rely on the underlying cost and charge data when a customer questions a freight line on an invoice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Dynamic Ship stores your actual carrier cost and the amount billed to the customer on every sales order freight line. Dynamic Ship Analysis, a free Power BI app, rolls this data up into cost-versus-charge reports by customer, carrier, service level, and region, so you can see where shipping makes or loses money instead of estimating it.
Dynamic Ship does not import carrier electronic invoices and automatically audit charges. Instead, it captures your actual freight cost per shipment. It surfaces it through Dynamic Ship Analysis, so your team can review spend and profitability directly rather than relying on invoice-level auditing.
Yes. Dynamic Ship Analysis is a free Power BI app for Dynamic Ship customers on Business Central Cloud running Dynamic Ship 2.5 or newer. It requires a Power BI Pro license to use, but carries no additional cost from Insight Works.
Yes. If Power BI isn’t available in your environment, the Freight Information report on the Insight Works License Plates list shows the actual cost and charge for an individual shipment directly in Business Central.
Reports break down freight costs by customer, carrier, service level, and region, along with shipment frequency and spend trends over time. This lets you compare performance across dimensions rather than looking at total freight spend alone.