How Ferro Logistics cut carrier payout costs by 71%

The challenge

Ferro Logistics coordinates road freight across Europe, North Africa and Turkey using a network of about 2,000 independent carriers. Every Friday the finance team paid them in nine currencies through four banks, each with its own cut-off times, fees and file formats.

Wires took two to five days to arrive, and the exchange-rate markups hidden in each transfer added up to more than €400,000 a year. Carriers called the support desk every week asking where their money was, and three people spent most of Friday reconciling bank statements against the freight ledger.

Why they chose Saro

The team wanted one place to hold euros, lira and dirhams, pay carriers over local rails and see every payout matched to its freight order without manual work. They also needed an approval flow that kept the CFO in control without becoming a bottleneck.

The setup

• Local accounts in EUR, GBP, TRY and MAD, funded from a single USD treasury balance

• A weekly batch upload from the freight system, approved once in team chat

• Tracking links sent to every carrier, with proof of payment saved to the order

• Saro AI alerts when a carrier’s bank details change or a payout looks unusual

The results

Within the first quarter, Ferro’s cost per payout dropped by 71%, almost entirely from paying at the mid-market rate instead of bank markups. The median transfer now arrives in four seconds, and support tickets about missing payments fell by 85%.

The three people who used to reconcile on Fridays now spend that time on carrier pricing and cash forecasting.

What’s next

Ferro is moving its fuel cards to Saro so that every cost on a route, from diesel to tolls to the carrier payout, lands in one ledger with the freight order attached.