How we process your rates

This article aims to provide some insight into how our rate management team (RMT) processes your rates and the procedures they have in place to ensure high data quality.

Rate data processing stages

To make sure that the quality of our data remains as high as possible, we have introduced a number of checks and validations at different stages of data processing.

Stage 1. Pre-upload data assessment and cleaning

All information that RMT receives from a customer is thoroughly checked during processing. This includes not only the rate sheets themselves, but also any other notes, comments, or additional files the customer has provided.

In addition to that, we also have data guidelines with specific requirements for the data that our customers are providing. If any information we receive is incomplete, RMT will request clarifications.

Most of the checks we perform are automated, while some particularly tricky ones are manual. If there are any doubts, RMT will always double check with the customer before proceeding to feed the rates into the platform.

After finalizing the processing of the customer's rate sheet, we always look over the rates again before uploading them into the customer's Xeneta account.

Stage 2. Data upload and validation

When uploading rates into the platform, we have an additional validation stage where all uploaded data is checked against a specific set of rules.

At this stage we focus on the requirements outlined in our data guidelines — double-checking the processing results and looking at the same point from a different angle, if necessary.

If the rates violate any of our internal rules, they are brought to the attention of our analytics team, so they can be further investigated, corrected, or (if the issue with a particular rate can’t be resolved) discarded.

Stage 3. Outlier detection

During the final stages of processing, the rates go through the outlier detection phase where we check for rates that otherwise have no data quality issues, but stand out from a statistical point of view.

We do this to make sure that the overall market metrics are not distorted by one or several rates that are significantly lower or higher than the rest.

Outliers are revised on a regular basis (both automatically and manually) to ensure that the market metrics we provide are as accurate as possible.

Stage 4. Final validation

After the rates have been added to the customer's account, we take a final look to make sure that they were uploaded and calculated properly, and that there were generally no disruptions during any of the processing stages.

We also check if the rates are correctly displayed in the customer’s account in Xeneta.

Rate data quality maintenance

In addition to our standard quality measures during data processing, we have a set of tools and processes that help us routinely look over our rate data quality at a higher level.

Our rate management team hold regular internal meetings with the aim of maintaining consistency and accuracy of our data.

We also encourage customers to report any data that appears odd or inconsistent in the platform, and we commit to promptly investigate any such reports to make sure that any data-related issues are resolved as quickly as possible.