Answers to the questions customers actually ask in their first week. Not comprehensive — if your question isn't here, email hello@tlksource.com.au.
Each product starts the same way: pick the band that matches your annual spend on the pricing page, complete checkout, and watch for the welcome email. The email contains a magic link to your portal.
Annual subscription. Upload your first month of carrier invoices and rate cards in the portal. Your first findings report ships once we have a full period of data. Monthly cadence thereafter.
One-off engagement. Welcome email includes a link to the 13-section intake wizard (~30 minutes; save and resume anytime). When you submit, we brief the carrier panel and run the tender end-to-end.
One-off engagement. Upload your current 3PL contract and three months of invoices. Report lands within 5 business days.
Annual subscription. Your Health Check is the first deliverable (delivered within 5 business days). Ongoing oversight follows for the rest of the year.
One-off engagement. Welcome email includes a link to the 3PL intake wizard. Engagement runs over 6 to 8 weeks.
Do I need to clean the data first? No. We normalise the data on intake. Send what you have.
What if a file fails to parse? The portal shows a clear status on each uploaded file. Failed parses surface immediately with a reason and a re-upload option. If a specific format keeps failing, email hello@tlksource.com.au with the file and we will investigate.
How much data do I need? Freight Monitoring needs at least one month per period; the more historical data you upload, the better the variance baselines. 3PL Health Check needs the current contract and ideally three months of invoices. Tenders use whatever the intake wizard captures plus any supporting documents you attach.
What's the max file size? Individual files up to 100 MB are accepted. Larger files: email us first.
Your portal includes seven views into the data, depending on product:
Filter state on each view is saved per engagement. Pick up where you left off next time you open the dashboard.
For tender engagements, you invite the carriers or 3PLs you want to tender. From the portal:
What does the supplier see? Only their own invitation, their own submissions, and the basic context of your engagement (your company name and engagement reference). They never see your other suppliers, findings, dashboards, pricing, or any other engagement data.
What can they submit? DIFOT data, invoice data, manifests, rate cards, contracts. They pick the submission type from a dropdown and attach the file or fill the form.
What if a supplier declines? They can decline with an optional reason. You're notified, and the supplier slot frees up so you can invite a replacement.
Same overall shape, with a 3PL-specific intake (warehouse layout, racking, value-add, MOQ, IT integration). Engagement runs over 6 to 8 weeks.
Most of the elapsed time is response window plus our analysis. Your active time is roughly: intake wizard (30–45 minutes) + panel confirmation (15 minutes) + decision review (60 minutes). Three to four hours total over six weeks for most customers.
Subscription products (Freight Monitoring, 3PL Cost Monitoring) bill annually. One-off products (Freight Tender, 3PL Health Check, 3PL Tender) bill at engagement start.
Subscriptions renew on the anniversary of your initial payment. We send renewal reminders at 90, 60, 30, and 7 days before renewal. If your spend has changed materially, log in and update your band — the renewal fee will reflect the new band.
Cancel anytime from your portal under Account → Billing, or by emailing hello@tlksource.com.au. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current paid period. No proration; you retain access to deliverables through the end of the period.
If a payment fails, Stripe automatically retries over the next few days. You will receive an email from us with a payment update link. Your subscription remains active during the retry window.
Stripe issues a tax invoice for every payment. Available in your portal under Account → Billing, or via the Stripe Customer Portal link in the same place.
TLK Source pricing is banded by your annual spend in the relevant category. You select the band that fits at checkout. After your first data upload, we independently verify the band. If your verified spend materially exceeds the band you selected, we contact you with the evidence and three options:
The top-up has a 14-day decision window. After that, the engagement is automatically refunded.
If your declared band matches your verified spend, you never see the top-up flow.
No. Full neutrality posture documented on the Neutrality Policy page.
The first ten reports for each new product line are reviewed manually by a TLK Source analyst before delivery. Beyond the first ten, low-confidence reports route to manual review. If a delivered report contains a material error, email us within 14 days of delivery (see the Refund Policy §6).
Australian-region storage, encryption at rest and in transit, automated deletion 30 days after engagement end. Full detail on our security page and our data handling policy.
Document extraction, structured analysis, report drafting. We use Anthropic Claude (Sonnet, Opus, Haiku). Anthropic does not retain your data and does not train on it. Full notice in the Privacy Policy §8.
Yes. Every deliverable can be downloaded as PDF, CSV, or Excel from the portal. Source data exports are also available from each finding.
Yes, with credit applied. Contact hello@tlksource.com.au and we'll quote the switch.
Tell us. Email hello@tlksource.com.au within 14 days of delivery. We'll either correct the deliverable or refund where appropriate. See Refund Policy.
Anything not answered here, email hello@tlksource.com.au. Australian English replies during AEST business hours, typically within one business day.
For neutrality concerns specifically: subject line "Neutrality concern" — response within one business day, refund if not resolved.