question about brokered loads

How do brokers normally pay the carrier once delivery is made? I'm guessing the driver turns in the bills by fax or some other method.

I saw wire transfer mentioned above? I guess unless the driver has someone at a permanent address snail mailing a check isn't ideal. Are there payment services such as paypal available? I know a paypal business account takes 3% of every transfer and I think they have limits on how much can be transferred. I'm sure there are other services available for this type of thing. What is the preferred method of payment, from the broker and carriers perspective?

 

Lots of brokers will accept a fax copy of the BOL, a clean scanned copy is more preferred in today's world. You can send your invoice @ the same time. There are still some that won't pay without a mailed copy. I'm OK with that as long as they start their terms when I email them the BOL and invoice and not when the USPS gets around to getting it there.

As far as receiving payment, you can have them wire it to your account, set it up as a Com-Chek/T-Chek. The problem with these methods is that they both have fees.

 

Most of the brokers I deal with take scanned copies. I usually email or fax-via-internet the bills, invoice, receipts, etc to the broker. The fee is usually 3% to 5%. And most times I get my money within a few hours via EFS or comcheck. A few mail or direct deposit the money. Not a big fan of that, and a reason I tend not to go with them for loads even if the rate may be good.

Why be forced to mail bills, wait until the money is mailed back, even if it's quicker than normal pay for a fee almost the same as when I fax bills and get an expresscode a few minutes/hours later.

 

You'll find brokerages differ on what they will accept for payment. The vast majority want the original POD, invoice, and copy of the rate confirmation. They typically honor their "days to pay" based on when they say they received it in the mail. This allows them a few days breathing room if they are waiting 30 days to get paid by their shipper/customer. Thus if you factor in the mail delay in getting to the broker you'll find that if they say 30 days it will be around 35 before you receive your payment. Some will accept a fax and pay off that, it all just varies.

What we typically do is email/fax them the POD/invoice/rc and mail it as well. That way it would be difficult for them to say they didn't get the invoice. Sometimes they'll call after the fax and say "we don't pay off a fax" and we'll say "that's fine, it's coming in the mail, but don't say you don't know anything about it" Kind of a little trick to make sure they got it. Most of the brokers we deal with you don't need to go through that as they pay just fine. The crappy ones will try to string you out and claim they didn't get it in the mail and then try to pay you 30 days after they got the resend. All that does is start to bring out their days to pay grade on the load boards. BTW ITS does take report a broker/carrier seriously and will investigate the claims. So if you see the days to pay at 45 on a particular broker but they say they'll pay in 30, be warned you'll be closer to 45 or more! Those days to pay figures come from actual payee's reporting. When you look at the grade (A,B,C,etc) C or lower raises concerns. B might but typically they might have a B because they failed to provide three carrier credit references (ITS does call those as well). An "N" would be new less than a year old and "R" is typically refused to provide any info. Sometimes you'll find direct shippers posting on there as well but they don't have any surety bond in place, not that a bond means anything these days either.

When you look at it the overall key for the broker/shipper is to pay the carrier as fast as possible. When trucks get scarce he/she who has the trucks in their pocket wins. The shorter days to pay the better. The norm in the business world is 30 days or more to get paid. Typically truckers can't wait that long as ever increasing fuel eats up capital. Although we have never needed to factor or pay for a "quick pay" I do understand as this is a "low cost of entry business", start ups do from time to time need to sell their receivables to generate some sort of cash flow. The factoring speach is a whole other subject.

Getting back on track, if there is such a thing, most brokers will mail out a check. That of course is the cheapest version of getting your money. Anything else usually entails some sort of fee to get your funds, comcheck, loading some sort of fuel card, ach, etc. Typically the industry standard is comcheck for advances and payments. I don't remember what it took to get an account with them (how credit worthy you need to be) but it really is essential if you're gonna advance money to a carrier. The carrier pays the fees on their end and comcheck will sweep your account at the end of the week for the money. I don't think there credit term is over 7 days or something like that.

There's a bunch of hurdles and milestones a new carrier and broker have to over come, but it's not impossible. Hope some of my babble helped.

 

That's another thing I'm glad I don't have to do. We can load driver's fuel cards and the LSP program allows drivers to get paid quickly with gaurantee so we don't have to wire anyone money or anything of that nature.

 

You, sir, must be the daisy popping up out of a field of turds. I'd haul more LS freight if they had more reefer cargo that paid at least enough for me to buy a punch in the face. At least you put the rates out there. I've got more respect for a company that puts it out there like that versus playing games that waste your time. Once you figure out the get-paid system (seems made for Windows 3.1) it does work well. Definitely two thumbs up on the few good loads I've happened to grab.

 

Didnt they at one time have more reefer freight. I'am sure their was a guy around the house years back that did a lot of reefer work for them and was vary happy.

 

I game the fuel discounts and bundle invoices with them when I can. It gets my actual rate down close to 3%, all-in with fees. My only complaint is the hassle with paper bills. I get it that the original bills are gold. A few of my smaller customers will quick pay for no fee on a pdf thru email as long as I drop the paper bills in the mail for 45¢ in a reasonable time.

 

It's like the rest of the big guys. If you're running their lanes and get going with a regular broker, you can work a relationship. I hauled three loads for LS early last year and all of them were one-offs as far as I could tell, in markets I don't usually land in.

Most of the time I look on their board it's all van freight paying <$1.50. The few that are a little better go to New England and still aren't good for the market.

Their posting of rates is the only reason I keep looking there. Once in a while something good pops up and that only wasted time is logging in and a couple of mouse clicks. I can live with that.

 

No need to lie to folks. I'd much rather work with you so you'll continue to haul for us so we can continue to both make money long term.