Invoicing

Food for thought along with the ELD or impending doomsday
What will Drivers Daily Log

 

The most important thing is to be able to avoid factoring companies. If you can't, then you can't but invoicing is the way to go. I've sent 113 invoices so far in 2017 and only on 2 occasions I had to send invoices via U.S. mail, the rest via either e-mail or transflo or application upload. The longest wait was 38 days for XPO payment. All of the payments are coming via US mail in checks. Never failed. I don't like ACH. I decided, based on what I read and heard to utilize quick pays for JB Hunt 1.5% and TQL 3%.Payment wait is on average 3-4 weeks otherwise.
The Invoice is sent after the load is completed and Bill of Lading is signed clear and clean. I always demand (to the point of aggravating receivers, and many, to my surprise, are not happy with it and arguing with them, sometimes aggressively, involving calling their managers has to be done to accomplish this task) that their signature, if it is not legible, must be printed with at least their last name, so I know exactly who signed it. The clearly signed BOL is the basis for pay. It is also very important that the BOL must contain your company name on it. If it is not printed at a shipper, then hand write it yourself. I make invoices from an Excel template that I prepared for myself and print them to a pdf file and then scan the signed BOL also as pdf. In a rate confirmation, there should instructions of what to do to get paid. Typically, there is an e-mail address to which it should be sent. If it is email I sent the 3 docs: Invoice, signed BOL (POD) and Rate Confirmation. If it is transflo then it will tell you what to send. With C.H. Robinson it is convenient to use their program called Navisphere Carrier to upload the documents instead of e-mailing. Convoy has its own app to upload the BOL only, they don't require invoicing. Excel I also use to manage the invoices (not only generating and printing), mark them which ones are paid for already, which ones has been sent and when, also which loads need to be invoiced still. I know Excel proficiently though and making spreadsheets and simple databases in Access is fun for me. If the Excel knowledge level is too rudimentary, then perhaps it is best to start with a common invoicing software indicated by others earlier.
There is very little time spent on invoicing, to the contrary of a popular belief, that one must have someone else to do it for him. For me it takes less than 5 minutes to generate an invoice and email it with everything else. I do it often, while waiting at a dock. I probably should mark it as on duty not driving, but I don't.

 

We use CarshipIO for our O/Os but the site is great but it's built for car haulers. I suggest your look for other programs similar to that. I remember we were looking at truckingoffice few years back