Getting my own authority

It's up to you to decide who you will extend credit to. Normal terms with most brokers are 2% 10 net 30, meaning that they agree to pay the freight bill within 30 days of reciept of your invoice and any BOLs, PODs, scale tickets, etc. You can ask for "quick pay", which means you can be paid in as little as 24 hours after delivery, as long as you pay a fee equal to 2% of the freight charge. Terms may vary according to circumstances and who the broker is. Some charge as much as 4 or 5% for quickpay services. Some brokers and shippers pay in 7 days with no additional charges, and occasionally you can negotiate COD payment.

You will need to subscribe to a credit reporting service. Google "freight+brokers+credit+services"

 

I looked into factoring company's, they take anywhere from 5-9 percent of the freight charge. Most of the factoring company's have the these rules:

They usually pay you within 48hrs after receiving the completed BOL from you. They take all the risk for collecting (which means you do not have to worry about credit scores), they may not factor with the broker you wish to use (although they may add that broker to their service) and you cannot use more than one factoring company. You are not required to factor every shipment ,so if you have a broker that pays quickly you do not need to factor it. Most do not have minimum amounts to factor with them.

Just make sure you read the fine print, some will charge you to quit using there service. However, if you don't need the service anymore, you just don't use it. Any issue (late delivery, cargo damage, produce delays for inspection) resulting in delay of payment from the broker to the factoring company may affect you as well.

Most of them seem like pretty fair deals except you just loose 5-9 percent of the revenue. As with everything in the trucking business, I am sure that the rate is negotiable.

Oh yeah, some will issue the money to you on a fuel card, such as comdata. Others may also front you advances on confirmed loads as well, although you may need good credit for that to happen. I stay away from advances, cause money in pocket tends to get spent real fast!!!

 

If you are starting out as a carrier a good option may be for you to select a non-recourse factoring company. They will provide you with credit support on loads you desire to haul, and a non-recourse factor will assume the credit risk in the event the load does not pay because of credit issue. This is good insurance in today's economic environment. However, a factoring company will not honor a disputed load, because of delivery issues.

A non-recourse factoring company may allow you to seek higher paying loads if they are credit approved, actually earning a greater fee than seeking a lower priced load from a broker offering "Quick Pay". In any event, a non recourse factoring company provides you credit support as part of their service so you don't have to pay for an outside credit provider and interpret the credit information. This allows you to concentrate on finding and moving freight and let the factor perform the credit and collection work.

For these services you will probably pay a fee of 5% and funding can actually take place on the same day the factor receives the invoices.
The higher the factoring volume the lower the fee.