How to make money in the reefer business

Omg totally agree!


OP.... If you want to kill it in reefer, get familiar with your Lanes and be ready to move, staying on hot ones! Adapt.

Check the USDA report weekly and then look at the load boards.... You will quickly learn basic economics.... Rates will be sky high in Lanes with crippled truck capacity.

If you can operate your business around the markets, you can make very significant money in trucking.

The ELD law will be a blessing in this aspect because it'll trigger capacity shortages that are much more broad across markets!

 

RC, how do you pay lumpers as an oo, cash and then turn in receipt to get reimbursed?

 

Because I have a little time to kill this is a really long winded too much information answer for people who haven't been in the industry for long and might not understand. Owner operators whether they're independent or leased get reimbursed for lumper fees just the same as any company driver does.

No I don't use cash. I could as long as the lumper service accepts it, some of them don't, but I'm a little averse to carrying around wads of cash $400, $500 or more. The company I'm leased to provides a fuel card. I call a number on that card follow some prompts, enter a PIN #, enter an EFS check # and then load that EFS check with whatever amount is needed to pay the lumper. It takes less than a minute to load a check.

As far as getting reimbursed for lumpers. It's universally across the business pretty much standard operating procedure that drivers (owner operators included here) are always reimbursed for any lumper fees associated with a load. Provided they first notify their company/customer and/or the broker who will authorize it and the driver turns in a valid, legible receipt.

So yeah. I get it authorized. Load up a check from my fuel card. Get a receipt. Scan and send a copy of the receipt (and Proof Of Delivery also) to the broker requesting from that broker a revised rate confirmation with additional money added onto the original linehaul rate to cover the lumper fee.

Turn that revised rate con and all other related docs to the company I'm leased to. When I loaded a check for the lumper that money is deducted from my settlement money the same as any fuel I have purchased. But with all paperwork in order it gets reimbursed on on that settlement. There will be line items on,the settlement showing this. If it's not, time for me to call in and find out why.

 

For the love of all that's holy please read your ####### lumper receipt. Do not be that guy who doesn't notice that the DC wrote the wrong PO number on the lumper receipt.

The billing headaches you can cause by not paying attention would blow your minds. And be aware that it will very likely end up being you or your dispatcher who has to call Publix's Dacula lumper service and leave a voice mail on their receipt line trying to get a correct copy.

If this all seems alarmingly specific... it's been an epidemic lately. There is nothing in the world more annoying than wasting half an hour of my time trying to figure out how to get a correct lumper receipt... and failing.

 

When you need an answer and you need it now grocery DC's and related entities are the kings of hiding behind endless prompts that lead to empty promises of voicemail or email replies lol

 

Ok RC,
Didn't mean to offend, I've read many of your posts in many different threads and somehow got the impression you were running your own numbers and totally independent.
Didn't read enough I guess,
I've been doing what you describe the whole time I've been leased onto someone else and I don't like carrying cash either, but I just got my numbers and will be totally independent with shippers lined up and will be getting fuel cards with NASTC next week.
I've been dependent on comdata cards for that stuff and wasn't sure NASTC card will work the same,
guess I'll check and see.
With all the crap and jumping through hoops to run your own numbers, just now getting around to these kind of things.
Anyway, thanks for all your insight and wisdom you share on these boards.

 

You didn't offend me. Your post was short and I don't know any background on you so I answered in a manner as though you were a green newbie. Which obviously you are not but maybe that info will help a reader who is. I dunno how it works with NASTC card because the company I am with uses an EFS fuel card. Probably in a similar manner. At one time I was at a company using NASTC and there was a way to load funds and checks but I never did it because I hardly ever had any lumper fees back then.