Truckstop factoring

Comdata has a prepaid card that you can load express codes on,then transfer to your bank account. It’s $5 per transfer
You can also issue a Comchek from the card.

 

Not knowing those things is what gets a lot of people in deep doo-doo with their new factoring company real quick. I blame the sales people and a real lack of leadership by most factoring companies to train their customers. The person you speak to when you sign up is usually out of touch with operations, and usually don't understand what the hell they're selling any more than you do.

Then you enter into a finance deal with completely mis-set expectations and it doesn't take much to get it knotted up, with the very likely outcome of putting your entire business in peril. They never tell you that when you call to ask about their offer. That's made worse when they lead you to believe once you send them your invoice and get paid you can forget about it. That is completely not true. Knowledge is power, and the way to make a factoring deal work smoothly with zero risk.

Checks and the post office give the good broker about a week to float their cash flow at your expense, as they usually only cut checks on one day a week maybe two. Bad brokers stretch that out even more. That's why they do it. Honestly, I do the same thing with my tire and fuel accounts. I pay them on the due date so i can use their money for something else until I have to pay them on time.

LOL. I set that up then never used it. I was too cheap to pay their service fee, so I'd write the express code on a comchek and teach a bank teller what to do with it every time.

 

So, I can only tell you what we did and why. We added a few trucks and the paperwork exploded. I actually missed billing a couple of loads and spent a few hours of my weekend scouring paperwork to get everything straightened out. We decided to to factor for several reasons. 1) Porter Funding (and I'm sure others as well) handles the entire invoice system for us. Including logging onto to obscure websites to upload random paperwork, etc. It literally saves me 6-8 hours a week. 2) We were able to negotiate a 2.5% no strings attached deal or a 2% 6 month commitment. initially went with the no strings so that I could back out easily. 3) pretty solid "true, no recourse" factoring. 4) We get to pick and choose which brokers to factor with. 4) EFS fuel card that we can load from invoices. 5) it really freed up cash flow.
This has worked out so well for us that we rarely choose to handle invoicing directly. I have one broker and one shipper that I bill direct, but other than that, we're probably sending the load to Porter.
There are some nuances as have been mentioned earlier. Cargo claims are on you, but we have an incredible insurance company and great drivers, so that hasn't been much of a problem for us. If a broker has an outstanding balance with the factoring company, then you can't get a release until they pay off their entire balance (this is potentially a big deal as we have a few brokers that we do a ton of business with). You still have to stay on top of your schedule to make sure that the invoice was paid out correctly. And 2% is still a lot of money. If you have a 20% profit margin, factoring alone reduces that to an 18% profit margin. if you have a 5% profit margin, then you'll bet down to 3% after factoring.
At the end of the day, you have to decide if factoring is a viable option for you. And you have to weigh the cost.
For us, it's a necessary evil until we grow to a certain level at which point, we will start stacking cash and floating our own invoices.
Hope this helps.

 

I was hesitant to switch to factoring, I was doing the invoicing for our 1 truck operation where I dispatch and my son drives. I have a more than full-time job outside of being a part-time dispatcher so decided to look into factoring. We selected Truckstop since we already had the loadboard. Here are the pros/cons I've found:

• Pros
  • Fast pay, usually the next day
  • They factor a lot of brokers. Occasionally I'll find one that doesn't but it is rare
  • Easy submission
  • Factor what I want. If a broker offers Quickpay for 2% or less I stay with the broker.
• Cons
  • 2.99% is pretty steep today
  • Support in the beginning was good, pretty poor as of late
  • They don't follow their policy of reading the content of email when their are additional charges.
    • I've had two detentions I needed added to the invoice they submit and their process is for us to add the details to the body of the email. Both times detention was missed and not added to the final invoice. The first was $50 so I let it go, the second was $250 and I'm still trying to get a resolution.
    • I had a "discussion" with phone support where they tried to tell me to get the ratecon adjusted. I said no, when I billed myself it was added to the invoice, not a ratecon update PLUS your policy says where to put the extra charges, which is IN THE BODY OF THE EMAIL.

 

You're creating your own problems and need to accept that it works differently with a factoring company in at least one important way: if a payment is not on a rate confirmation, it won't be funded.

It looks like ITS may have done you a solid once or twice by making a call to the broker to ask for an updated rate. Nothing you should count on, as a rule. If there are extras like lumper reimbursement or detention, getting that on the rate con is a simple ask for most non-shady brokers, and speeds up processing when you send in for funding.

If you get a shady broker foot dragging about providing a revised rate, you can work around it by invoicing face value with the additional line item noted as "requested" and a zero or "TBD" amount. That gets the days to pay clock started and you get funded on the line haul. If/when the broker gets the additionals added (after the fact), the check typically goes out as an overpayment. Your factoring company will collect it and carry the overpayment into your reserve account. There it will sit until your next reserve settlement, usually monthly for most. This way you don't hold up thousands on a line haul messing around over a $50 detention payment. Just don't forget about it, and forward any updated rate cons to your factoring company soon as you get them. It won't be funded after the fact, but they will collect it and pass it through.

If the broker doesn't pay the extras, you have the same recourse options as you do with direct billing. Either file a bond claim or sue them. Both are much cleaner if the agreed (line haul) rate has already been paid. Then the factoring obligation you have is already satisfied, and the factoring company is out of the picture for further collections you pursue.

If you do end up chasing one down like that, don't forget to twist the knife by notifying your factoring company of your collection trouble. Nobody likes dealing with deadbeats, especially factoring companies. They share data about debtors. A negative report from you can actually reach a lot of eyes and cost that broker a ton of business when their rating goes from "good" to "no-recourse" or just "no."

 

I love how truckstop will allow brokers they won't even factor to use their loadboard. What a pile of ####.

 

Thanks for the reply. Prior to using factoring I, like many here I'm sure, did my own, and still do a few. With any detention, or additional charge, I've only ever added to the invoice making sure to include receipts as necessary. For detention I've only ever noted the in/out times and made a line item on the invoice, which is exactly what I thought factoring company would do.

I've only had the two loads of detention with factoring, and followed their policy, so they did me no solid. Additionally I put in the email body if they could not invoice for the total I show, don't invoice and call me first ... not a peep from them.

Good to know about reaching back to broker for adding detention to the ratecon, never occurred to me since the 20 or 30 or so I've done on my own I just added to the invoice and never once had an issue.

 

I wouldn't get too wrapped around the axle on that policy, specifically when missteps will only cost you time or money. Getting accessorials added to the rate con upon delivery also solves a lot of memory problems with direct invoices on check cutting day. If it's there in writing, nobody has grounds to deny it.

Your email with the invoice is likely going into an automatic process that converts it into a Transflow or equivalent. No humans actually look at the text, or it's just converted into a miscellaneous page in the Transflow doc. Where it matters, is after the fact when you complain. Then someone will look and respond. You need to do it since it's a stated condition. However, expect nobody to read it. That way when someone does, it will be an unexpected surprise.

That said, you should have an account manager point of contact. Someone that's responsible for your account and helping you resolve unusual billing situations and the like. I reach out to mine 2-3 times a year over various issues. Usually to clarify something about an invoice, or to alert them about a broker that's getting sketchy. Everything else goes to their general email address to be picked up by whoever is available. If it's something that has the potential to develop into something bigger, I may send whatever it is to both the general distribution and my account manager on copy.

Incidentally, that account manager is the person you work with when you decide it's time to unwind the factoring agreement. For that reason, it's best to stay on good terms with them. That will be your go-to for getting accounts released once they settle on a zero balance per your agreement, and ultimately get to a blanket release when it's all done. If you don't know who this person is, you should probably ask.

 

You learn alot reading some of these post.