Trucking questions, answered straight.

Send one email to the broker's billing address (it's printed on your rate confirmation) with: an invoice showing your company info, the load number, and the amount — plus the signed rate con, the signed BOL/POD, and any lumper receipts, ideally merged into one PDF. Most brokers pay NET 30 from a complete packet; an incomplete one silently restarts the clock. CabCommand builds and emails that packet in one tap.

Detention is compensation for waiting at a shipper or receiver beyond the free time on your rate con (usually 2 hours). Typical rates run $25–$75/hour. To actually collect: note your in/out times, notify the broker before free time expires, and add the charge as a line item on your invoice with the times in the note. If it's not on the invoice, it doesn't get paid.

A fee paid at a warehouse for loading or unloading your trailer, common in food/grocery. The broker or shipper typically reimburses it — pay it, keep the receipt, and bill it back as a line item on your invoice with the receipt attached.

"Truck Ordered, Not Used" — a cancellation fee when a broker books you and cancels after you've committed (often $150–$250). If you had a signed rate con and repositioned for the pickup, you can bill a TONU. Invoice it like any other charge.

Standard terms are NET 30 from a complete invoice packet; real-world averages run 30–45 days. Large brokers often offer quickpay (1–3 days) for a 1–3% fee. Track every broker's actual days-to-pay — a broker who says 30 and pays in 55 is charging you a hidden fee.

Factoring buys your invoice today for a 1–5% fee — instant cash flow, and the factor handles collections and broker credit checks. Billing directly keeps the whole rate but you float 30–45 days of expenses. Rule of thumb: new authorities and thin cash reserves → factor; 2–3 months of operating cash in the bank → direct billing keeps thousands per year.

Per load: the signed rate confirmation, signed BOL/POD, your invoice, and any receipts (lumper, scale). Once: your MC authority letter, W-9, certificate of insurance, and a notice-of-assignment they file with brokers. Clean packets get funded same-day.

Add EVERYTHING for a month — truck payment, insurance, fuel, maintenance, plates/permits, parking, food, software — and divide by the miles you ran. Most one-truck operations land between $1.80 and $2.50/mile all-in. If you don't know this number, you can't tell a good load from a bad one; it's the single most common reason new authorities fail.

Studies put the 1–2 year failure rate at 85–90%, and it's almost never the driving. It's cash: no reserves for the first slow month or a $4,000 repair, not knowing cost per mile (so hauling cheap freight at a loss), invoices going out late or incomplete, and surprise compliance fines. The fix is boring: know your number, invoice same-day, keep 2–3 months of expenses in reserve.

Typically 5–10% of gross per load (6–8% is most common), or a flat $300–$650 per truck per week. On $17,000/month gross that's $850–$1,700/month. Worth it if they're negotiating you better rates than you'd get yourself; not worth it if you're paying a percentage just for paperwork you could automate.

No — plenty of owner-operators book their own freight off load boards and direct relationships. A good dispatcher earns their fee on rate negotiation and keeping you loaded. If your dispatcher's main service is paperwork and invoicing, software does that for a flat monthly price instead of a percentage of everything you gross.

Leased to a carrier: they carry the authority, insurance is cheaper, freight may be provided — but you give up 15–30% of revenue and control. Your own MC: you keep the whole rate and choose your freight, but you carry insurance ($12–20k+/year), compliance, and billing. Common path: lease on to learn and save, then get your authority once you have reserves and direct relationships.

Check their MC number and authority status on FMCSA's SAFER, their credit score and days-to-pay through your factor or a service like Ansonia, and look for years-in-business. Red flags: brand-new authority, no credit history, pressure to skip a rate con, or "we'll send the rate con after pickup." No rate con, no load — ever.

Check five things before you sign: the total pay (and whether it says "all-in" or fuel is separate), pickup/delivery dates and times, the exact addresses, who to email invoices to, and the fine print on detention free time and late fees. The rate con is the contract — anything the broker said on the phone doesn't exist unless it's on that page.

Yes — the federal E-SIGN Act makes electronic signatures legally valid for freight contracts, and most brokers accept typed or e-signed rate cons. A good e-sign keeps an audit trail (who signed, when, document fingerprint) which protects you in a dispute.

The rate confirmation (signed), the BOL signed at delivery (your proof of delivery), pickup and delivery photos, lumper/scale receipts, and the invoice you sent. Keep them together per load — brokers and factors reject packets with missing pieces, and disputes are won with photos and signed documents.

The recurring ones that catch people: UCR (annual, Dec 31), Form 2290 heavy-vehicle tax (annual, Aug 31), IFTA fuel tax (quarterly), MCS-150 biennial update, insurance renewals, IRP cab card, drug & alcohol consortium enrollment, and driver medical cards. A single missed renewal can mean an out-of-service order or four-figure penalties.

One PDF containing everything a broker's AP department needs to cut a check: your invoice on page one, then the signed rate con, the signed BOL/POD, and photos or receipts. Sending it as one clean file — instead of six phone photos across three emails — is the difference between getting paid in 30 days and chasing it at day 50.