Summary
I read a comment submitted by Mr. Joel Adams, It was very well written, but being the prior owner of a brokerage company It's impossible not to subsidize into shippers habits.
Analysis
Lets take contractual agreements, most carriers set a base rate, a fuel surcharge, and a billing invoice schedule.
You submit your payments at a thirty day structure from the time of the shippers inception of said invoice. Here's one small problem, when they actually receive the invoice is one thing, yet when they actual stamp it received is another. Normally a five to six day variance.
Take this scenario, your shipper decides to pay you at their will, what do you Do? Except it and maintain a customer or sue them in court. From a business level your going to except there payments on there terms.
If you have a small amount of customers, then yes a billing term structure would work, Why? Loyalty.
Let's talk detention, most carriers can't implement detention in their rates, why? There is no guarantee of when or how much detention they'll be.
Let me tell you a quick story, I had a carrier who would deliver to a Sam's Club, every morning he would arrive at 6:00 A.M. and leave at 9:30 A.M. My first two hours were free, I then paid sixty five dollars per hour from that time forward.
The same driver pulled into a Sam's Club on a Tuesday morning at 6:35 A.M. and was unloaded at 7:00 A.M. Wednesday Morning. How do you implement a detention amount when it varies from one an half hours to twenty two hours and twenty five minutes? You can't.
Councilmembers, transportation has always been, and will always be at the mercy of shippers.
Thank You,
Tony Sottile
