How to prove detention time to a broker

Detention is what a carrier bills when a truck is held at a shipper or receiver past the free time, the waiting the rate already covers. A broker pays it when the record shows what happened and when, and refuses it when the record is a text thread and a memory. Record these seven things at the facility, on the day.

• The appointment time. As written on the rate confirmation (the rate con, the broker's signed load agreement) or the dispatch message. Most rate cons start the clock at the appointment, and many pay detention only on an on-time arrival, so this is the time everything else is measured against.
• Arrival at the gate. When the truck reached the facility, not when the driver remembered to text. A phone timestamp, a geofence entry or a gate ticket all work, as long as the time is written down then and there.
• Check-in, with a photo. The time the driver checked in at the guard shack or the receiving window, plus a photo of the gate pass, the check-in sheet or the check-in screen. This is the piece most claims are missing and the one brokers ask for first, because it is the only part of the record the facility itself created.
• Loaded or unloaded. When the work was actually finished, kept separate from departure. Four hours waiting for a door is a different argument than four hours unloading, and a broker reads them differently.
• Departure. When the truck left the property, recorded the same way as arrival. Detention runs to departure, not to the last pallet.
• The free time and detention rate on the rate con. How many hours the rate already covers, what the hourly or daily rate is after that, whether there is a cap, and the TONU amount (truck ordered, not used: what a carrier bills when a load is canceled after the truck was dispatched). If none of it is on the rate con, there is no agreed number to bill against.
• The notice the rate con asks for. Many rate cons require notice to the broker before free time runs out, or within a set number of hours. Send it in writing inside that window and keep the message with its time on it. Late notice is the most common reason an otherwise complete claim is refused.

Send them as one packet with the detention invoice: the rate con, the timestamps, the check-in photo, the notice you sent, and the bill of lading (BOL) number so the broker can match the claim to the load. For a TONU the packet is the dispatch time, where the truck was, and the cancellation message with its time. A claim that arrives in pieces over three days gets handled as three pieces. Cargohold has a guide to how to bill detention, with the free time and rate arithmetic and a worked example.

The first reason is terms. If the free time, the detention rate and the TONU amount were not written on the rate con before the truck moved, the carrier is negotiating after the fact, with nothing to point at.

The second is when the record was made. The arrival time lives in a text to the dispatcher, the check-in time on a sheet the facility keeps, the departure time in the driver’s memory. The claim gets assembled days later, and every gap in it is an opening. A broker who has to recover the money from the shipper before paying the carrier needs the same proof, and usually holds less of it.

Detention and TONU are accessorials: extra charges on top of the line-haul rate, and the first ones anyone questions. Nothing on this page makes a broker pay one. A record made on the day decides what the conversation is about.

1. Input. The rate con as it arrives, by email or from your TMS. Free time, detention rate, notice requirements and TONU terms are read from it and put on the load. A rate con with no detention or TONU terms is flagged to the dispatcher before the truck is dispatched, while there is still time to ask for them.
2. Capture. Arrival is recorded when the driver's phone enters a geofence (a boundary drawn around the facility address), or when the driver taps “Arrived” if location is off. At check-in the driver photographs the gate pass, the check-in sheet or the facility's check-in screen. Loaded or unloaded, and departure, are recorded the same way. Each entry carries the time, the location and the phone it came from.
3. Check. The clock is compared with the appointment time and the free time on the rate con. Before free time runs out, the dispatcher gets an alert, so a notice the rate con asks for can go to the broker inside the window.
4. Exception. A driver who arrived after the appointment, a missing check-in photo, a geofence time and a driver tap that disagree, or a load with no detention terms goes to the dispatcher with the reason shown. It does not become a claim on its own.
5. Record. A claim packet is assembled on the load while the truck is still there: the rate con terms, appointment time, arrival, check-in photo, departure, time past free time and the amount at the rate con's rate, with the bill of lading (BOL) number. For a TONU, the packet holds the dispatch time, the driver's arrival or position, and the cancellation message with its time. The dispatcher reviews it and sends it.

Loads come from your TMS or dispatch software through its API or an export, where it offers one, and the claim packet goes back onto the load as a document. If your ELD (electronic logging device) or telematics provider offers location data through an API, arrival and departure can come from there instead of the driver’s phone.

Drivers use their own phones. If a load list lives in a spreadsheet and a group text today, the load list can live in what we build instead. Reading terms off a rate con is the same work as the rest of our AI automation for logistics paperwork, and the dispatcher screen around it is the same work as the custom internal tools we build for an office.

The dispatcher decides whether to bill detention, for how long and when to send the packet. A broker decides whether to pass the claim on to the shipper. When the record shows the driver arrived late, or the check-in photo is missing, that is shown too, because a claim that leaves it out is one the other side will find.