Sat outside a distribution centre
Your driver arrives at a warehouse on an industrial estate at nine for a collection booked for nine. The goods are not ready. The gatehouse sends them to wait. At ten fifteen they are loaded, and the driver sets off an hour behind for the next three jobs. The driver mentions it to the controller when they call in, the controller says 'put it on the sheet', and the sheet says 'waited a while'.
At month end, the job is invoiced at the quoted price. The hour is not on it. The driver was paid for it, or lost earnings if they are an owner driver on job rates, and the next three customers had late deliveries.
Why waiting time goes unbilled
Your terms probably include waiting time: a free period, then a rate per quarter hour. The trouble is evidence. Charging it needs the arrival time and departure time, recorded at the moment, attributed to the right job, and passed to whoever invoices. In most courier firms none of that happens without someone making an effort in the middle of a busy day.
| What is needed to charge waiting | What usually exists |
|---|---|
| Arrival time at the address | Driver's memory or a phone call to the office |
| Departure time | Not recorded |
| Customer's free-wait allowance | In the contract, not in the system |
| Evidence the customer accepts | None, so charges get disputed or not raised |
| The charge on the invoice | Added by hand if someone remembers |
Controllers also hesitate to charge regular customers for waiting without evidence, because a dispute feels worse than the lost revenue.
What it adds up to
Driver hours paid or lost without revenue behind them. Knock-on delays for every later job on that route, which cost you in complaints and sometimes in failed timed deliveries. And no data to have a conversation with the customer whose warehouse is always slow, even though they are costing you on every visit.
For owner drivers paid by the job, unpaid waiting is also a retention problem. They remember which firms pay them for it.
It also distorts your view of which work is profitable. A regular collection that looks fine on price can be losing money every time because the driver spends forty minutes at the gate.
How we capture and charge it
- Geofenced arrival and departure: the driver app or phone records when the vehicle arrives at and leaves the job address, using the phone's location with the driver's knowledge.
- A one-tap 'waiting' button as a backup where location is unreliable, such as large sites with long access roads.
- Customer terms stored per account: free wait period, waiting rate, whether it applies at collection, delivery or both.
- Automatic calculation of chargeable waiting per job, added to the job as a line with timestamps.
- A notice to the customer at the time, if you choose, saying that waiting time has started, which often gets goods loaded faster.
- Charges passed to invoicing in your courier software or accounts package, and to driver pay where waiting is paid to owner drivers.
Whether to charge, waive or discuss waiting with a customer stays your decision. The difference is that you know it happened, and can show it.
What changes
Waiting is recorded without drivers having to remember. Invoices carry the charges your terms allow, with evidence attached. Owner drivers are paid for their time fairly. And you have the data to talk to customers whose sites keep drivers waiting.
Signs you are giving waiting time away
- Waiting time is recorded only when a driver phones in.
- Job sheets say 'waited' without times.
- Your terms include waiting charges you rarely invoice.
- Some customers' sites always make drivers late for later jobs.
- Owner drivers complain about unpaid waiting.