Four hours in a queue at the distribution centre
The driver arrived for an eight o'clock booking and tipped at noon. He mentions it when he gets back. The planner nods; it happens every week at that site, and the driver is already booked on an early start tomorrow that he now may not make. The invoice goes out for the standard rate because nobody wrote the times down and, by the time accounts raise it, it is just another load.
When you do try to charge, the customer asks for proof, and you have a driver's recollection and not much else.
The evidence exists but never reaches the invoice
Your trucks are tracked. The tachograph records when the driver was on other work. Many drivers write times on the delivery note. The information is all there somewhere, but not in the place and form accounts need at invoice time.
- Arrival and departure times are not pulled from telematics for each drop.
- Each customer's agreed free time and charge rate is in a contract or email, not the invoicing system.
- Invoices are raised before anyone checks for waiting.
- Drivers are not asked, at the moment it happens, to record why they waited.
- Charging feels awkward without evidence, so it is let go.
What the waiting costs you
Waiting time uses driver hours and truck time that could have done other work, and can push the rest of the day into overtime or a missed second load. If it goes unbilled, you absorb all of that. It also distorts your picture of which customers are profitable: a customer with a good rate and long waits may be worth less than one with a lower rate and a quick turnaround.
How we capture and bill it
- Each customer site is set up as a geofence in your telematics system, or in our own layer on top of it.
- Arrival and departure are recorded automatically for every visit. The driver can add a tap in the app for 'booked in' and 'tipping started' where that helps show where the delay was.
- Each customer's agreed free time and waiting rate are stored, from your terms or rate cards.
- When a load is ready to invoice, the system calculates waiting beyond free time and proposes a charge with the times and a map trail as evidence.
- Accounts approve, adjust or drop the charge. Approved charges go onto the invoice with the evidence attached.
- Reports show waiting by site and customer, so the conversation about a bad site starts from data.
| Question | Now | After |
|---|---|---|
| When did the driver arrive and leave? | Driver's memory | Recorded from geofence and app |
| What free time was agreed? | Somewhere in the contract | Stored per customer |
| Is there a charge? | Rarely checked | Proposed at invoice time |
| Can we prove it? | Not really | Times and trail attached |
What changes
Waiting time becomes a line you choose whether to charge, not one you never see. Some customers will pay it; with others you may prefer to use the evidence in a rate review or to get their booking process fixed. Either way the decision is made with the facts. Planners also learn which sites reliably run late and plan around them, for example by not putting a tight second load behind a delivery to a site that routinely keeps trucks for hours. The transport manager gets a clearer view of where driver hours are really going, which matters when you are short of drivers.
Sound familiar?
- Drivers complain about the same slow sites every week.
- Waiting time is almost never on your invoices.
- You are not sure what free time each customer agreed.
- Customers ask for proof you cannot easily give.
- Long waits push drivers into overtime or lost second loads.