Discover a Trucking Invoice Example for Technical Support that Simplifies Your Workflow

Trucking invoice example for Technical Support

hey guys welcome back to my channel well i have received a lot of requests and made a ton of promises that i would be making this video so here goes today we will be talking about the basics of dispatching whether you're an owner operator who's looking to dispatch yourself or you're someone who's looking to dispatch outside carriers you need to know what you're doing after all dispatching is what gets you those loads and therefore money something i have never really considered or thought about is the fact that people who are coming into this industry from a different industry or even people who are switching from being company drivers to owner operators need guidance as to how to dispatch so today i will be sharing with you those basics of dispatching i dare you to say dispatching one more time i will quit dispatching dispatching dispatching dispatching anyway ready let's go so obviously this is a topic that i could talk about in great detail and fun fact a while ago i actually created a dispatching course yeah a really boring course and yes i am still here to annoy you boring yes but with a ton of useful information within that course but today i will go over the most important points and later on if you guys are interested i'm happy to answer any questions to go into more detail obviously dispatching without a load board is near impossible and the key is to find a load board where a ton of brokers participate now the one i use is d80 power because d80 in general is a very popular load board and a ton of brokers use it for the spot market now something i mentioned already before d80 power is worth that extra money if you're using a computer or a laptop in order to book your loads if you're using your phone then no matter whether you get the most expensive version of d80 or the least expensive it will look the same in that phone app let me show you okay so here's the d80 power which i use uh this is what it looks like and there are a ton of things you can do with this load board you can click on any load right here it will show you the broker to carry your spot rate from last week you can also see market maps with this load board basically a ton of fun little tools now the cheaper version of this is also a d80 load board but it's called trucker's edge it costs 39.95 per month same searches here but this is what it looks like now it's still pretty good there's nothing bad about it uh but i just prefer the dat power just because it's a little bit more user-friendly and there are a lot more tools to choose from on the d8t power but again this is only if you're using your computer it's not if you're using your phone if you're using your phone you use one app no matter whether you're using d80 power or trucker's edge it will look the same and i'll show you in just a moment so i'm searching for dat i am going to go ahead and make a new search right here columbus ohio and of course as with everything you will see that i always put everything wrong so let's try that again columbus ohio with a deadhead of 300 miles dry van but let's change the start date to the 11th so here we go this is what the load board looks like now something to note no matter whether you're paying for the d80 power version which is expensive compared to other versions or the cheapest version this is what the app will look like so it really doesn't matter how much money you spend you're not getting anything else really from the app so i don't recommend it if you're using your computer yes it's worth it now let's go through this load board for a second there are several things i want you to pay attention to but before we do let's search for a load let's say you are in san antonio texas you don't care where you go you have a reefer you're available on the 12th your maximum weight is 44 200 let's say and you're searching back two hours so let's search for that here is our load board so again several things i want you to pay attention to when you're trying to book a load number one and i'll keep mentioning this all the time is the credit score right here if you find a broker with a credit score less than 90 i don't recommend you book the load no matter how good the price is because the brokers with poor credit scores might not pay so let's see if we can find the bat's credit score here we'll filter like that nope the lowest one is a 90 so all the brokers here are pretty darn awesome now another thing to pay attention to is the dtp also known as days to pay this shows you the average days it takes for this particular broker to pay you after you invoice them i usually don't work with brokers who have a dtp of over 30 days because cash flow is really important and if you're waiting on the money to officially hit your account for a long time you can get into a lot of trouble so uh the highest days to pay here is uh 29 uh so yeah not bad pretty good load board with awesome brokers right here i would say now something to note even if the days to pay shows less than 30 days some brokers will still take longer to pay you especially at the end of the year so yes the days to pay should be less than 30 but be prepared at the end of the year and sometimes at random times during the year you will get paid within 35 days sometimes 40 days i mean it depends sometimes brokers lose invoices so it's important that you keep on top of this stuff now if you're factoring your loads it's also important to pay attention to whether a load is factorable so if you see a check mark next to a particular load this means that this broker factors now some brokers like right here c binding transport they have a great credit score great days to pay but they do not factor so if you factor your loads and book a load with binding transport you are not getting that money via quick pay you're not getting that money fast because this broker just does not factor loads now of course there's also the question of rate and the miles so i always look at what the rate is and the miles i look at the trip miles which means the loaded miles from shipper to receiver as well as the deadhead miles to get an idea of what the rate per mile is more often than not though the price will not be posted like you see these loads right here with just a dash that means the price is not posted so you will have to call or email the broker in order to understand what they are offering then there's the question of weight always pay attention and don't book a load heavier than you can scale unless you want to risk an out of service order at the wait station now another thing i like to do is i like to open a posting to see if there are any notes there because i like to be informed when booking the load like for example here is one this is a van reefer load so it can fit on a dry van or a reefer uh it's palletized water ready to go at 8 pm delivery in the morning so i know that this would have to be picked up in the evening delivered the next day in the morning paying 700 a pretty crappy load now when you find a load that peaks your interest you can go ahead and call or email the broker depending on what is listed under the contact column right here once you talk to the broker agree on the rate then the broker will send you a carrier setup packet if you have never worked with this broker before the carrier packet will usually come in a pdf attachment or via a clickable link where you fill it out on a website either way you fill it out online again with the lies what about the print out and fax back packets these don't happen often if at all anymore since i started working in this industry i was asked to print out and put a wet signature on a carrier packet only twice so don't worry about the print out and fax back packets they pretty much don't exist now let's go ahead and i'll show you what a carrier packet will look like okay so this is a carrier packet that i created for the purpose of this video it's a sample one not all carrier packets will be this long or this neat and beautiful so things you have to pay attention to here is the initials you'll have to initial every page sometimes sometimes you'll have to put in references as well usually three will do you will have to put the company name the name of the brokerage you or your client if you're dispatching an outside carrier worked with before the contact name in that brokerage and the phone number again three will do uh the next thing is the carrier profile this is something that almost every carrier packet has you will put in your carrier name or your client's carrier name the dot number mc number physical address mailing address remit to address this is the address where the payment will be sent to if it's a check uh whether you're using a factoring company what's the name of the factoring company and then there will be all of these things like do you have a twit card to be able to pick up in ports do you have carb in order to be able to go through california all of those things you will also be asked for the number of trucks trailers what type of trailers you have uh whether you have team drivers solo drivers company drivers owner operators all of that stuff goes into the carrier packet this is pretty much in all carrier packets that are a pdf version you will have to fill out the day month and year of when you're signing this packet your company name your mc and your dot number and then there is this agreement now at the end of this agreement you will have to put in your company name your name your title the business address the signature and then you might have something like an advanced policy or payment page where you choose whether advances to carrier are allowed fuel advances et cetera you can also maybe get a payments page something like this where you have to choose whether you're factoring whether you want normal pay which is 30 days in this case for this contract i created there is normal pay ach very often you can choose between getting a mailed paper check or a deposit straight into your account and of course there's also quick pay where the broker charges you a percentage in order to get you that money right away and that's pretty much it you will get these authorization forms for ach if you choose to get paid with a direct deposit you will have to enter in all of your account information your bank account information and attach a copy of the voided check some carrier packets will have billing instructions at the end usually again this is in the rate confirmation when you're done with the packet you will need to send this contract along with your w-9 your certificate of authority and certificate of insurance back to the broker so that they can set you up now sometimes some brokers will ask for you to list them as a certificate holder on your certificate of insurance this is when you call your insurance company and tell them that you need a new certificate of insurance listing that particular broker another thing to mention if you're factoring loads you will need to provide the broker also with a notice of assignment this is a document that your factoring company should be giving to you now once everything is set up with the broker he or she will send you the rate confirmation it usually takes no longer than 10 to 15 minutes to receive it once you get the rate confirmation it will look something like this i'll show you three examples so this is the first rate confirmation and there are things to pay attention to for example number one is the pickup information the delivery information here you will have the pickup appointment date and time uh and then you have to pay attention to pickup instructions some loads require special instructions for example do not arrive early to the receiver another thing you have to pay attention is to the total charge to make sure that the rate is the same as you agreed with the broker now on this rate confirmation there is nowhere to sign but let's look at another one right here so again here is the shipper here's the receiver there is the pickup number which is really important to pick up the load here is the net pay rate and here is the place for the signature name title date sometimes rate confirmations will also ask for the driver information and something to note rate confirmations can come in online form as well as a link here is another example of a rate confirmation so again pay attention to the pickup location date and time pick up from two also pay attention to the weight that's another thing i completely forgot about pay attention that the weight is correct there's the delivery time here is the total charge uh and that's pretty much it it's pretty simple so once you get this you just sign date and send it over to the broker once you send that rate confirmation back to the broker you're pretty much all set but the next thing i want to talk about is another question i've been getting a lot and that is invoicing so let's go ahead and look at an invoice together okay so i made the sample invoice which i will actually attach in a link down below so you guys can use it i don't use invoices like this i use quickbooks to invoice all of the brokers uh but this is something that you can use it's pretty easy so when you're invoicing basically what you want to do we will fill it out together so first thing you want to do is you want to fill out your carrier name the name of your company your address your phone and email the invoice number for example if this is your first invoice i would make it zero zero one then we have the bill two here you will put in the brokerage name let's say abc brokers then you will put in the date let's say it's the whatever it is not 2020 god forbid the amount let's say that this load was booked for 4 000 and the due date which is usually 30 days from the invoice date so let's put 5 19 20 22 then right here you always want to reference the load number so to give you an example here's a rate confirmation right the load number would be this number right here pd004918 so let's fill that in then you will put in your truck and trailer number let's say you're driving unit 100 trailer 25 there we go and the driver's name who actually was the one driving that load from point a to point b now right here you will want to put in the load information the date refers to the date of pickup the commodity and the amount agreed with the broker so here we go and then right here you will put in if necessary the remit to address so this is the address where you want to receive payment and finally don't forget about the total due right here you will put 4 000. perfect your invoice is ready to be sent of course you have to fill out all of this information but yeah it's pretty much ready when you deliver a load you have your invoice ready you're ready to invoice the broker so what you'll do is you'll collect the bill of lading any accessorial receipts the rate confirmation and your invoice and you will send it to the brokers accounting team that email is usually listed at the bottom of the rate confirmation now if you're factoring you will be sending all those documents to your factoring company instead of the broker now before i let you guys go i want to mention a brief thing i know that i'm providing a link to that sample invoice down below but i really highly recommend to actually use quickbooks and the reason is it reminds you that the invoice is overdue when it is overdue it automatically tracks your invoices by due date this is something that becomes very hard to track especially with all the paperwork involved in booking loads and managing the loads and managing a company in general so i hope you guys found this video helpful and i'll see you in the next one