ENES
LTL for brokers

Module 7 of 7 · 9 min

Getting paid

Invoice audit, settlement and cash flow — the unglamorous half of brokerage where the margin you quoted either survives or quietly disappears.

By the end you will be able to

  • Audit a carrier invoice against what you quoted
  • Explain why a broker's cash position is structurally tight
  • Set billing practices that protect margin without annoying customers

Audit every invoice, or lose the margin you earned

The carrier's invoice will not always match your quote. Reweighs, reclasses, accessorials applied at delivery, corrections and straightforward errors all show up here.

Auditing means comparing the invoice line by line against what was quoted and what actually happened, then either accepting it, disputing it, or passing it to the customer. Most brokers set a tolerance — a dollar figure below which a difference is accepted without review, because chasing $4 costs more than $4.

What matters is that everything above that tolerance is genuinely looked at. Unaudited invoices are where quoted margin goes to die, quietly, a little at a time.

You pay before you get paid

Carriers expect payment on their terms — often 15 or 30 days. Your customers pay you on theirs, often 30 or 45, and sometimes later than that. The gap is funded by you.

This is the structural reason brokers fail while profitable on paper. Growth makes it worse: more freight means more money out before more money in.

Which makes credit a real part of the job. Check new customers, set limits deliberately, and watch ageing weekly rather than monthly. A customer stretching from 30 to 60 days is telling you something before they tell you.

Bill quickly, bill accurately, bill once

Invoice as soon as the shipment is complete and the paperwork supports it — but not before. An invoice that has to be corrected resets the clock and gives a slow payer a legitimate reason to wait.

That is the argument for holding billing a couple of days after delivery: late accessorials and corrections land, and you bill once with everything on it rather than three times.

Include what the customer needs to match it against their own records — their PO number, their reference, the delivery date, the POD. An invoice that cannot be matched sits in a queue no matter how correct it is.

Getting the routine right

The brokers who get paid are not the ones who chase hardest, they are the ones whose invoices are boringly correct and arrive when expected.

Agree terms in writing before the first shipment. Send invoices the same way every time to the same place. Follow up on a schedule rather than on a feeling. And treat the first late payment as information rather than an accident.

None of it is difficult. It is simply the part of the business that nobody finds interesting, which is exactly why it is where the money is won.

Worth remembering

  • Audit every invoice above a sensible tolerance — small variances compound
  • You pay carriers before customers pay you; growth widens that gap
  • Check credit and watch ageing weekly, not monthly
  • Hold billing briefly so late charges land, then bill once
  • Give customers what they need to match the invoice, or it waits in a queue

Check yourself

3 questions. You will see why each answer is what it is.

1Why do brokers set a dollar tolerance on invoice variances?

2Why does growth make a broker's cash position worse?

3What is the argument for holding an invoice for a couple of days after delivery?

See it in the product