Common Truckload Accessorial Charges
Today we are going to talk about common truckload accessorial charges.
Fuel Surcharge (FSC) - It is really important that you make your carriers whole on fuel. The US puts out the weekly diesel cost average, depending on where your truckloads are moving you decide what cost average for your area works best for you. Here at FreightPlus, we use the diesel average and we come up with a sliding scale of the averages. At each 10 cent increment on mileage cost, we are going to pay a cost per mile for fuel. As diesel cost goes up your fuel surcharge fee is going to go up and as diesel cost goes down your fuel surcharge is going to go down. We highly recommend a sliding scale for fuel. You can ask for an all-in rate for fuel but if you do it that way then you are not making yourself or the carriers whole on fuel. The risk is put on the carrier and when you do that they are going to up the rate to protect themselves.
TONU Charge (truck order not used) - This is what happens when you book a truck but then figure out you do not need the truck anymore. After you have tenured a load and the carrier has committed to it and then it is not used they are going to charge you a truckload not used charge. This is a negotiable accessorial and can be a negotiated fee.
Detention (with power/without power) - This is what happens when you have a carrier backed into your door and you have detained them. You usually get 2 hours of free time where the driver can be sitting but if you go over this time they are going to charge you a fee. Detention with power is when you have the driver sitting in the truck over the two-hour mark - which is more expensive than if you dropped the trailer which would be detention without power. The more equipment you tie up the more expensive it is for the carrier and the more costly it will be for you.
Sort and Segregation - This is when you have boxes and pallets that need to be offloaded and organized by PO or customer order. When the freight of your customer has to be sorted and segregated you are going to pay for that as the carrier. There are two ways that you can be charged for this either by cost per piece or cost per hundredweight. We recommend cost per piece because that really gives you a one-to-one scenario whereas if you pay by weight and you have mixed products then some products could be heavier than others so it will not give you the one to one relationship you are looking for.
Lumper - This charge is unique because you cannot negotiate it; you are just stuck with the charge. This is when your customer highers their own lumper service instead of going the sort and segregation. Whatever that lumper service charges the customer they will then charge the carrier that fee. Again it cannot be waived either so no matter the cost you will inevitably have to pay that fee.
Extra driver - This charge is when you source a team driver service in order to ship faster due to the hours of service for each driver. This allows two drivers both certified in the trucks so there is no downtime you can negotiate a cost per mile for the team or you can negotiate an upcharge for the second driver.
Layover - Layover charges are when a driver has to stay overnight somewhere because the freight was not loaded in time. You want to be aware of this so you can identify with your carrier where does layover applies and where does detention apply.
Refrigerated - if you require a refrigerated type of equipment you can either negotiate a cost per mile or an upcharge for reefer.
Extra equipment - anything extra you may need such as tarps or load locks. These are going to be an extra fee and you want to negotiate that. If you do not negotiate these accessorials you put the risk on the carrier and they are going to charge you more for taking on that risk.
That is all for truckload accessorial charges for today! Thanks for watching!
