$202K of Detention You're Already Owed: Closing the Accessorial Gap on Every Load

The revenue you don't bill for

A truck arrives at a shipper at 10 AM for a 10 AM appointment. The shipper's dock is full. The driver waits. At 2 PM the truck loads. At 4 PM it leaves. Six hours of duty time — four of it billable detention at the customer's contracted free-time threshold of 2 hours and detention rate of $80/hour. That's $160 of revenue.

Bill it: revenue captured. Don't bill it: revenue forfeit. The carrier already paid the cost (driver pay, fuel, opportunity cost on the truck). The only question is whether the invoice gets sent.

On managed Centrix fleets the data is consistent: carriers without an automated detention workflow recover 25-30% of eligible detention. Carriers with one recover 65-72%. The gap is roughly $44K to $68K per 100 trucks per year of revenue that's already earned and just isn't being billed.

Why manual detention loses

The reasons detention doesn't get billed are mundane:

• The dispatcher who saw the long stop is on a different load by the time

the truck releases

• The arrival/departure times need to be reconciled against shipper records

the dispatcher doesn't have

• Customer free-time thresholds vary (2 hours, 3 hours, none, "first hour

free") and are buried in contracts

• The accessorial line item has to be drafted manually
• The customer rejects the first invoice and the dispatcher doesn't have

the time to fight it

• By Friday, the move is two days old and "we'll get it next week" turns

into "we'll get it never"

Each step is small. The cumulative effect is 70-75% of detention forfeit.

What the automated workflow looks like

Centrix's detention recovery uses data the system already has:

1. Stop times from Samsara

Samsara position data is continuous, so arrival and departure are timestamped to the second. Centrix knows the truck arrived at the shipper at 10:02 AM and departed at 4:14 PM, regardless of what the dispatcher thinks.

2. Customer free-time thresholds

Each customer has a per-customer detention contract on file: free time threshold (e.g., 2 hours), detention rate (e.g., $80/hour, often capped), billable increments (per hour, per 30 min), and any caveats (only on shipper, only with appointment). These are configured once per customer.

3. Auto-built accessorial

When a load delivers, Centrix checks each stop's actual time against the customer's threshold. Eligible detention auto-builds as a billable line item with the calculation shown: "arrived 10:02, free-time 12:02, departed 16:14, 4 hr 12 min billable @ $80 = $336."

4. Dispatcher review

The dispatcher sees the auto-built accessorial in their queue and either approves (one click) or adjusts (with a reason). Most accessorials approve in 30 seconds because the calculation is already done.

5. Customer billing

The accessorial pushes through the standard invoicing path — email, EDI, or portal upload depending on customer preference. The original Samsara position data is attached as supporting documentation in case the customer disputes.

6. Dispute defense

If the customer disputes (15-25% of cases), Centrix has the position data, appointment time, and dock-clearance time all linked. The dispute response is supported by data, not memory. Most disputes resolve in favor of the carrier when the evidence is structured.

What this means at scale

A 100-truck fleet running 24,000 loads per year:

• Roughly 22% of loads have detention exposure = 5,280 loads/year
• Average detention amount when billed = $84/load
• Manual recovery (28%): 1,478 loads × $84 = $124K
• Automated recovery (68%): 3,590 loads × $84 = $302K
• Annual delta: $178K of recovered revenue that was already earned

That's per 100 trucks. The number scales linearly. A 50-truck fleet recovers $89K. A 200-truck fleet recovers $356K.

Other accessorials in the same workflow

Detention is the largest single accessorial category, but not the only one. Centrix's workflow handles the full set:

• Layover — driver / truck stuck overnight at customer's request
• TONU (Truck Order Not Used) — customer cancels after dispatch
• Lumper — driver pays unloading fee, billable to customer
• Tarping — flatbed-specific
• Stop charges — multi-stop loads at $50-75/extra stop
• Reconsignment — customer changes destination mid-route

Each has its own auto-build logic. Combined accessorial recovery on managed fleets is typically 4-7% of total revenue — meaningful on a $12M book ($480K- $840K/year of accessorial recovered).

The customer relationship dimension

Some carriers worry that aggressive detention billing damages customer relationships. The data is the opposite: customers respect consistent, defensible billing more than they respect inconsistent billing. A carrier who bills detention every time, with documentation, becomes "the carrier who's professional about accessorials." A carrier who bills sometimes, without documentation, becomes "the carrier who tries to pad invoices when they need cash."

Customers manage their own dock efficiency more carefully when they know they'll be billed. Free-time efficiency improves on lanes that started billing for it — which actually reduces detention exposure over time.

Where to start

If you're 25+ trucks and don't have an automated detention workflow:

• Configure the top 10 customers' free-time thresholds first. These cover

~80% of detention volume.

• Run the workflow in shadow mode for 30 days — Centrix builds the

accessorials but doesn't push them through. Compare what the system would have billed against what your team actually billed.

• Turn on auto-push for the top 5 customers after 30 days of clean

shadow-mode results.

• Expand to the full customer base over the next 60 days.

Book a detention review — bring 90 days of load and position data and we'll show you the unrecovered detention number on your actual fleet.