Carrier Remittance

Carrier remittance is the payment event itself – the moment money moves from the shipper's account to the carrier's. While freight audit and invoice reconciliation are about verifying what's owed, remittance is about disbursing it. For shippers managing their own remittances, this means issuing checks, ACH transfers, or wires to each carrier individually, on each carrier's payment terms.

The complexity scales with the carrier network. A shipper using five carriers can manage remittances manually without much pain. A shipper using 50 carriers – each with different banking details, payment terms, and remittance advice requirements – faces a significant administrative load. Add in the need to match each payment to specific invoices so carriers can apply it correctly, and the process becomes a meaningful drain on AP resources.

Late or misapplied remittances erode carrier trust. A carrier that can't match a payment to an invoice will follow up, creating work for both sides. A carrier that consistently receives late payments may add that shipper to a watch list – leading to higher rates, lower load acceptance, or being dropped from the carrier's preferred shipper program. In tight capacity markets, payment reliability directly affects service reliability.

Freight pay providers simplify remittance by acting as an intermediary. The shipper makes one consolidated payment to the provider, who handles individual carrier disbursements, remittance advice, and payment tracking. Carriers get a self-serve portal to check payment status – eliminating the back-and-forth that bogs down both sides.