Trucking’s 10-day challenge: Free working capital without raising rates

On Monday morning, the controller at a top-100 carrier opens AR aging and sees the same pattern: strong revenue, slow cash. Fuel, payroll, and lease payments go out weekly; shipper cash trickles in on their terms. In a soft rate environment, another price increase won’t save the quarter. Closing the DSO–DPO gap will.

This is a practical playbook to win back 7–14 days of DSO—often worth $2.7M per day for a $1B carrier—by turning invoices into cash-ready documents before they reach the shipper.

Rule of thumb: Each day of DSO ≈ annual revenue ÷ 365
$500M carrier → ~$1.37M/day • $1B → ~$2.74M/day • $2B → ~$5.48M/day

Where cash most often gets stuck (and the real-world moments behind it)

The first step in freeing up working capital is understanding where the biggest hurdles can be found. For most trucking companies, these include: 

1) Documentation lag—“We’ll send the POD later.” 

A driver departs a dock at 2:14 p.m. with a signed paper POD. The photo never hits the TMS. Detention occurred, but there’s no timestamped proof. The billing team waits on Operations; the invoice misses today’s batch. Tomorrow becomes next week. Cash slips a day, then five.

2) Invoice rework and disputes—“Credit and rebill…again.”  

Your customer’s tariff wants detention in 15-minute blocks, your template rounds by the hour. Accessorial evidence is in email, not attached. The shipper rejects the 210; the team performs a credit & rebill and resets the clock. Every rework is an interest-free loan.

3) Fragmented billing models—“Same shipper, five ways to bill.”

Truckload, dedicated, brokerage, intermodal—each have unique rating logic and templates. One-time charges show up inconsistently; usage/activity fees aren’t tied to events. Collections inherits the mess and defends invoices that should’ve been prevented.

4) Collections blind spots—“We’re chasing the wrong invoices.”

Your AR runs FIFO or “largest balance first,” not risk-first. The accounts most likely to pay stall behind invoices that are most likely to dispute. Without a pre-bill quality signal, collections can’t prioritize the path of least resistance.

From dock to deposit, a day in the life of a cash-ready invoice

A cash-ready invoice, on the other hand, moves quickly:

• At the dock: Telematics log door-open/door-close and dwell time. The driver scans the POD; the image and metadata are tied to the load automatically.
  
• Rating: The system applies the correct tariff version for the shipper, lane, and date. Accessorials are calculated from real events (detention minutes, layover duration, lumper receipt).
  
• Pre-bill check: Before the 210 goes out, AI flags missing proof (“no lumper receipt”), mismatched units (“detention rounded incorrectly”), or tax/identity errors.
  
• Packaging: The invoice assembles a proof pack: ePOD, dock timestamps, photos, BOL—exactly how the shipper expects it, in the template they require.
  
• Presentation: The invoice leaves with a cash-ready score (explained below). Collections sees green lights and focuses on the few that need a human touch.
  
• Result: First-pass acceptance. No “where is the POD?” email chain. Cash moves faster.

5 levers that move DSO—without touching price

Pull these levers to close the gap on days sales outstanding (DSO) without changing your rates:

1. Invoice on delivery (IAD) with a complete proof pack
   1. Picture a Friday 4:00 p.m. delivery in Dallas. By 4:07 p.m., the invoice has the signed ePOD, door-time stamps, and lumper receipt attached. The 210 transacts that evening and hits the shipper’s queue Monday morning, ready to pay.
2. Adaptive invoicing by shipper (no-code)
   1. A national retailer wants detention in 15-minute blocks; a CPG wants it in whole hours but capped. You switch templates—not projects—and ship invoices right. AI pre-send checks add the guardrails that people can’t keep in their heads.
3. Tariff governance and rating integrity
   1. You lock down a single source of truth for rate cards, fuel tables, and accessorial logic. When a contract renews, the effective date flips a version, not a spreadsheet. Auditors nod. Disputes drop.
4. Dispute prevention and triage
   1. Every dispute is tagged by cause and owner (Docs, Ops, Pricing, Template). Leaders get a weekly report like: “Top 3 preventable causes and the days they’re costing us.” Fixes land in the process—not in a post-mortem.
5. Collections aligned to how shippers pay
   1. Offer ACH, cards, virtual accounts; set autopay for contracted lanes. Dunning ladders segment tough payors from the steady ones. AR spends time where time matters.

A 30-60-90 playbook you can actually run

Days 0–30: Baseline & unblock

• Top 20 shippers by AR and disputes
  
• Map their must-have fields and proofs; build the template specs
  
• Integrate TMS/telematics/EDI feeds
  
• Establish baseline: DSO, first-pass yield, dispute %, credit & rebill rate, invoice cycle time

Days 31–60: Make every invoice cash-ready

• Turn on shadow-mode pre-bill checks; tune thresholds
  
• Centralize tariffs; enable activity-based rating where needed
  
• Pilot invoice-on-delivery with two big shippers and a high-leak lane

Days 61–90: Industrialize and collect faster

• Roll shipper-specific templates portfolio-wide
  
• Enable autopay and targeted dunning ladders
  
• Track lift: green-score share, right-first-time %, dispute cycle, DSO days saved, and cash unlocked.

What “good” looks like 

Share these targets with the board:

• • Right-first-time invoices: 95%+
    
  • Invoice cycle time: Hours, not days
    
  • Dispute rate: ↓ 20–30%
    
  • Credit & rebill: ↓ 40%
  • DSO: ↓ 7–14 days (by shipper cohort)

How RecVue helps 

RecVue RevOS is an operating system for revenue—an AI-powered, unified revenue management platform that connects every contract, monetization model, and process, from quote to cash. Within RevOS is Adaptive Invoicing, a capability that detects and resolves billing anomalies before they reach the customer. 

With this support, trucking companies can address some of their toughest challenges:

• • Contract and tariff orchestration—Versioned rate cards, fuel escalators, accessorial logic, and account-specific terms in one place.
    
  • Invoicing—No-code shipper templates, AI pre-send anomaly detection, automatic proof packs, and one-click credit/rebill with full audit trail.
  • Analytics—DSO/aging by shipper, dispute clustering, and the cash-ready score on every invoice.

Get your 14-day DSO assessment 

At no cost for qualifying carriers, RecVue will baseline your DSO and dispute drivers, run shadow-mode pre-bill checks, and deliver a plan to win back days.

Get a DSO baseline, anomaly heatmap, cash-ready score trends, days saved and cash unlocked model, and a 90-day plan.

See if you qualify →