A truck sits at a dock for four hours. Everyone in the office knows it happened. Nobody wrote down when the driver actually checked in, nobody told the broker while the meter was running, and by the time the invoice goes out the only evidence left is a dispatcher's memory. The charge quietly turns into a cost of doing business.
Detention is a new module under Dispatch. It watches every stop a driver checks into, starts the clock when your free time runs out, and keeps the record as it builds: arrival, check-in, the moment billing started, departure, and where the truck actually stood. When the truck leaves you have a finished record, a claim report you can send to the customer, and one button that puts the charge on the order's invoice.
What changed
The board opens on four numbers. On the clock right now, with how many trucks are producing it. Ready to bill, which is finished and priced and waiting on a person, and the queue you actually work. Billed, what has already reached an order invoice. And hours stuck: the total time your trucks spent waiting, with the share of it that has no rate behind it called out separately. That second half is the number that starts your next contract conversation. Under the tiles sit status tabs with live counts, Scheduled, In Progress, Finalized and Voided plus All, and a search that covers the order, facility, city, truck, trailer, driver, client and dispatcher.
One detention, end to end. Open a row and the whole case is on one pane. The amount leads, with the single action next to it, then the split that explains the figure: time on site, free time applied, detention time, the rate on file. Under it the stop's own record, arrived, checked in, checked out, and the two moments derived from them, detention started and detention ended. If a check-in landed wrong you correct it inline, in the stop's own timezone. A map shows where the truck stood, and the facility's history sits beside it: median dwell over past visits, on-time rate, how often the place produces detention, how much it has billed you, and whether it runs slower than the rest of the network. Four tabs carry the trail, activity, notes, alerts, and the emails that actually went out with the delivery status of each. While a detention is still running the pane keeps itself current on its own.
One detention on one pane: the amount and the action next to it, the five times it was derived from, the dock it was earned at, and that facility's own dwell and on-time record.
The clock, at the level you can check. Free time first, then billable time, stopped at a ceiling you set. Time on site, free time, detention time and billable time are shown side by side with the rate, so the amount is never a figure you have to take on faith.
Alerts, while the wait is still happening. The argument about detention is easier when the customer already knew. Each configuration carries its own schedule across four moments of a stop: before the clock starts, when the clock starts, while it is running, and when detention ends. Two of those take more than one alert. You can stack several warnings before the clock starts, and several progress updates while it runs, each at an offset you choose rather than on a repeating timer. Every alert goes to the order's contact with the configuration's CC list copied, and each one can be renamed, previewed exactly as the recipient will see it, and switched off without being deleted.
The claim your customer receives. Send summary composes the email and attaches a Detention Claim Report, a PDF on your own letterhead with your MC and USDOT numbers on it. It states the charge and the amount the way a claim states it. Exhibit A is proof of presence: the stop on a map with the facility geofence, drawn from the coordinates recorded during the visit. Then a record of events, appointment, arrived, checked in, free time expired, departed, each timestamped in the facility's local time; the truck's own position readings behind the claim where the telematics support it, with a fingerprint on the record; and how the charge is calculated, laid out line by line. You choose the recipients, the subject and a covering note. A detention with no terms behind it still sends, carrying verified times and no amounts, and saying so.
Send summary, with the Detention Claim Report beside it: proof of presence on a map, the record of events and positions, and the arithmetic behind the charge, on your own letterhead.
You set the price. Agreed a figure with the broker? Brokers negotiate a sum, not a rate, so Confirm the amount takes the number you agreed and that number replaces the calculated one for good. Then Add to order invoice puts a detention charge on the order, and it leaves through your normal invoicing. The dashboard collects the facts and does the arithmetic when it has terms to work with. It never sets your price and never invoices anyone on your behalf. Every status change is recorded with who made it and the reason they gave, so the trail survives the negotiation.
Terms you control. Every company starts with a Default Config: two hours free, a ten hour ceiling, no rate. It records the waiting from day one without charging or emailing anyone, so nothing is lost while you decide your terms. From there you set the free time, the hourly rate, the point where charging stops, and the alert schedule, and you point the configuration at All Clients, at All Brokers or All Customers, or at one named client. While you build it a live pill names the clients it will actually govern, so you see the reach before you save. Configurations move through draft, active, inactive and archived. When an order arrives the most specific configuration matching its client wins, and where two are equally specific the one updated most recently takes it. The editor refuses a save that would put a new or newly scoped configuration on top of clients an active one already covers.
It shows up on the order too. You do not have to open the module. On the order's stop card the detention rides as a chip, and it opens the same detail. Five states: free time while the wait is still free; time and amount while the clock is running; time only, where the detention is real but no rate sits behind it; a grey Cancelled; and Add on a closed stop that has none, so you can file one by hand after the fact.
Why it matters
The chip on the order's stop card. One click from the load into the whole detention.
- Nothing to file. The record starts itself from the times your drivers and dispatchers already enter. No new habit, no second system.
- The customer hears it while it is happening. Warnings before the clock starts and progress updates while it runs, sent to the order's contact, each with its delivery status on the record.
- Proof you can send. Times, a map of the stop, the position record and the arithmetic, in one document on your letterhead, ready before the broker asks for it.
- The figure billed is the one a person confirmed. The dashboard suggests an amount from your terms. You confirm it, or replace it with what you negotiated, and the reason is recorded either way.
- The waiting you cannot bill stops being invisible. Hours stuck separates the time with no rate behind it, and every facility carries its own dwell, on-time and detention risk.
How to use it
Detention is in Beta. Open Dispatch → Detention. Anyone on your team who can already see loads can see it. Leave the Default Config in place for a week so it records the waiting without charging or emailing anyone, then look at Hours stuck and decide which clients need terms of their own. Tell us where it argues with how you actually bill: [email protected].
