Most owners never check any of that. The interest is small. The balance is not.

What the escrow line is

When you lease your truck to a carrier, the lease usually says the carrier holds a sum of money against things that might come up after a load is already paid — a cargo claim, a fuel card balance, a plate or permit charge, damage to their trailer. They build the pile by taking a set amount out of each settlement until it hits the number in the lease.

It shows up on the settlement as a deduction, often called escrow, maintenance escrow, or performance escrow. Some carriers take a set amount each week, some a flat amount per load, until the balance reaches the figure in your lease.

The key thing: every dollar of it came out of money you earned. The carrier is holding it, not keeping it.

What the lease has to say

Under 376.12(k), when a carrier holds escrow, the lease must state:

• the amount of the escrow
• the specific items the carrier may apply the escrow money to
• that the carrier will account to you for every escrow transaction
• that you can demand an accounting at any time
• that the carrier pays you interest on it at least quarterly
• what you have to do to get it back, and that it comes back within 45 days of the lease ending

The second one matters most. "Specific items" means the lease has to name them. A line that says the carrier can use your escrow for "any amounts owed" is not the same as a line that lists cargo claims, trailer damage, fuel card balances, and unpaid permits. If your lease is vague about it, that is a question to put to a lawyer who reads trucking leases, not a thing to argue over the phone with dispatch.

Go find your copy of the lease this week. If you do not have one, ask the carrier for it. You signed it; you are entitled to it.

What should show on paper every month

376.12(k)(3) says the carrier has to account to you for every escrow transaction, one of two ways:

• on each settlement sheet, the amount and a description of every deduction from or addition to the escrow, or
• a separate accounting of the escrow, done monthly

So if the carrier pulls $180 out of your escrow for a trailer tire, the paperwork has to say how much and what it was for. Not "escrow adjustment."

The rule does not require a running balance printed on every sheet. But 376.12(k)(4) says you can demand an accounting at any time, so you never have to guess. Ask in writing, keep a copy of what you sent, and keep what comes back.

If your settlements show escrow coming out every week and you have never seen a total, that is the first thing to ask for.

The interest the carrier owes you

376.12(k)(5) is the part almost nobody collects on. While the carrier holds your escrow, it has to pay you interest at least quarterly. The rate is set on the day the interest period begins, and it has to be at least the average yield on 91-day, 13-week Treasury bills from Treasury's weekly auction.

Two details change the number:

• The rule does not say how to measure a balance that grows every week. Using the average balance over the quarter is a fair way to check the carrier's figure.
• Before figuring interest, the carrier may subtract an amount equal to the average advance it made to you during that same period. If you took advances, that lowers the base.

You can look up the rate yourself. Treasury publishes 13-week bill auction results at TreasuryDirect. Find the auction just before your quarter started; that yield is the floor for the quarter.

A quarter of escrow interest, worked out

This is an example with round numbers. Yours will differ.

Say the carrier takes $50 a week. The quarter starts with $1,000 already in escrow and runs 13 weeks.

Added during the quarter:  13 weeks × $50 = $650
Ending balance:            $1,000 + $650 = $1,650

The balance climbed evenly from $1,000 to $1,650, so the average balance for the quarter is about halfway between:

($1,000 + $1,650) ÷ 2 = $1,325

That is a simple approximation, and it is close enough to check a carrier's figure.

Now the advances. Say you averaged $200 in cash advances outstanding during the quarter. The carrier is allowed to subtract that:

$1,325 − $200 = $1,125

Assume the 13-week T-bill yield when the quarter began was 4.0% a year. One quarter is a quarter of that:

4.0% ÷ 4 = 1.0%
$1,125 × 1.0% = $11.25

So $11.25 of interest for that quarter, credited to you — either added to the escrow balance or paid on a settlement. It should appear on the paperwork with the word interest on it.

Eleven dollars is not going to change your month. But if it is never there, in any quarter, for any year, then the carrier is not doing what the rule says, and that tells you something about how they handle the rest of your escrow.

When the money comes back

376.12(k)(6): the carrier returns the escrow balance to you no later than 45 days from the date the lease ends, along with a final accounting of every deduction made from it.

Count the days on a calendar.

Say you ran 40 weeks at $50 and built the escrow to:

40 weeks × $50 = $2,000

You turn in your plates and the lease terminates on Friday, October 2, 2026. Forty-five days from October 2 is Monday, November 16, 2026. (October 2 plus the 29 remaining days in October puts you at October 31; 16 more days lands on November 16.) On or before that date, you should have the $2,000 less any final deductions, and a sheet showing what each deduction was for.

The carrier can also hold back amounts you still owe under the lease, but the final accounting has to itemize them. "Final adjustment − $2,000" is not an accounting.

One more clock, from a different part of the same rule: 376.12(f) says the carrier pays you for a trip within 15 days after you turn in the delivery paperwork. That one covers your load pay, not escrow, but it runs on the same signed lease and it is worth knowing when a settlement goes missing.

Write these four things down

Keep a plain list, one line per settlement: the date, the escrow taken, and the running balance the carrier printed. If the carrier does not print a balance, carry your own and compare the two every month. If you keep your settlement sheets in one place, that list falls out of them in ten minutes.

Then, if you ever leave: write down the termination date, count 45 days forward, and write that date down too.

This week

Pull the last three settlements and find the escrow line. Check that each one says what the escrow was taken for, and look back through the last year for a quarterly interest credit. If either one is missing, email the carrier and ask for the escrow accounting — in writing, so you have the date. That one email costs you nothing and tells you how the escrow will go the day you hand back the plates.

The payment dates are April 15, June 15, September 15 and January 15. September 15 just passed. The next one is January 15, 2027, for the money you make from September 1 through December 31.

The four dates, and what each one covers

The "quarters" are not even quarters. That trips people up.

So the June payment covers two months of work and the January payment covers four. If you save the same amount every week, the January payment is the one that needs the bigger pile behind it.

Work from the quarter's profit, not from the checks

Profit is what you keep after the truck eats. Start with everything the carrier paid you for the quarter — your share of the order gross plus fuel surcharge, before their deductions — then subtract what you spent to run:

• fuel, whether it came off the settlement on the card or you paid cash
• a driver's pay, if you have one, including reimbursements you paid back
• insurance
• repairs, tires, parts, oil changes
• tolls, scales, permits, plates, the ELD subscription
• everything else on the settlement the carrier held out — escrow is not an expense, but most of the rest is

One thing to be careful with: the truck payment is not all a deduction. The interest part is. The principal comes back to you as depreciation on a schedule your accountant sets. If you subtract the whole note, your profit will look lower than it is and your estimate will come up short. Ask your accountant what number to use for the truck, then use the same one all year.

Add up one quarter's settlements and one quarter's expenses and you have the profit. If you're keeping loads and settlements in one place, the profit and loss report will total a quarter for you instead of you running a tape on twelve weeks of sheets.

The two taxes, and the per diem that comes off first

There are two separate taxes on that profit.

Self-employment tax. This is Social Security and Medicare, both halves, because you're both the boss and the worker. The math is profit × 92.35% × 15.3%. That works out to about 14.13 cents on every dollar of profit.

Income tax. This one runs on profit minus half of the self-employment tax, at whatever bracket your household lands in. Plenty of one-truck households land in the 12% or 22% bracket. Use the higher of the two if you're not sure — better to have money left over in April.

Before either one, take your per diem. If you're the one driving and you're away from home overnight, you can deduct a meal allowance for each day out. The transportation industry rate is $80 a day, and 80 percent of it is deductible for drivers under DOT hours of service. So each full day away is worth $64 off your profit. The first and last day of a trip count at three-quarters, $60 a day, so $48 off.

That deduction comes off the profit before you figure either tax, which means it cuts the self-employment tax too.

Two things about per diem. It's for nights you were away from home in the truck. If you have a 1099 driver, the driver's nights go on the driver's own return, not yours. And you need a count you can show: a day-by-day record of where you were. Your loads already have it. Pickup date, delivery date, where the truck sat. Once a week, when the settlement comes in, write down how many nights you slept out and keep a running total for the quarter.

A worked quarter: $18,000 profit, 50 nights out

This is an example with round numbers. One truck, leased on, and you drive it. For the quarter, after fuel, insurance, the interest on the note and repairs, the profit is $18,000. You were away 50 days, and your household lands in the 12% bracket.

Without counting per diem:

• Self-employment tax: $18,000 × 92.35% = $16,623.00 × 15.3% = $2,543.32
• Half of that: $1,271.66
• Income tax base: $18,000 − $1,271.66 = $16,728.34
• Income tax: $16,728.34 × 12% = $2,007.40
• Total: $2,543.32 + $2,007.40 = $4,550.72

With 50 days of per diem:

• Per diem: 50 × $80 = $4,000 × 80% = $3,200
• Profit after per diem: $18,000 − $3,200 = $14,800
• Self-employment tax: $14,800 × 92.35% = $13,667.80 × 15.3% = $2,091.17
• Half of that: $1,045.59
• Income tax base: $14,800 − $1,045.59 = $13,754.41
• Income tax: $13,754.41 × 12% = $1,650.53
• Total: $2,091.17 + $1,650.53 = $3,741.70

The per diem saved $4,550.72 − $3,741.70 = $809.02 on this one quarter. That's the payoff for keeping a days-away count.

The example uses 50 full days at $80 to keep the arithmetic short. In real counting, the first and last day of each trip go in at $60, so a quarter of short trips home every weekend comes out a little lower than this.

One number a week, into its own account

$3,741.70 on $18,000 of profit is 20.8 percent. Over 13 weeks that's $287.82 a week.

That's the number to work with. Not a quarterly scramble — a transfer you make every Friday when the settlement hits, same as paying the driver. Open a second checking account at the same bank, name it TAX, and move the money the day the check clears. If you never see it in the operating account, you never spend it on a set of drive tires.

If you'd rather size it off each settlement instead of a flat weekly number, move 20 percent of every settlement deposit. On a slow week you move less, on a big week you move more, and it stays roughly right without you doing the math again.

When a quarter is bad, the next payment goes down. The year is taxed as one year, and the four payments are just installments toward that one number. A quarter where you replaced a motor and made nothing means you owe little or nothing for that quarter, and if you overpaid earlier in the year, you can pay less in January. There is also a rule that generally keeps you clear of penalty if you pay in at least as much as last year's total tax — 110 percent of it if your income was over $150,000. Whether that rule fits your year is a question for your accountant, and it's worth asking once.

What this estimate leaves out

On purpose, this runs high. It doesn't subtract the standard deduction, which is real money off your taxable income. It doesn't take the 20 percent deduction on qualified business income, which many owner-operators qualify for. It doesn't account for a spouse's W-2 withholding already covering part of the bill.

It also doesn't include state income tax, which depends on where you live and can be nothing at all or another several percent.

So the number you get from this is a set-aside, not a return. Your accountant figures the return, and if the set-aside was too big, you have money sitting in the TAX account in April. Nobody has ever been sorry about that.

This week

Add up your settlements and expenses from September 1 to today, so you know where the January 15 payment is headed before Thanksgiving. Count your nights away since September 1 off the load dates and write the number on the same page. Then open the second account, if you don't have one, and start moving 20 percent of every settlement into it this Friday. If your loads are already on file, the taxes guide shows where the same arithmetic is done for you, per diem nights and all.

If you are leased on, your carrier signs the rate con and you see the settlement. Ask for a copy of the rate con anyway when a load goes sideways. Detention and TONU live on that page, and you cannot argue for money that was never on it.

The rate, and whether fuel is inside it

A broker quotes one of two ways. All-in means one number, fuel included, no separate line. Linehaul plus fuel surcharge means two numbers, and you need to know the schedule that produced the second one.

All-in is not worse. It is just harder to read. A good-looking all-in rate in a $6 diesel week can be a poor linehaul rate wearing a fuel surcharge as a hat. Before you judge a rate per mile, back the fuel out of it and look at what is left.

A common surcharge schedule is (average diesel price minus a base of about $1.25) divided by an assumed 6 miles per gallon. That gives cents per mile. Whatever schedule you use, use the same one every time so your numbers compare week to week. If the terms are new to you, the fuel surcharge page in the glossary walks through it.

Also check the miles on the rate con against your own routing. Brokers sometimes use short miles. You burn the real ones.

Detention, TONU, and layover — what is usual

These three cover the time the load costs you when nothing is moving. Here is what shows up on most rate cons that have them at all.

Free hours matter as much as the rate. Two free hours at $50 beats three free hours at $50 by a full hour of pay on every wait that runs past three. Detention also usually needs proof: in and out times on the bill of lading, signed, sometimes with a check call. If the rate con says you must notify the broker before the free time runs out, that is a real condition and they will enforce it. Set a phone alarm at the dock. More on how it is counted is on the detention page.

TONU is the one people forget until they are sitting at a shipper with a canceled load. If the rate con says nothing, you have no claim for the miles you already drove.

Lumpers, reefer fuel, and the fees nobody mentions

Who pays the lumper should be one sentence on the page. Usual: you pay it, get a receipt, and the broker reimburses it at cost with the invoice. Watch for a cap, like "lumper reimbursed up to $150", on a grocery warehouse that charges $300.

On a reefer load, look for a reefer fuel clause. Most rate cons do not have one, which means the fuel your reefer unit burns comes out of your pocket. A reefer unit burns roughly a half gallon to a gallon an hour running. On a two-day load that is real money.

Then read the penalty language. Common ones: a fee for a late delivery, a fee for a missing or late BOL, a fee for no reefer download, a charge for a rejected load. A late fee that is a flat $250 is one thing. A late fee written as "all damages" is open-ended, and you should ask them to cap it or strike it.

Last, the pay terms. Net 30 is standard. Some brokers run net 45. Quick pay should cost 3 percent or less. At 5 percent you are paying a lot for three weeks.

What this load really pays, line by line

This is an example with round numbers. A reefer load, 462 loaded miles, $1,150 all-in. Detention $30 an hour after 2 hours. No TONU line. No reefer fuel clause. Net 30. Diesel that week averages $6.53.

The headline number:

• $1,150 ÷ 462 mi = $2.49 a mile all-in

Now back the fuel out using the schedule above:

• ($6.53 − $1.25) ÷ 6 mpg = $0.88 a mile
• 462 mi × $0.88 = $406.56 of that $1,150 is fuel
• $1,150 − $406.56 = $743.44 linehaul
• $743.44 ÷ 462 mi = $1.61 a mile linehaul

That is a different-looking load than $2.49.

Now the reefer unit. Say it runs 10 hours at roughly 0.8 gallons an hour:

• 10 hr × 0.8 gal = 8 gallons
• 8 gal × $6.53 = $52.24 that nobody on this rate con pays for
• $743.44 − $52.24 = $691.20, or $1.50 a mile

Now the wait. You sit 4 hours at the receiver:

• 4 hr − 2 free hr = 2 paid hours
• 2 hr × $30 = $60
• At the usual $50 an hour: 2 hr × $50 = $100
• The thin detention rate costs you $40 on this one load

And if the broker cancels you after dispatch, this rate con pays $0 where $150 is usual.

If you take quick pay at 3 percent to avoid waiting 30 days:

• $1,150 × 0.03 = $34.50
• $1,150 − $34.50 = $1,115.50

So the load is $2.49 a mile on the page, $1.61 after fuel, $1.50 after the reefer burns its own fuel, and there are two holes in it worth $40 and $150 that one phone call might close.

What you owe your driver does not change

None of the above changes the driver's pay. The driver is paid off the load the way your sheet says, whatever the broker did or did not put on the rate con. On this example, at 70 cents a mile with a $50 live load and $15 an hour detention after 2 hours:

• 462 mi × $0.70 = $323.40
• Live load: $50.00
• Detention: 2 hr × $15 = $30.00
• Total driver pay: $403.40

The $52.24 of reefer fuel and the $40 of detention you did not get are your problem, not the driver's. That is exactly why you read the rate con before the truck rolls and not after.

The checklist to run before you say yes

Run these down the page. It takes two minutes.

• Rate: all-in or linehaul plus fuel? Back the fuel out and look at the linehaul per mile.
• Miles: do theirs match your routing?
• Detention: dollars per hour, how many free hours, what proof they want, who you have to call and by when.
• TONU: is there a number? If not, ask for $150.
• Layover: $200 a day is usual. Is it on there?
• Lumper: who pays, is it capped, do they need the receipt.
• Reefer: is reefer fuel paid, and does it say continuous run or start/stop?
• Pay terms: net 30 or net 45, and what quick pay costs.
• Fines: any flat fees, and is anything written open-ended.
• Names and numbers: correct carrier name, MC, load number, pickup and delivery appointment times.

What to ask the broker to add, in writing, on the rate con itself — not in a text message: detention at $50 an hour after 2 hours, TONU $150, layover $200 a day, lumper reimbursed at cost with receipt, reefer fuel paid or the run mode stated. A broker is far likelier to add one before you accept than after the truck is loaded. If you want the same list in a form you can work through load by load, there is a rate con review walkthrough in the help pages.

Start this week

Pull the last three rate cons you ran and find the detention line on each one. Write down the rate and the free hours. Then look at your last load that sat four hours and figure what you got versus what $50 after 2 hours would have paid. That number is what one phone call before dispatch is worth, and it is the same call every time.

What the line actually is

A fuel surcharge scale has three parts. Ask your carrier for all three in writing.

• The base price. Usually somewhere around $1.15 to $1.30 a gallon. Diesel below that price earns no surcharge at all.
• The assumed mpg. Often 5.0 to 6.5. This is the number the carrier says a truck gets. It is not your number.
• The price it reads. Most carriers use the national average diesel price published each Monday and hold it for the week.

The math is pump price minus base price, divided by assumed mpg. That gives cents per mile. Then it is multiplied by loaded miles.

Say the price for the week is $6.53, about where the national average sat the week of September 21, and the base is $1.25. That leaves $5.28 a gallon. At an assumed 6.0 mpg:

$5.28 ÷ 6.0 = $0.88 per loaded mile

That is the whole scale. On most scales empty miles get nothing, because the carrier pays you by the loaded mile in the first place. Whether you pay your driver for empty miles is your own rule, and it has nothing to do with this line.

One week, four loads

This is an example with round numbers. Dave runs one truck leased on, and last week he ran four loads.

Loaded miles: 612 + 488 + 734 + 410 = 2,244 Empty miles between them: 306 All miles: 2,550

Surcharge at $0.88 a loaded mile:

• 612 × $0.88 = $538.56
• 488 × $0.88 = $429.44
• 734 × $0.88 = $645.92
• 410 × $0.88 = $360.80

$538.56 + $429.44 + $645.92 + $360.80 = $1,974.72 collected

Now the fuel card. The truck averaged 6.4 mpg for the week, over all miles:

2,550 ÷ 6.4 = 398.44 gallons

The part of those gallons above the base price, which is the part the surcharge is meant to answer for:

398.44 × $5.28 = $2,103.76

$2,103.76 − $1,974.72 = $129.04 short, or 5.8 cents a loaded mile.

And the whole fuel bill, since that is what actually came off the settlement:

398.44 × $6.53 = $2,601.81

The surcharge covered $1,974.72 of it, or 76 percent. The line rate has to carry the other $627.09. That is not a mistake. It is $498.05 of base-price fuel, which the rate is supposed to include, plus the $129.04 gap. If you judge a lane on the line rate alone, you have already forgotten the diesel.

The three places it falls short

Dave's $129.04 did not come from nowhere. Three things pushed it, two down and one up.

Empty miles collected nothing. Those 306 miles still burned fuel: 306 ÷ 6.4 = 47.81 gallons, and the above-base part is 47.81 × $5.28 = $252.44. That is the biggest hole, 11.2 cents a loaded mile.

Running better than the scale put money back. The scale assumes 6.0. On 2,244 loaded miles that is 374.00 gallons. At a real 6.4 mpg, those loaded miles took 350.63 gallons. The 23.37 gallon difference is worth 23.37 × $5.28 = $123.39 in your favor.

Those two are the whole gap: $252.44 − $123.39 = $129.05, a cent off the $129.04 from rounding the gallons. Then there is one more nobody mentions.

DEF carries no surcharge at all. It is not diesel, so it is not in the scale. Ten gallons at $3.09 is $30.90 for the week, and every cent of it comes out of the line rate.

$129.04 + $30.90 = $159.94 down for the week, 7.1 cents a loaded mile.

The break-even deadhead number

Here is the part you can run on any week, without knowing the price of fuel. The surcharge breaks even when your empty miles, as a share of all miles, equal:

1 − (the carrier's assumed mpg ÷ your actual mpg)

At 6.4 mpg against a 6.0 scale: 1 − (6.0 ÷ 6.4) = 0.0625, or 6.25 percent deadhead. On 2,244 loaded miles that is about 150 empty miles before the surcharge stops covering the above-base fuel.

Dave ran 306 empty out of 2,550, which is 12 percent. Double the break-even. That single number tells him more about the week than the total on the check.

Notice the price of diesel is not in that formula. A high week and a low week have the same break-even. What the price changes is the size of the hole once you are past it: at $6.53, every empty mile at 6.4 mpg burns 82.5 cents of above-base fuel the surcharge never pays. Only your mpg and the carrier's assumed mpg move it.

What a tenth of an mpg is worth

The surcharge does not change when your mpg changes. Only the fuel bill does. Same week, same four loads, same $1,974.72 collected:

From 5.8 to 6.4 is $217.64 in one week. Forty-five weeks like that one is $9,793.80. That is the same money whether it comes from idle time, tire pressure, or a driver who runs 68 instead of 75.

Check it against the fuel card, not against memory

Your settlement has a fuel surcharge on the pay side and a fuel card deduction on the deduction side. Nobody puts them next to each other. Do it once a month.

• Add the surcharge lines for four settlements.
• Add the fuel card deductions for the same four.
• Get gallons and total miles for the same stretch, and divide for your real mpg.

Watch the timing. Fuel bought on Thursday often shows up on next week's deduction, so one week alone can look wrong by a hundred dollars for no reason. Four weeks smooths that out.

Carriers differ, and you should write yours down and use it the same way every time. Some pay the surcharge on all dispatched miles, empty included, which kills the biggest hole. Some pay a flat cents per mile that moves monthly instead of weekly. Some pay a percentage of the line haul, which is not really a fuel scale at all. Ask which miles yours pays on, what the base price is, and what mpg it assumes. If a dispatcher cannot tell you, ask settlements. The fuel surcharge is yours, by the way — it is truck revenue, not driver pay, and it does not belong anywhere on your driver's pay sheet.

Do this week

Pull the last four settlements and write two numbers on a sheet of paper: total fuel surcharge collected, total fuel card deducted. Then call and get your carrier's base price and assumed mpg, and figure your break-even deadhead percentage from your own mpg. Once you know that number, you can look at a load offer with 180 empty miles in front of it and know what it costs before you say yes.

What each structure pays, and what it does not

Cents per mile pays for distance, then adds money for work that is not distance. A common setup for a 1099 driver on one truck:

• Calculated miles × a per-mile rate
• A flat amount for each live load
• A flat amount for each stop-off between the first pickup and the final drop
• Detention by the hour or flat, at the amount you decide — what the carrier pays you for waiting is a separate question
• Receipts paid back, cash advances taken out

Percent of gross pays for one thing: the dollars on the load. A percentage pays nothing extra for empty miles, nothing extra for a live load, and nothing extra for a stop-off. The driver sits at a dock for four hours loading by hand and the number does not move. He runs 180 miles empty to the next shipper and the number does not move.

That is the whole story in one line. Percentage pay is simple because it ignores the work your driver argues about.

One more thing to settle before you compare anything: percent of what. The order gross the carrier shows on the settlement, the line haul only with fuel surcharge and accessorials left out, or your own net after deductions. Those are three different numbers. The examples below use the order gross the carrier shows.

Two weeks, priced both ways

This is an example, with round numbers. Say the driver is Ray. Cents-per-mile side: 60 cents a mile on calculated miles, $30 a live load, $25 a stop-off. Percentage side: 28 percent of order gross. Assume you pay for empty miles on the per-mile plan, which is your call and is written down.

Week A: two long loads

2,400 loaded miles, 180 empty miles, $5,160 of order gross, one live load, no stop-offs. That gross works out to $5,160 ÷ 2,400 = $2.15 a loaded mile.

Per mile:

• 2,400 + 180 = 2,580 miles
• 2,580 × $0.60 = $1,548.00
• 1 live load × $30 = $30.00
• Total: $1,578.00

Percentage:

• $5,160 × 28% = $1,444.80

The percentage costs you $1,578.00 − $1,444.80 = $133.20 less.

Week B: three short loads

1,600 loaded miles, 320 empty miles, $3,700 of order gross, two live loads, three stop-offs. That gross is $3,700 ÷ 1,600 = $2.31 a loaded mile — better paper than Week A.

Per mile:

• 1,600 + 320 = 1,920 miles
• 1,920 × $0.60 = $1,152.00
• 2 live loads × $30 = $60.00
• 3 stop-offs × $25 = $75.00
• Total: $1,287.00

Percentage:

• $3,700 × 28% = $1,036.00

The percentage costs you $1,287.00 − $1,036.00 = $251.00 less.

Week B paid a better rate per loaded mile than Week A, and the percentage still won bigger. The reason is the 320 empty miles and the five extra stops. On the per-mile plan you paid $192 for the deadhead and $135 for the stop work. On the percentage plan you paid nothing for either.

The break-even line rate you can run yourself

For any week, figure what the freight would have to pay per loaded mile before the percentage starts costing you more than cents per mile:

Break-even loaded-mile rate = (total per-mile pay for the week) ÷ (your percentage × loaded miles)

Week A: $1,578 ÷ (0.28 × 2,400) = $1,578 ÷ 672 = $2.348 a loaded mile.

Week B: $1,287 ÷ (0.28 × 1,600) = $1,287 ÷ 448 = $2.873 a loaded mile.

Below that rate, the percentage is cheaper for you. Above it, the percentage costs you more. Week A came in at $2.15 and Week B at $2.31, both well under, so the percentage won both times.

You can flip the same math and get a break-even percentage instead: per-mile total ÷ order gross. Week A is $1,578 ÷ $5,160 = 30.6 percent. Week B is $1,287 ÷ $3,700 = 34.8 percent. That is what you would have to offer on a percentage to match what cents per mile already pays him.

Same week, better freight, opposite answer

Keep Week A exactly the same — 2,400 loaded, 180 empty, one live load — and only change the rate.

At $2.35 the two plans are a dollar and twenty cents apart. At $2.80 the percentage costs you $303.60 more for the identical work — identical miles, identical stops, identical hours out of Ray's week. The driver's pay moved $436.80 and his week did not change at all.

That is what you are agreeing to when you pay a percentage. You hand the driver the rate market. When freight is soft, you pay less. When freight is strong, you pay more. That is not a small detail on a one-truck operation, and it is the part nobody says out loud when a driver says "just pay me a percentage."

What it adds up to over a year

Say 44 paid weeks, 30 of them like Week A and 14 like Week B.

Per mile:

• 30 × $1,578 = $47,340
• 14 × $1,287 = $18,018
• Total: $65,358

Percentage at 28 percent:

• 30 × $1,444.80 = $43,344
• 14 × $1,036 = $14,504
• Total: $57,848

Spread: $65,358 − $57,848 = $7,510 for the year. On these two weeks, a 28 percent plan pays about 11.5 percent less than 60 cents a mile plus stop pay.

That is real money and it is not free. A driver who works out that he is $7,510 behind on the same work does not stay. And the $7,510 is concentrated in exactly the weeks he hated — the short, choppy weeks with deadhead and live loads. Cheap freight is when a percentage saves you the most and when it feels worst to him.

If you want a percentage to land close to cents per mile on your own freight, run your last eight weeks both ways and look at the break-even percentages. On the two weeks above, 31 to 35 percent was the honest range, not 28. Figure the cents-per-mile side of each week first — the driver pay calculator will do that on your own miles and stops — then divide it by the order gross to get the percentage that matches it.

Write the rule down, whichever you pick

The choices that move the money are yours to make and yours to keep the same every week: whether you pay empty miles, what counts as a stop-off and what is just the final drop, whether a live load is flat or by the hour, and if you go percentage, whether it is on order gross, line haul only, or your net. Put those in writing with the rate, hand your driver a copy, and apply them the same way on every load.

This week

Pull your last eight settlements and figure two numbers per week: total loaded miles and total order gross. Divide to get your real loaded-mile rate. If it is running under about $2.35, a 28 percent plan is cheaper for you than 60 cents plus stop pay — and you now know by how much, and who is paying for it. Then run the break-even percentage on those same weeks and decide what number you would be willing to say out loud to your driver.

The truck in this post

One truck. 108,000 miles a year. 6.4 miles per gallon. Diesel at $6.29, the national average for the week ending September 14. That is an example, not your truck.

• 108,000 ÷ 6.4 = 16,875 gallons
• 16,875 × $6.29 = $106,143.75 of diesel for the year
• $106,143.75 ÷ 108,000 = 98.28 cents a mile, call it 98.3 cents

That 98.3 cents is before tires, before insurance, before the payment, before a dime of driver pay. It is the single largest line in the truck, so a percent of it is real money and a tip that moves it half a percent is not worth a phone call.

The five levers, priced

Where you buy

Twenty-five cents a gallon cheaper across the whole year, on 16,875 gallons:

• 16,875 × $0.25 = $4,218.75

That is the top of the list and nobody has to drive differently. It comes from the discount network on your fuel card, from knowing which stops on your lanes price well, and from telling the driver where to fill.

Pump price is not your price. Read the card statement, not the sign.

And here is the thing that changed when diesel went over six dollars. Twenty-five cents off a gallon saves you $4,218.75 whether diesel is $3.92 or $6.29. Cents off is cents off; it does not grow when the price does. Every other lever below saves gallons, and a gallon now costs 60 percent more than it did. That is why buying right used to be worth more than double what slowing down was worth, and today it is barely ahead of it.

Out-of-route miles

Miles you run that the load did not call for. The carrier pays on calculated miles, so these earn nothing and burn fuel.

Four percent of the year:

• 108,000 × 4% = 4,320 miles
• 4,320 ÷ 6.4 = 675 gallons
• 675 × $6.29 = $4,245.75

Cut four percent to two percent and you keep half of it: $2,122.88, on zero revenue lost. You find these by comparing settlement miles against the odometer for the same week.

A tenth of a mile per gallon

6.4 to 6.5, same miles:

• 108,000 ÷ 6.5 = 16,615.38 gallons
• 16,875 − 16,615.38 = 259.62 gallons saved
• 259.62 × $6.29 = $1,633.01 a year

That is $31.40 a week. Write that on a sticky note; it settles arguments about equipment. A set of trailer skirts or fairings that truly gains you a tenth pays back $1,633 a year, so $3,000 of parts and labor is under two years. At $3.92 diesel the same set took nearly three. Equipment that was marginal a year ago is worth pricing again.

Idle hours

Figure roughly three quarters of a gallon an hour at idle. Check your own idle report, because an APU, a bunk heater, or a newer engine changes it a lot.

Two hours a night, 250 nights:

• 0.75 × 2 = 1.5 gallons a night
• 1.5 × 250 = 375 gallons
• 375 × $6.29 = $2,358.75 a year, $9.44 a night

Here is what that does to the number you read. Hold the road at 6.4 and add those 375 gallons:

• 16,875 + 375 = 17,250 gallons
• 108,000 ÷ 17,250 = 6.26 mpg

So the card says 6.26 on a truck whose driver did nothing wrong on the road. If your 6.4 already comes off the fuel card, your road number is better than 6.4 and the idle is already baked into the $106,143.75 — either way, an hour a night is worth $1,179.38.

Three miles an hour of road speed

Dropping from 65 to 62 gains maybe two tenths on a lot of trucks. Two tenths, 6.4 to 6.6:

• 108,000 ÷ 6.6 = 16,363.64 gallons
• 16,875 − 16,363.64 = 511.36 gallons
• 511.36 × $6.29 = $3,216.45 a year

Now the other side of it:

• 108,000 ÷ 65 = 1,661.5 driving hours
• 108,000 ÷ 62 = 1,741.9 driving hours
• 1,741.9 − 1,661.5 = 80.4 hours, about an hour and a half a week

You are selling 80 hours of clock for $3,216.45, about $40 an hour. If the truck sat anyway, that is a good trade. If slowing down costs you one reload a month because the driver runs out of hours short of the shipper, it is a bad trade. Decide it with both numbers in front of you, not with one.

Stacking the four you can realistically get

Same truck, same year, four changes you can actually hold onto:

Check the two lines that are not obvious: 0.75 × 1 × 250 = 187.5 gallons, and 187.5 × $6.29 = $1,179.38. Out-of-route: 2,160 miles ÷ 6.4 = 337.5 gallons, and 337.5 × $6.29 = $2,122.88.

• $10,737.46 ÷ $106,143.75 = 10.1 percent of the fuel bill
• $10,737.46 ÷ 52 = $206.49 a week

Treat that as a ceiling, not a promise. Each change shrinks the gallons the next one works on, so all four together land a little under the straight sum.

Which levers are yours and which are the driver's

Sort the list by whose hands are on it.

Yours: price per gallon and out-of-route miles. That is $4,218.75 plus $2,122.88, $6,341.63 between them, and you pull both from the kitchen table. You pick the stops, you set the fuel card network, you check settlement miles against the odometer every Friday and ask about the gaps.

The driver's: idle and speed. That is $1,179.38 plus $3,216.45, closing on yours at this price, and you cannot make either one happen with a rule you do not enforce or a lecture on Sunday night.

That split tells you what to do with each. Fuel on the carrier's card is your expense, deducted on your settlement, and it has nothing to do with what you owe the driver — you cannot dock a 1099 driver for a bad mpg week, and you should not try. If you want the idle number, put it on the pay sheet as a bonus line: a flat amount for a week under an idle percentage you both read off the same report. Run it through your driver pay calculator like any other bonus. Speed is usually a phone call, not a bonus, because slowing down costs the driver paid miles and hours and he knows it — so that conversation has to include what he gets out of it.

And write your fuel rules down once, in the same place as your rule on whether you pay the driver for empty miles, and apply them the same way every week.

This week

Pull twelve months of fuel card statements and one idle report, and get four numbers: gallons, miles, average price paid, and idle percentage. If your loads and fuel slips already live in one place, a fuel report totals the first three per truck. Then compare last week's settlement miles to the odometer and find your out-of-route percent. If your average price is more than a dime above the best stop on your regular lane, fix that first, this week, before you shop for fairings.

You already have both numbers you need. The gallons are on your fuel card statement. The miles are on the odometer. You don't need a telematics dashboard or a dispatch report with fourteen columns.

What counts as a gallon and what doesn't

Count every gallon of diesel that went into the tractor's tanks. That means fuel bought on the carrier's fuel card and any diesel your driver paid cash for and you paid back as a reimbursement. The cash ones are the slips that go missing, so they want turning in from the cab the day they happen. If you leave out the cash fills, the truck looks better than it is and you end up paying a bonus on a number you made up.

Leave out:

• Reefer fuel. The reefer burns on its own hours. It has nothing to do with how the driver drives.
• DEF. It isn't fuel and it isn't measured in the same math.
• Any fuel put in a different truck on the same card. If two trucks pull from one card, you have to split the statement by truck before you do anything else. Most card statements show the unit number on each transaction.

For the price side, use what you actually paid that month, not the sign at the pump. Divide the month's fuel dollars by the month's gallons and you have your average cost per gallon. That's the number the savings are worth.

Measure a month, tank to tank

Don't try to do this weekly. Move one 180-gallon fill from a Friday to the Monday after, and a truck that really runs 7.5 mpg reads about 15 one week and about 5 the next. That isn't the driver's doing, and your driver will tell you so.

Measure a month, and measure tank to tank. Here's the practical way:

1. Pick a fill near the end of the month and fill the tanks full. Write down the odometer reading on that fuel receipt.
2. A month later, fill full again. Write that odometer reading down.
3. Miles = second reading minus first reading.
4. Gallons = every gallon bought after the first fill, up to and including the second one.

Starting and ending with full tanks means the gallons you counted are the gallons that moved those miles. Use odometer miles, not paid miles off the loads. Paid miles leave out empty miles and bobtail miles, and the truck burned fuel on all of them.

Miles divided by gallons is your mpg. That's it. Two numbers, one division.

Setting a target for that truck, not somebody's fleet average

Don't take a target off the internet. A 2019 day cab pulling heavy out of the mountains and a 2023 aero tractor running flat interstate with light freight don't belong on the same number.

Go back through three to six months of fuel statements and odometer readings and figure the truck's mpg the same way for each month. That's your baseline. Set the target at about that baseline, or a tenth above it. Now anything the driver changes shows up as savings, and you're not paying a bonus for driving the way the truck was already being driven.

Two things to decide up front:

• Winter. Cold weather, blended fuel, and idling for heat all pull mpg down. Half a mile per gallon is not unusual. Either set a separate winter target for, say, December through February, or run a rolling baseline against the same month last year. Pick one and say which.
• The work. A month of short city runs with a lot of live loads won't look like a month of 900-mile drop-and-hooks. If the freight changes a lot, write down that you'll adjust the target when it does, and tell the driver before the month starts, not after.

The target is not a threat. Never dock pay for missing it. The driver doesn't pick the loads, the weight, the terrain, or the weather.

What the bonus is really paying for

A fuel bonus is a pay rule attached to four habits. Say them out loud to your driver so they know what they're being paid to do:

• A lower cruise speed. For most trucks this is the biggest one. Running 65 instead of 72 on the open road is the first place to look.
• Less idling. Bunk heater or APU instead of the engine overnight. Shut it off at the dock and in the yard instead of sitting at high idle for forty minutes.
• Smooth shifting and braking. Progressive shifting, staying out of the throttle on hills the truck can't win, leaving room ahead to coast down to a light instead of braking and re-accelerating.
• Tires at pressure. Checked cold, every week, every tire on the tractor and the trailer. Soft tires cost fuel and they cost casings.

You don't have to measure any of that. The fuel card measures it for you.

A worked example

This is an example with round numbers. Say you run a target of 7.0 mpg, and your driver, Ray, turns in a month that measures 10,500 miles on 1,400 gallons.

Month's mpg:

• 10,500 ÷ 1,400 = 7.5 mpg

Gallons it would have taken at target, against what it actually took:

• At target: 10,500 ÷ 7.0 = 1,500 gallons
• Actual: 1,400 gallons
• Saved: 1,500 − 1,400 = 100 gallons

At your average cost for the month of $3.80 a gallon:

• 100 × $3.80 = $380.00 saved

Half to the driver:

• $380.00 ÷ 2 = $190.00

That $190 goes on the pay sheet as one bonus line, on top of Ray's miles, live loads, and stop-offs. It doesn't change the mileage rate. Nothing is withheld from it for a 1099 driver.

The same math one week at a time looks like this, if you'd rather see it small: 2,625 miles ÷ 7.0 = 375 gallons at target, 2,625 ÷ 7.5 = 350 actual, 25 gallons saved × $3.80 = $95.00, half is $47.50. Four weeks of that is the same $190. Figure it monthly and pay it once, so one stray fill-up can't move the number.

Three ways to pay it

All three work, and none of them pays anything at target. Pick the one you'll actually calculate every month.

The share of savings is the honest one, because it can never pay out more than the fuel actually saved. Cents per mile is the easiest for a driver to picture while driving. Tiers are the easiest to figure with a calculator on a Sunday. Cents per mile and tiers can both pay more than you saved in a short month or when fuel is cheap, so run them against a month like that before you commit.

Write the rule down

One page, signed, in the driver's folder. It should say: the target mpg and whether it changes in winter, that every tractor gallon counts and reefer fuel and DEF don't, that the month runs full fill to full fill with the odometer written on the receipt, the price used is your card average for the month, how the bonus is figured, and when it gets paid. Say what happens in a month with a breakdown or a week in the shop — most owners either throw that month out or subtract the shop days' miles and gallons.

Then apply it the same way every month, even the month it's in the driver's favor and you'd rather not. That's what makes a driver believe the number.

One more thing: a bonus paid to a 1099 driver is part of what you paid them for the year, so it belongs in their year-end total on the 1099-NEC along with their miles and stop pay. The reporting threshold is $600 for tax years through 2025 and $2,000 starting with tax year 2026. How your own return handles the fuel and the bonus is a question for your accountant.

What to do this week

Pull the last three fuel card statements and the odometer readings off three fill receipts, and figure the truck's mpg the same way for each month. That number, not somebody's fleet average, is your starting target. Tell your driver the target and the split before the month starts, then put the first bonus on the pay sheet as its own line so they can see exactly where it came from.

Here is the whole thing, line by line, the way you'd figure it at the kitchen table.

Which miles count

Start with the miles the carrier paid you on. On most settlements those show as calculated miles or paid miles — the carrier's practical mileage from shipper to consignee, not your odometer. That number is the honest base for driver pay because it's the number the money came from. If you pay off the odometer, you'll pay for wrong turns, fuel stops off the route, and the driver's run to the motel.

Then there's deadhead — the empty miles from the last delivery to the next pickup. The carrier never pays you for empty miles. Whether you pay your driver for them is your call, and it's the argument that comes up most. The three common rules:

• Pay loaded miles only. Simplest. Works if your freight is tight and deadhead is usually short.
• Pay all miles, loaded and empty, at the same rate. Easiest to explain to a driver, costs you more on a bad week.
• Pay empty miles over a set number, say anything past 50, at the loaded rate or a lower one.

Any of the three is fair. What isn't fair is deciding load by load. Pick one, write it on the sheet the driver signs, and apply it to every load whether it helps you or hurts you that week.

What the per-mile rate covers, and what it doesn't

The rate covers driving. It does not cover the hours nobody drives: sitting on a dock, hooking and unhooking, tarping, waiting on a lumper. That's why flat extras exist. If you fold everything into a higher cents-per-mile, the driver eats the short, ugly loads and gets paid twice on the long easy ones, and eventually leaves.

So keep the rate for miles and pay the standing-still work separately, by the stop code on the load:

Two places people get crossed up. First, the final drop is not a stop-off. The last delivery is the end of the load; the miles pay for it. A stop-off is a stop in the middle. Second, a live unload is worth paying for too if your freight has them — decide whether your live-load flat covers loading only or both ends, and write that down.

Waiting past a reasonable time is detention. Carriers pay detention on some loads and not others, and the rules differ by shipper. Your driver's detention pay doesn't have to match what the carrier paid you, but most owners tie it to the same idea: two hours free, then an hourly rate or a flat amount, paid only when the driver got the in-and-out times on the paperwork. No signed times, no detention. Say that out loud once and you'll never argue about it again.

Bonus, receipts, and advances

Three more lines, and only the first one is pay.

A weekly bonus is yours to invent: on-time on every load, no claims, no violations, all paperwork turned in by Saturday. Keep it small and certain — $50 the driver can count on beats $200 they have to guess at.

Receipts you owe back are not pay. If the driver bought fuel with their own cash because the truck stop wouldn't take the card, or bought straps, that's a reimbursement. It shows on the pay sheet as its own line, and it is not part of what you report for them at the end of the year. Fuel put on the carrier's fuel card is your expense, deducted on your settlement, and has nothing to do with the driver's pay.

A cash advance pulled during the week comes off the bottom. It was already paid.

Nothing is withheld from a 1099 driver — no federal tax, no Social Security, no Medicare. The driver handles their own. Keep the yearly total of pay per driver, because the 1099-NEC filing rule is $600 for tax years through 2025 and $2,000 starting with tax year 2026. Whether a driver is properly a contractor at all is a question for your accountant, and worth asking once rather than assuming.

A week with four loads, every line

This is an example with round numbers. Driver's name is Ray. His written rate sheet says: 65 cents a mile on calculated miles plus all empty miles, $30 per live load, $25 per stop-off, detention $50 flat after two hours with signed times, $50 weekly bonus for on-time and paperwork in.

Miles first.

• Loaded: 412 + 268 + 520 + 196 = 1,396
• Empty: 60 + 15 + 0 + 120 = 195
• Total: 1,396 + 195 = 1,591
• 1,591 mi × $0.65 = $1,034.15

Now the extras.

• Live loads: 2 × $30 = $60.00
• Stop-offs: 1 × $25 = $25.00 (load 2. Load 3's delivery is the final drop, so it pays nothing extra)
• Detention: 3 hours at the consignee on load 3, two free, times signed on the bill = $50.00
• Bonus: $50.00

Pay so far:

• $1,034.15 + $60.00 + $25.00 + $50.00 + $50.00 = $1,219.15

Then the two lines that aren't pay.

• Receipts back: cash fuel $71.40 + a strap $18.95 = $90.35
• Cash advance he took Wednesday: −$200.00

Net to Ray:

• $1,219.15 + $90.35 = $1,309.50
• $1,309.50 − $200.00 = $1,109.50

That's the check. For your own numbers, his pay was $1,219.15 over 1,591 miles, about 76.6 cents a mile all in — worth knowing when you price your next load. The driver pay calculator runs the same lines and prints the sheet if you'd rather not do it by hand.

The sheet the driver gets

Hand over paper, or email a PDF, but give the driver something with every line on it. One line per load with the load number, the miles, and the stops. Then the extras, the bonus, the receipts, the advance, and the net. A driver who can check your math never asks you to re-explain the math.

Keep a copy. Twelve months of these sheets is what you'll add up in January, and it's what settles any disagreement in March about a week last spring. A blank weekly pay sheet is fine to start with; the format matters less than using the same one every week.

What to do this week

Write your rate sheet tonight — rate per mile, empty-mile rule, live load, stop-off, detention, bonus — on one page, and hand a copy to each driver. Then figure this week's pay off that page and nothing else. If a load makes you want to bend a rule, pay it by the rule this week and change the page for next week.

One settlement is one load, even when the check is one check

The paper that comes Friday is usually a summary. It lists several settlements, one per load, and then one check total at the bottom. Each load has its own order number, its own gross, and its own pay lines. The deductions — fuel card, insurance, escrow, any advance — usually sit in one block at the bottom against the whole check, not against a single load.

That matters because your check total tells you almost nothing. A check for $3,260.50 looks fine until you notice one of your loads isn't on the page. Check the loads, then the total. Never the other way around.

The lines on one load, in order

Two of those lines cause most of the trouble. Miles are the carrier's number, not your odometer's, and they come out of a routing program that runs practical miles between zip codes. They are not wrong just because they are lower than what you drove; they are wrong when they don't match the stops you actually ran. Fuel surcharge is figured on those same miles, so short miles quietly shorten two lines at once. If fuel surcharge is new to you, it is the per-mile add-on the carrier collects from the customer and passes to you; it moves with diesel prices and has nothing to do with the fuel you buy.

The deduction block is the carrier's expense list, not yours to argue with line by line — but you should be able to name every line on it. Card fuel is your money spent at the pump on the carrier's card. It is your expense, and it has nothing to do with what you owe your driver.

Match every load before you look at the total

Keep a running list of loads as you run them: order number, date delivered, stops with their codes, your odometer miles. Friday, put that list beside the sheet and check off one order number at a time.

Work the sheet load by load and ask four questions on each:

• Is this load on the sheet at all?
• Do the miles match the route I actually ran?
• Is every extra stop paid?
• Do the deductions add to receipts I have?

That is the whole job. Ten minutes with a pen.

The four things that go wrong

A load that never got paid. Usually paperwork. The bill of lading never got scanned, or it went in after the cutoff, and the load falls to next week. Sometimes it just falls off. This is the expensive one, because a missed load is a whole load, and if you don't catch it in a few weeks nobody will.

Miles that don't match. The carrier ran the route to the wrong zip, or missed a stop in the routing. It shorts your fuel surcharge, and if you pay your driver on the carrier's calculated miles it shorts the driver too. Decide once which number you pay your driver on — carrier miles or your own — write it down, and use the same one every week.

A stop that wasn't paid. A live load or a stop-off should show its own accessorial line. A pre-loaded pickup (PU) and a split pickup (SP) normally pay nothing extra, so don't chase those. The final delivery is not a stop-off.

A fuel line you can't account for. Keep the pump receipts in one envelope. If the fuel deduction is higher than the receipts, the gap is usually DEF, a cash advance taken at the pump, or a card fee. Find it before you accept it.

A Friday sheet with three loads, checked

This is an example with round numbers. Say you are on 75 percent of the order gross plus fuel surcharge at $0.28 a mile.

Order 44821 — 512 mi, gross $1,640.00. $1,640.00 × 0.75 = $1,230.00. FSC: 512 × $0.28 = $143.36. Load total $1,373.36.

Order 44835 — 286 mi, gross $1,050.00. $1,050.00 × 0.75 = $787.50. FSC: 286 × $0.28 = $80.08. Stop-off $50.00. Load total $917.58.

Order 44847 — 604 mi, gross $1,930.00. $1,930.00 × 0.75 = $1,447.50. FSC: 604 × $0.28 = $169.12. Load total $1,616.62.

Paid: $1,373.36 + $917.58 + $1,616.62 = $3,907.56.

Deductions: card fuel and DEF $412.06, insurance $185.00, escrow $50.00. Total $647.06.

Check: $3,907.56 − $647.06 = $3,260.50.

Now the load list beside it:

• Order 44858 is not on the sheet. You delivered it Wednesday, 402 mi, gross $1,285.00. That would be $1,285.00 × 0.75 = $963.75, plus 402 × $0.28 = $112.56, a load total of $1,076.31.
• Order 44835 shows 286 miles; your route ran 312. The carrier missed the second pickup. Fuel surcharge short: 312 × $0.28 = $87.36, minus $80.08 already paid = $7.28 short. And if you pay your driver $0.62 on carrier miles, the driver is short too: 312 × $0.62 = $193.44 against 286 × $0.62 = $177.32, a difference of $16.12.
• Order 44847 had a stop-off in Springfield with no accessorial line. At the carrier's flat $50.00, that is $50.00 missing.
• Fuel deduction $412.06. Your receipts add to $348.90. DEF adds $38.16, so $348.90 + $38.16 = $387.06. The remaining $412.06 − $387.06 = $25.00 turns out to be a cash advance your driver took at the pump Wednesday — correct, but now you know, and you take it back out of the driver's pay.

Total to ask the carrier about: $1,076.31 + $7.28 + $50.00 = $1,133.59, on a check that looked ordinary.

Do this Friday

Start the load list this week, even if it's a legal pad: order number, delivery date, stops with codes, your miles. Friday, check off every order number on the sheet against it, then open the fuel envelope and add the receipts. Email settlement corrections to your carrier contact with the order number in the subject line, so there's a record with a date on it. If a word on the sheet is one you've never looked up, the glossary has a page for each one.