How to read a carrier settlement sheet and catch what's missing

A settlement sheet is the carrier telling you what it decided to pay you on each load it dispatched. You never sent an invoice, so nobody checked the math but the carrier. Reading the sheet means doing two things: understanding each line on one load, then matching every load you ran that week against a line on that sheet. Most weeks it is right. The weeks it is wrong, it is wrong in one of four ways, and all four are easy to spot if you look in the same order every time.

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

Line	What it is
Order number	The carrier's number for that load. Your key for matching.
Origin and destination	Cities, sometimes with the stops in between listed.
Miles	The carrier's calculated miles for the load. Usually short of your odometer.
Order gross	What the carrier billed the customer, or the rate the load pays before your split.
Your percentage	Your lease share of the order gross. 75 to 85 percent is common.
Fuel surcharge	Usually cents per mile, paid on top, often at 100 percent to you.
Accessorials	Stop-off, detention, layover, tarp. Each should be its own line.
Deductions	Card fuel and DEF, insurance, escrow, plate, advances.
Check total	Everything paid, minus everything deducted.

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.