Fuel surcharges and waiting-time charges
How a transporter agrees, invoices and backs up fuel surcharges and waiting-time charges so shippers can check them and pay without a dispute.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Logistics businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Diesel moves faster than freight contracts. A haulier agrees a lane rate when fuel costs one thing, and by the time the trucks are rolling the pump price has moved. Then a driver reaches a distribution centre on time for the booked slot and sits in the yard for most of the day before anyone offloads him. Both cost real money, and both are the charges shippers most often query, short-pay or quietly ignore.
The trouble is rarely that a shipper refuses in principle. It is that the extra arrives as an unexplained figure on the invoice, with no link to anything the shipper agreed and no proof of the hours the truck stood still. This article covers how to set those charges up so they survive the shipper's accounts-payable desk: agreed first, shown separately, taxed on the right date and backed by evidence.
Agree the basis before the first load
A surcharge is only as strong as the agreement behind it. Put the method in writing, in your rate confirmation or trading terms, before you move anything:
- Fuel surcharge. Say what it is linked to (a published fuel price you name, for example), how often it is reviewed, and how a movement in that price changes the charge. A shipper can check a formula; it cannot check a number you chose on the day.
- Waiting time. Say how much free time is included at loading and offloading, when the clock starts (arrival at the gate or the booked slot, whichever is later), and what is charged once the free time is used up.
- Whose clock counts. Name the document that records arrival and release, so nobody argues later about which time is right.
Where cargo moves under international sale terms, check which party carries the cost at the point where the truck is held up. ICC's page on the Incoterms rules explains the trade terms that decide who pays for, and carries the risk of, goods at each stage of delivery, which helps you see whether a delay at the border or the consignee belongs with your shipper or with the shipper's buyer.
Separate lines the shipper can check
Never fold a surcharge into the freight rate. One larger figure looks like an unannounced price increase and invites a dispute about the whole invoice. Give each charge its own line with enough words to identify it:
| Line | What it should say |
|---|---|
| Freight | Lane, load or waybill reference, agreed rate |
| Fuel surcharge | The reference price and the period it was worked out from |
| Waiting time | Site, date, hours beyond the free time, rate applied |
In Achekam, a customer invoice starts as a draft that can be changed or deleted, so the accounts office can add the surcharge lines and check them against the shipper's agreement before anything is final. Issuing the invoice gives it the next number in your sequence and posts it to the ledger as debtors, sales and output VAT. After that the figures are fixed, which is why the checking belongs at the draft stage.
New invoices carry default terms of 30 days, and the number format is set in Settings. If a shipper has negotiated something different, look at the due date on the draft before you issue it.
VAT on the invoice date
A surcharge is part of what you charge the shipper for moving the goods, so it needs the same VAT thinking as the freight line it belongs to. Domestic road freight and cross-border movements can be treated differently, and the rules are not the same in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, so settle the treatment for each kind of lane with your accountant and then apply it consistently.
Achekam keeps the date side of this straight. When an invoice line states no rate, VAT is taken at the rate in force on the invoice date. And if you later have to cancel a disputed surcharge, the credit note uses its original invoice's date and tax codes, so the correction reverses exactly what was charged rather than whatever applies on the day you credit it.
Evidence for waiting time
Waiting-time charges are won or lost on paper. The receiving clerk was not watching your truck, and the shipper's finance team certainly was not. For every charge, collect:
- The booked slot or appointment confirmation.
- Gate-in and gate-out times, stamped or signed by the site if at all possible.
- The signed proof of delivery or collection note showing when the truck was released.
- The driver's note of any reason the site gave for the delay.
Keep these with the load, not in a cab or a phone gallery, so they can go to the shipper the moment the charge is queried. Filing and sharing those papers is covered in filing signed PODs and sending them with invoices.
Send the invoice from Achekam as a PDF on your letterhead, by e-mail, with or without a pay link. If the e-mail fails, Achekam reports it as not sent instead of leaving you to assume it arrived, which matters when a shipper later says it never saw the surcharge invoice.
Statements that show every charge
Surcharges are usually small next to the freight, so they are the lines left behind when the main invoice is paid. A monthly statement is the plainest way to stop them fading away.
Achekam produces a customer statement of account as a PDF that can be e-mailed, and the screen tells you whether it went. Every unpaid surcharge sits on the shipper's account, so the statement shows the shipper exactly what is still open. Whether surcharges go on the same invoice as each load or on one invoice at month end depends on how you bill generally; invoice each load or one monthly invoice? weighs the two.
A surcharge query, in words
A shipper pays a month of freight invoices but leaves every waiting-time line unpaid, saying the hours are unsupported. The accounts office pulls the gate times and signed delivery notes for each load and sends them with the next statement. The shipper pays all but one line, for a load where nobody recorded the gate-out time. The office issues a credit note from that invoice for the waiting-time line alone, which Achekam allows because a credit note can cover chosen lines of the invoice it corrects. The account is clean, and the driver briefing for that site now says the gate-out time must always be signed.
Before the next fuel price change
Check three things: every shipper has a written surcharge method and a waiting-time clause, drivers know which times to get signed, and the accounts office adds surcharge lines at the draft stage with their references. Get those right and the charges you are entitled to become charges you are paid.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
