Days to pay
Days to pay is the elapsed time between delivering a load and receiving payment for it, and it determines how much working capital a carrier needs to keep trucks moving.
Last reviewed · by the Fleetchart team
The clock does not start at delivery in practice — it starts when a complete invoice package reaches the broker. Paperwork sitting in a cab extends it as surely as slow broker terms do.
Tracking days to pay by broker reveals something rates alone do not: a broker paying a good rate at sixty days can be worse for a small carrier than one paying slightly less at fifteen.
It is the figure that determines whether factoring is a necessity or a habit.
For example, say a truck grosses $5,000 a week. If brokers pay in about 30 days, roughly four weeks of loads, or 4 × $5,000 = $20,000, is waiting to come in at any one time. If payment slows to about 45 days, that becomes roughly six weeks, or 6 × $5,000 = $30,000. The extra $10,000 has to come from your bank account, a credit line or a factoring company.
Days to pay never shows up in profit per load, but it decides whether you can pay for fuel and the truck note on time.