Accessorial Charges: Capture Every Billable Service
A practical look at common freight accessorials, the evidence needed to support them, and the process changes that help carriers and brokers capture every valid charge.
Accessorial charges cover freight services that fall outside the base transportation movement. They can include detention, liftgate service, residential delivery, driver assist, redelivery, additional stops, layover, special handling, or a truck order not used.
These charges are common because real-world transportation rarely follows the ideal plan. The billing problem is that accessorials are also easy to miss. The event may be documented in a driver message, BOL notation, dispatch note, email approval, or facility timestamp rather than in the structured fields used to generate the invoice.
Capturing every valid accessorial requires three things: a clear contractual rule, reliable evidence that the service occurred, and a billing workflow that connects the two before the invoice is sent.
What Are Accessorial Charges?
Accessorial charges are additional fees for services, delays, equipment, or handling beyond the base rate for moving freight from origin to destination.
In LTL shipping and truckload shipping, common freight accessorial charges include:
- Detention.
- Layover.
- Liftgate service.
- Inside delivery.
- Residential delivery.
- Driver assist.
- Redelivery.
- Additional stops.
- Lumper fees.
- Pallet jack use.
- Advance notification.
- Special handling.
- Hazardous materials services.
- Truck order not used, often shortened to TONU.
The exact charge and rate depend on the contract, tariff, rate confirmation, or other governing agreement.
Why Accessorial Revenue Gets Missed
The base rate is usually known before a shipment moves. Accessorials often arise during execution.
A consignee may not have a loading dock, requiring a liftgate. A driver may arrive on time but wait beyond the contracted free period. A shipper may request an extra stop after dispatch. A delivery may be rejected and require redelivery.
If that event is not captured in a way the billing team can see, the service may never become an invoice line item. The company incurs the operating cost but loses the billable revenue.
The problem becomes more acute in high-volume operations where staff cannot manually read every dispatch note and email.
Detention and Layover Charges
Detention generally applies when a driver or equipment is held beyond an agreed period at a shipper or consignee facility. Layover usually reflects a longer delay that prevents the driver or equipment from continuing as planned.
Supporting evidence can include:
- Appointment time.
- Arrival and departure timestamps.
- ELD or telematics records.
- Facility check-in records.
- Driver communications.
- Customer acknowledgement.
Driver detention time affects operations and driver availability; from a billing perspective, precise timestamps also allow a carrier to calculate a detention fee under the customer agreement.
Liftgate and Non-Commercial Delivery Charges
Liftgate fees often apply when freight is delivered or picked up at a location without a standard loading dock or when the shipment requires a liftgate to move between the trailer and ground level.
A liftgate charge should be connected to the shipment and to the applicable rate. The same is true for non-commercial locations, military bases, construction sites, or other destinations that may trigger additional service requirements.
For LTL freight, the LTL carrier tariff may define the liftgate fee and related conditions. For contracted customers, a negotiated schedule may override the standard tariff.
Residential and Inside Delivery
Residential delivery is an accessorial when the pickup or delivery occurs at a residential location rather than a normal commercial facility. Inside delivery may apply when the carrier is required to move freight beyond the standard delivery point.
These charges can be missed when the address classification is incomplete or the operational team performs the service without an explicit billing flag.
Compare location data, customer instructions, and proof of service before invoicing instead of asking the billing team to infer the service from the address.
Additional Stops and Redelivery
Additional stops occur when the shipment requires more pickup or delivery locations than the base rate includes. Redelivery applies when a prior delivery attempt could not be completed and another attempt is required.
Evidence can include revised routing instructions, dispatch records, consignee communication, or updated bills of lading. The contract should establish whether the service is billed as a flat fee, mileage-based amount, or another structure.
Driver Assist and Lumper Charges
Driver assist may be billable when the driver performs loading, unloading, sorting, or other work beyond normal driving responsibilities. A lumper is a third-party worker or service used to load or unload freight, commonly at warehouses or distribution facilities.
For reimbursement, retain the lumper receipt and the shipment record. If the customer contract allows an administrative markup or a fixed lumper charge, the invoice should reflect the correct rule rather than simply passing through a receipt amount.
TONU: Truck Order Not Used
A truck order not used charge applies when a truck is dispatched or committed but the shipment is canceled under conditions defined by the agreement.
TONU can be difficult to capture because there may be no delivered load and therefore no normal proof of delivery. The billing evidence instead comes from the tender, dispatch record, cancellation timing, and customer communication.
That is a good example of why accessorial billing cannot rely only on completed shipment records.
How to Document Accessorial Charges
A defensible accessorial line item should answer four questions:
- What happened?
- When and where did it happen?
- Which contract rule makes it billable?
- What evidence supports the calculation?
Depending on the charge, the evidence may include a bill of lading, or BOL, proof of delivery, appointment data, ELD timestamps, photographs, receipts, emails, customer approvals, or facility records.
The documentation requirement should be defined before the billing cycle. Otherwise, teams discover missing evidence only after the customer disputes the charge.
How to Calculate an Accessorial Charge
The calculation depends on the agreement.
For example, a detention clause might provide two free hours and a specified rate for each additional hour or increment. A liftgate fee might be a fixed amount. A fuel surcharge is often calculated separately from accessorial services and should not be treated as interchangeable with them.
For LTL accessorial charges, freight class, tariff rules, and carrier-specific schedules may also matter. Full truckload agreements may rely more heavily on rate confirmations and shipper contracts.
The billing system should preserve the calculation and source rule so a customer can understand the charge without a separate forensic investigation.
Build Accessorial Capture into Operations
The most reliable time to capture an accessorial is when the event occurs.
Operations should not have to remember to send a billing email at the end of the week. Instead, shipment events and communications should create a reviewable billing signal. The system can then match the event with the applicable contract and determine whether evidence is complete.
This keeps accessorial billing from becoming a manual search across inboxes, TMS notes, and shared drives.
Prevent Missed Accessorials Before Invoicing
Accessorial charges are legitimate only when the service and contract support them. The objective is accurate billing for services actually delivered under agreed terms, not indiscriminately adding fees.
Groundtruth helps transportation teams connect agreements, operational events, and supporting evidence before invoicing. That makes it easier to identify valid accessorial charges, surface missing documentation, and resolve questions while the shipment context is still available.
When accessorial capture is built into the operating workflow, carriers and brokers can protect revenue without increasing customer friction. Every line item has a reason, a rate, and evidence behind it.