The line-haul rate pays you to move freight. Accessorials pay you for everything else — and leaving them uncollected is money walking out the door.
Accessorial charges are fees for services or time beyond the basic haul. Every hour a shipper holds your truck, every extra stop, every pallet you help move is work the base rate doesn't cover. Billing it back is how carriers protect their margin.
| Charge | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Detention | Time held at a dock beyond free hours (usually 2) — see detention pay |
| Layover | A full day lost waiting to load/unload |
| TONU | Truck Order Not Used — load canceled after dispatch |
| Lumper fee | Paid labor to load/unload at the dock |
| Driver assist | Driver helps load/unload the freight |
| Extra stop | Additional pickup or delivery on one load |
| Tarping | Flatbed freight that must be tarped |
| Redelivery | Returning after a missed delivery appointment |
Accessorials only get paid when they're agreed up front. Before you accept a load, confirm the accessorial terms on the rate confirmation — detention rate, free time, TONU amount. A verbal "we'll take care of you" is not a number you can bill.
To collect, you need proof: arrival and departure timestamps, signatures, lumper receipts, photos. Detention especially lives or dies on timestamped in/out records. This is exactly where good records turn "we don't pay detention" into a paid invoice.
A driver sitting four hours at a dock is burning a day's earning potential. Recovering that time as detention can be the difference between a profitable week and a break-even one — it's a core input to your real cost per mile.
TruckSpot Dispatch captures arrival/departure times and documents on each load, then adds accessorials straight onto the invoice with the proof attached — so detention, lumpers and TONUs actually get billed instead of forgotten.
Stop leaving accessorials uncollected — free 14-day trial →Accessorial charges are fees for work beyond simply hauling the freight from A to B — things like detention, layover, extra stops, lumper fees, driver assist, and tarping. They compensate the carrier for time and services the base line-haul rate doesn't cover.
TONU stands for Truck Order Not Used. It is a fee paid to the carrier when a load is canceled after the truck has already been dispatched or arrived, compensating for the wasted trip and lost availability.
Get accessorial terms in writing on the rate confirmation before you accept the load, document everything with timestamps and signatures, and bill the accessorial with your invoice and supporting proof. Undocumented accessorials are the ones that don't get paid.