Pillar 1 — Detention Recovery

How to Automate Detention Billing for Carriers

Dwell Editorial · Updated 2026-04-24
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How to Automate Detention Billing for Carriers

Automating detention billing means connecting telematics data to evidence packaging and invoice generation so that billing teams review and submit rather than detect, document, and build. For a 100-truck fleet with a 39.3% detention rate, this difference is roughly 470 detention events per month — and the manual version requires a full-time person just to stay current.

The Manual Detention Billing Problem

Most carriers handle detention the same way:

  1. Driver calls dispatch to report they’re being held
  2. Dispatch notes the time (often from memory)
  3. A billing team member (or dispatcher) creates an invoice
  4. The invoice is submitted — sometimes same day, sometimes days later
  5. No systematic follow-up

At small scale, this works well enough. At 50+ trucks, it breaks down:

The result: carriers with 100+ trucks routinely leave $8,000–$15,000/month in detention uncollected — not because they can’t collect it, but because their manual process can’t keep up with the volume.

The Automated Detention Billing Stack

Full automation handles five steps without human intervention:

Step 1: Automatic Detection

Instead of waiting for a driver to report detention, the system monitors every stop using GPS geofence data. When a truck’s GPS shows it has been inside a facility geofence beyond the free time allowance, an event is automatically flagged.

No driver action. No dispatcher action. The system detects it from data already flowing from your telematics.

Step 2: Evidence Package Assembly

At the moment of detection, the system pulls:

This evidence package is assembled automatically and attached to the pending invoice. No one has to log into the telematics platform, export a report, and find the right load to attach it to.

Step 3: Invoice Population

Using the rate confirmation data — detention rate, free time allowance, claim window — the system calculates the detention amount and populates the invoice. The billing team sees a completed invoice ready for review, not a blank form.

Step 4: Deadline Tracking

The claim window from each rate confirmation is tracked automatically. Your billing team sees a countdown to the submission deadline next to every pending detention event. Alerts fire before the window closes.

Step 5: Automated Follow-Up

After submission, the system tracks payment status and triggers follow-up workflows at pre-configured intervals (Day 7, Day 15, Day 30). Unpaid invoices escalate automatically rather than waiting for someone to remember to follow up.

Tools That Support Automated Detention Billing

ELD / Telematics Platforms (Detection Layer)

Your telematics system is the data source. Motive (formerly KeepTruckin) and Samsara both generate the GPS and ELD data needed for detention documentation. Most carriers already have one of these.

What telematics platforms generally don’t do: alert you when detention occurs, assemble the evidence package, calculate the amount owed, or generate the invoice. That’s where dedicated tooling picks up.

TMS Platforms (Billing Layer)

Most TMS platforms include accessorial billing modules. The challenge is that TMS accessorial billing typically requires manual input — someone still has to detect the detention event, enter the times, and trigger the invoice.

Some newer TMS platforms are building telematics integrations that can auto-populate detention from GPS data, but this capability varies significantly by platform and is rarely the core product focus.

Dedicated Detention Automation (Full Stack)

Purpose-built detention automation tools connect directly to your telematics data, handle detection through follow-up, and generate the evidence package as part of the workflow. This is the stack that produces 80%+ collection rates — not because the product is aggressive, but because it removes every manual step that causes detention to go uncollected.

Dwell is built for this workflow and integrates with Motive at launch. Join the waitlist to see what your fleet is currently leaving uncollected.

Building a Semi-Automated Process Without Dedicated Tools

If you’re not ready for dedicated automation, here’s how to get most of the benefit with your existing telematics and TMS:

Configure Geofence Alerts

Most telematics platforms (including Motive) allow you to set up geofence alerts for specific facilities. When a truck enters or exits a geofenced area, you receive an alert. Set these up for your high-detention facilities.

Configure the alert to fire when a truck has been inside the geofence for longer than your standard free time (2 hours). This alert becomes your detection trigger.

Build a Detention Tracking Dashboard

Create a simple spreadsheet or TMS field set that captures:

Review this daily. Anything with a deadline within 24 hours gets submitted immediately.

Standardize Evidence Attachment

For every detention event, the process is: pull the telematics report for that stop → attach to invoice → submit. Build this as a standing procedure, not an occasional task.

What Automation Pays for Itself

At $150 average detention per event and 470 events per month for a 100-truck fleet:

Collection RateMonthly RevenueAnnual Revenue
45% (industry average)$31,725$380,700
70% (partial automation)$49,350$592,200
80% (full automation)$56,400$676,800
Improvement (45% → 80%)+$24,675/month+$296,100/year

At Dwell’s pricing ($39/month + up to 4% per invoice capped at $25), the platform costs roughly $39 + (35 paying invoices × $6 avg fee) = ~$250/month against $24,675 in additional collected revenue. The math works at any fleet size above about 15 trucks.

Automate what you just read about.

Dwell connects to your Motive account, detects detention automatically, and builds the evidence package before a dispute happens. No new hardware. We make money only when you do.