Guides
Demurrage glossary
The words fuel carriers and buyers use for waiting time, and how Demurly uses them.
The charge
- Demurrage
- A charge for a driver's time waiting beyond the free time, at a terminal (loading) or at the drop (delivering). The carrier bills it to the fuel buyer by the hour.
- What is demurrage in fuel hauling?
- Detention
- Another name, common in trucking, for the same thing: paid waiting time past the free time. Some contracts use detention for the delivery end and demurrage for the terminal end; Demurly treats both as a wait.
- Accessorial chargealso Accessorial
- A charge on top of the freight rate for extra work or time, such as waiting. Demurrage and detention are accessorial charges.
- Free time
- The waiting time the fuel buyer doesn't pay for (often 60 or 120 minutes). Only the time after it is billed.
- Billable time
- The wait minus the free time. Demurly charges it in 15-minute steps, rounded up.
- Hourly ratealso Demurrage rate
- What the carrier charges per hour of billable time: its rate agreed with that buyer, else its default rate.
- Maximum rate
- The most per hour a fuel buyer will pay. In Demurly a charge above it is flagged, and the carrier is warned before sending it.
- Payment terms: free time and maximum rate
- Payment terms
- The terms a fuel buyer pays demurrage under: the free time it expects and the most it pays per hour, for all carriers or for one.
- Payment terms: free time and maximum rate
Places and paperwork
- Terminal
- A fuel terminal, where trucks load at the rack. In Demurly, any site where drivers wait, with an outline (geofence) and a time zone.
- Rackalso Rack time, Loading rack
- The loading rack at a terminal, where the truck fills. "Rack time" is the wait to load.
- Bulk plant
- A smaller storage and loading site, often run by a distributor, where trucks load or unload away from a major terminal.
- Drop
- The delivery point, such as a station or bulk plant, where the load is dropped. Drivers can wait there too.
- TCNalso Terminal control number
- Terminal control number: the number the IRS gives each registered fuel terminal. Demurly's terminal search uses the IRS list.
- BOLalso Bill of lading
- Bill of lading: the shipping document for the load, with its own number. Drivers often photograph it as evidence of when they loaded.
- Load number
- The carrier's or buyer's number for the load or order, used to match a charge to an invoice.
Evidence
- Geofence
- An outline drawn around a terminal on a map. A truck's GPS inside it counts as being at the terminal; leaving it can end a wait on its own.
- Terminals and geofences
- Zone
- An extra area outside a terminal's outline that still counts as being at the terminal, such as the line at the gate or a staging lot.
- Terminals and geofences
- GPS evidence
- The trail of GPS points a driver's phone records during a wait, checked for gaps, jumps and whether the wait started and ended at the site.
- Why a wait ended, and what the GPS evidence says
- Automatic stop
- A wait that ends on its own because the truck's GPS shows it has left the terminal, backdated to when it left.
- Why a wait ended
- ELDalso Electronic logging device
- Electronic logging device: the truck's gateway, such as Samsara or Motive, which reports where the truck is. Connections to Demurly are coming.
Billing and approval
- Carrier
- The trucking company whose driver waited. It records the wait and bills the charge.
- Fuel buyeralso Customer, Shipper
- The company that ordered the fuel and pays the charge: a distributor, retailer or fleet. Also called the customer or shipper.
- Approval
- The fuel buyer agreeing to a charge. An approved charge can be paid, in Demurly or outside it.
- Review and approve a charge
- Dispute
- The fuel buyer telling the carrier what's wrong with a charge (the time, the rate, the evidence, or the whole charge), sometimes with an amount it would pay instead.
- Disputes
- Escalation
- A carrier standing by a disputed charge. The buyer then accepts it or keeps the dispute, which closes the charge unpaid.
- Disputes
- EDI 214
- A standard electronic shipment status message (arrived, departed). In Demurly a carrier's 214s can open and close waits.
- EDI with Demurly
- EDI 210
- A standard electronic freight invoice. Demurly can send one for each approved charge.
- EDI with Demurly
- 997also Functional acknowledgment
- A functional acknowledgment: the EDI message that says another message was received and accepted or rejected.
Building on Demurly? The developer glossary adds where each term shows up in the API.