How to Read Your Weekly Settlement (Without Getting Shorted)

Your settlement is the weekly truth of your business — and settlement errors are common enough that reading it line by line pays better per minute than driving. Here's what each block means and what to check.

The blocks of a settlement

• Gross revenue — every load delivered in the period, at the agreed rate. Check it against your own records load by load, not as a lump sum.
• Accessorial pay — detention, layover, extra stops, TONU. The most commonly missing line: if you waited 4 hours and it's not here, that's your money.
• Deductions — fuel advances, insurance, trailer rent, ELD, dispatch fees. Verify recurring ones didn't double-charge and one-time ones actually end.
• Escrow/maintenance holds — money moved, not money spent. Track the running balance; you're owed it back eventually.
• Net pay — what actually hits the bank.

The three checks that catch most errors

First: does every delivered load appear, at the rate on the rate con? Second: are the miles right — was pay calculated on the miles you agreed to, not a shorter practical-miles figure? Third: do this week's deductions match last week's, and can you explain every difference?

Keep your own books

The only way to audit a settlement is to have your own number for what the week should have paid — before the settlement arrives. That means logging every load with its rate, miles and accessorials as it happens, not reconstructing the week from memory on Friday.

Whether you do that in a notebook, a spreadsheet, or an app that builds the weekly settlement for you automatically, the habit is the same: your records first, their paperwork second.