Most “missing” loads are not missing. They are sitting in the next period because the trigger that makes a load eligible — delivery date, customer-invoice date, customer-paid date, or scanned-paperwork date — has not fired yet, or because they scanned after the cutoff printed on the header. A load that is absent from this statement and present on the next one with the same rate is lag. A load that is absent from this statement and absent from the next ones, after the trigger has fired, is a shortage. The header tells you which trigger and which cutoff you are on. Nothing on the page can show you a row that was never built, which is why your own trip list is the only way to see the hole.
The header decides eligibility; the body only lists survivors
A settlement header carries a period start, a period end, a settlement date, and usually a paperwork cutoff. Those four fields are not decoration. They are the filter. A load you delivered inside the period is not automatically eligible. It becomes eligible when the trigger the lease uses has fired, and when the documents that trigger requires have landed before the cutoff.
The how-to-read guide in this set tells you to start with the header. This page is what the header is for. If you cannot find, in writing, which trigger your carrier uses, you cannot interpret an absence. You can only be angry at it.
Four common triggers, and they do not mean “when I ran it”
Delivery date. The load becomes eligible when it is delivered, full stop. This is the closest trigger to “when I ran it,” and even it lags when delivery is after hours, when a receiver timestamps the next morning, or when a split delivery straddles midnight at period end.
Customer-invoice date. The load becomes eligible when the carrier bills the customer. Dispatch and billing are different queues. A delivered load sitting in billing because a rate was never confirmed, or because the customer’s reference is missing, will not make this statement no matter how finished the trip felt.
Customer-paid date. The load becomes eligible when the customer’s money lands. This is the paid-when-paid trigger, and it can put weeks between delivery and the row. In the United States, for relationships that Part 376 covers, payment to the lessor cannot be made contingent on documents beyond a short list and cannot wait on a clean bill of lading; a commercial paid-when-paid term and a document prerequisite the rule forbids are not the same thing. The truth-in-leasing guide in this set is that distinction.
Scanned-paperwork date. The load becomes eligible when the bill of lading, the signed delivery, the lumper receipt, the scale ticket — whatever the office has listed — hits the system. This is the trigger that produces the most honest lag, because a picture in your camera roll is not a scan in their system until it is.
Cutoff is a clock, not a judgement
A cutoff of Thursday 5 p.m. for a Friday settlement means a bill of lading photographed at 5:12 p.m. is next week’s paper, not this week’s argument. Cutoffs exist because someone has to freeze the batch. They are not a comment on whether you ran the load.
What is unfair is a cutoff you cannot see, or a cutoff that moves. The header should name it. If two consecutive statements have different cutoff rules and nobody told you, loads will chatter across the boundary and every one of them will look like a miss. Ask for the cutoff in the same sentence you ask for the trigger, and then keep it next to your own send-log: what you sent, to which address or portal, at which time.
The carrier may not, under the US truth-in-leasing payment rule that applies to covered leases, set a time limit for you to submit the required delivery documents as a prerequisite to being paid. A cutoff for which statement a load lands on is a batching rule. A cutoff that is used to refuse payment entirely is a different animal. Sort those two before you write.
Lag versus shortage versus an accessorial that stayed behind
Lag: the load is absent here and present on a later statement at the rate you expected. Your trip list plus the later statement close the loop. No dispute is required. A note to yourself is enough, so you do not raise the same load twice.
Shortage: the trigger has fired, the cutoff has passed, later statements have come and gone, and the load is still absent. That is money never added, and the pay-shortage guide in this set is the procedure. Bring the confirmation, the proof the trigger fired (delivery timestamp, invoice, payment, or scan receipt), and the statements that do not contain the row.
Accessorial left behind: the load row is present and an approved detention, TONU, layover or surcharge is not. That is not a missing load. That is the missing-accessorial problem, and it has its own guide in this set, because the row you would look at is a different row.
How to keep a trip list that can see a hole
The statement cannot show you a row that was never built. The only independent record is one you keep: date, load or pro number, origin and destination, your miles, arrival and departure at each stop, and when you sent the paperwork (method, time, destination). That list is also what makes a later lag visible as lag rather than as a win you forget to match.
Match weekly, not at year end. A load that lagged one statement is a note. A load that has lagged three is a shortage in slow motion. A year-end pile against a slip will not tell you which of those a hole was, because the slip does not carry load numbers.
If you produce statements for a fleet, the same discipline in reverse is the way to stop this email: generate the batch from the load record, freeze it at a named cutoff, and put the trigger and the cutoff on the header. Drivers who can see why a load is not on this page do not open a shortage file about a lag.
FAQ
Why is a load I already delivered not on this settlement?
Usually because the trigger that makes it eligible has not fired yet, or because the documents scanned after the cutoff on the header. Delivery, customer-invoice, customer-paid and scanned-paperwork are four different triggers. Find which one your carrier uses before you treat the absence as a shortage.
What is a settlement paperwork cutoff?
The freeze time for the batch. Paper that lands after it waits for the next statement. It is a clock, not a judgement about whether you ran the load. It should be printed on the header, and it should not silently move.
How do I tell lag from a missing load?
Lag shows up on a later statement at the expected rate. A shortage is still absent after the trigger has fired and later statements have been issued. Keep a trip list so you can see which of the two an absence is, because the current statement cannot show you a row it never built.
Can a carrier refuse to pay a load because the bill of lading was late?
Batching a late scan onto the next statement is a cutoff. Refusing payment entirely is a different act. In the United States, for leases Part 376 covers, the carrier may not set a time limit for submission of the required delivery documents as a prerequisite to payment. Confirm whether your lease is that kind of lease before you quote the rule.
The load is on the statement but detention is not. Is that this problem?
No. That is an approved accessorial that did not print, which is a different row and a different guide in this set. This page is for a load row that is absent entirely.
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