The dependency, and why it is real rather than habit #
Article 13 of the CMR Convention entitles the consignee to require the carrier to deliver, against a receipt, the second copy of the consignment note and the goods. That receipt is the carrier's evidence of performance, and most customers' own terms make producing it a condition of paying. So the sequence is fixed.
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Deliver
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Retrieve the signature
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Match it to the job
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Bill
Break the chain at step two and the invoice either waits or goes out unsupported, which is worse, because an unsupported invoice that gets queried resets the clock and costs a credit note. The reasons proofs go missing, and where the chasing actually is, are set out on getting PODs back.
The payment clock, precisely #
GOV.UK is specific about what happens when nothing is agreed. If you do not agree a payment date, payment is late 30 days after either the customer gets the invoice or you deliver the goods or provide the service. Public authorities must usually pay within 30 days; business to business terms can run to 60 days, and longer only where that is fair to both parties.
What the law lets you charge #
| Charge | Amount |
|---|---|
| Statutory interest, business to business | 8 per cent plus the Bank of England base rate |
| Base rate as it stands | 3.75 per cent, held on 17 September 2026, so statutory interest of 11.75 per cent |
| Fixed sum, debt up to 999.99 pounds | 40 pounds |
| Fixed sum, debt of 1,000 to 9,999.99 pounds | 70 pounds |
| Fixed sum, debt of 10,000 pounds or more | 100 pounds |
| Recovery costs above the fixed sum | Reasonable costs, each time you try to recover the debt |
The fixed sum can be charged once per payment. Most small operators never charge any of it, for a reason that has nothing to do with the law and everything to do with wanting the customer back next month. That is a legitimate commercial choice. It is a better one when it is made deliberately rather than because nobody has the invoice dates to hand.
The matching problem underneath #
Billing in haulage is a three way match, repeated hundreds of times a month.
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The job
With the rate that was agreed when it was quoted.
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The proof of delivery
With a date and a signature.
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The invoice
Which GOV.UK requires to carry a unique identification number, the parties, a clear description of what is being charged for, the supply date, the invoice date, the amounts, any VAT and the total owed.
Every one of those three carries the customer reference, the job number and the date. They have to agree, and when they disagree somebody has to work out which is wrong. That is reconciliation work: high volume, low skill, and unforgiving, because an error found by the customer costs more than an error found in house.
There is an interesting rule sitting next to this. GOV.UK's VAT record keeping guidance requires that where multiple software systems are used, they must be linked digitally.
you cannot manually transfer this data, or copy and paste, between software
That is a rule about VAT, not about transport, but it names the exact habit that makes a transport office slow: the same figures typed twice because two systems do not speak.
Which parts of invoicing against PODs run on rules #
Runs on rules
- Knowing which delivered jobs have a POD and are ready to bill, which is a set intersection
- Knowing which delivered jobs are blocked and why, which is the same list inverted
- Matching the rate on the job to the rate that was quoted, which is a comparison
- Checking an invoice carries everything GOV.UK requires, which is a field check
- Working out which invoices are past their due date, and by how long, which is date arithmetic
- Calculating statutory interest and the applicable fixed sum, which is published rates and bands
Needs a person
- Deciding whether to charge interest on a good customer, which is a relationship decision
- Deciding whether a disputed charge should be conceded, which is a commercial call
- Deciding when a debt stops being worth chasing, which is nobody else's call
The same split appears in every trade that bills after the work rather than before it. Getting paid as a trade describes the identical pattern with different documents. What makes haulage harder is the volume: a trade might raise twenty invoices a month, a transport office raises hundreds, each waiting on a piece of paper it does not control.
The chasing payment calculator puts a figure on what the delay between delivery and payment is costing, and the cost of admin time calculator does the same for the matching. The front end of the same cycle, where the rate that has to be matched is first agreed, is on rate requests and quoting.