Best Accessorial & Detention Billing Software: 8 Picks 2027

The short answer for most small fleets

Buy a detention-capture tool when your problem is proof: you cannot show when a truck arrived at a customer and when it left. Buy a transportation management system (TMS) with invoicing when your problem is that charges, invoices and driver settlements sit in separate places. Accessorial and detention billing software is the set of features that records charges beyond the base rate, such as detention for time a driver waits past the agreed free time, and turns them into invoice lines backed by timestamps and contract terms.

Four of the eight tools below are built around detention capture from telematics or ELD data, so they are the starting point if wait time is your loss. The other four are one TMS that claims automatic detention tracking in its marketing copy (Alvys) and three small-fleet TMS products that publish prices but do not mention detention at all (TruckingOffice, Truckbase and Numeo One).

Key Takeaways

• Choose by data source first. A detention charge you cannot prove with arrival and departure times is the charge most likely to go unpaid.

• Detention is common and collection is weak. The independent research on both points the same way, as the benchmark figures below show.

• FleetOptos, DockChron, Bubba.ai and TrackFlo are detention-specific. None of them is a full TMS on the pages we opened.

• Alvys is the only TMS here that names detention and accessorial tracking, and its two pages give conflicting prices.

• TruckingOffice, Truckbase and Numeo One publish usable prices, but their pages do not mention detention or accessorial billing.

• Four of the eight publish no price at all. Get those quotes in writing, along with a clear answer to how a detention line reaches the invoice.

TL;DR: Pick the tool that proves the wait first, then the one that sends the invoice.

How we evaluated these tools

This is an informed buyer's guide built from public vendor pages and independent research. We did not run any of these products, and nothing below reports a hands-on result. Vendor statements are labeled as vendor claims, and our own judgment is labeled as our read. The weights in the table below reflect what matters to an owner or operations lead at a small carrier. They are our judgment, not a published industry standard.

Weighting proof first is deliberate. A product that handles invoices well but cannot show the wait still leaves you retyping charges and arguing with the shipper.

Why detention billing leaks money

Detention is a frequent charge, and the research on it is consistent about the payment gap. Detention in 2023: 39.3% of stops according to FreightWaves (2024), using American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) data.

ATRI's 2024 study, which covers 2023 operations, puts Direct detention expense: $3.6 billion and Lost productivity: $11.5 billion, and it reports that Detention invoices paid: under 50%, even though 94.5% of fleets charge detention fees, according to ATRI (2024).

DAT puts the total cost of detention at about $15 billion for 2023, according to DAT (2024).

Our read: those are industry totals, not your fleet's numbers. What they show is that detention is common and collection is low, so the gap is usually proof rather than the rate itself. A tool that cannot show the arrival time, the departure time and the contract term behind a line leaves you arguing from memory.

What each tool says it does

The matrix records what each vendor says on the pages we opened. A "Not stated" cell means the page does not say, not that the feature is absent, so ask the vendor before you assume either way. The first four rows are built around detention. For the other four, compare invoice output and the accounting path, because detention logic is not documented.

Vendor-by-vendor notes

Each profile separates what the vendor states from our read. Prices appear in the pricing section below, and each profile ends with the primary page we opened.

FleetOptos

Best fit: carriers already on Geotab telematics that want detention calculated from zone entry and exit events, with approved charges pushed to QuickBooks. The listing says the tool applies contract free-time allowances and hourly rates to generate billing recommendations.

Limitations: the listing publishes no price, shows no reviews, and does not explain the dwell calculation beyond its inputs. Its time-savings figure is the vendor's own claim: Vendor-claimed admin time: 5-10 hours weekly according to Geotab Marketplace (listing, undated).

Implementation: you need Geotab telematics with SDK access, and each customer's free-time and rate rules entered before the first bill goes out. The listing also describes AI-based flags for unusual dwell times, which gives a dispatcher a review queue. Approved charges go to QuickBooks in one step, so keep an approval step before anything posts.

Evidence: the FleetOptos listing on Geotab Marketplace.

DockChron

Best fit: Geotab users who want charges captured while the load moves, with invoices sent the same day the load is delivered. The listing describes this as a GPS-verified record that holds up in a dispute.

Limitations: the listing names Geotab as its only integration, lists no export format and no accounting system, and states no limitations. The same-day invoice claim is a vendor statement, not a measured result.

Implementation: connect Geotab first. The listing says the platform also reads rate confirmations, contracts and TMS records, so ask how those get loaded and who reviews a charge before it goes out.

Evidence: the DockChron listing on Geotab Marketplace.

Bubba.ai

Best fit: brokers and carriers booking loads from rate confirmations. The product reads detention terms from the confirmation when a load is booked directly and flags a claim while the truck is still at the facility.

Limitations: the page names no accounting or invoicing integration and describes no human review step. It says the claim "reaches the invoice" without explaining how. The page is written around the broker being notified, so a carrier billing its own shippers should confirm that the outputs fit that use.

Implementation: you need an ELD connection for geofence data and detention terms on file before arrival. The page lists Samsara, Motive, Geotab, Trimble and TruckX among supported ELDs, so confirm your device is covered before you plan around it.

Evidence: the Bubba.ai detention management page.

TrackFlo

Best fit: brokers who bill shippers for detention and want a ranked list of detention-eligible loads, totaled by customer and facility. The site says every feature is on every plan and there are no seat fees, but the page we opened gives no dollar price.

Limitations: only loads where the driver arrived on time count, so late-arrival loads are excluded. Very long stops are flagged for manual cleanup rather than counted, and the outputs are estimates of billable time multiplied by your rate. The page does not describe how bills get submitted.

Implementation: you need stop-level arrival and departure timing, since the page says missed departure pings distort dwell time, plus your detention threshold and rate.

Evidence: the TrackFlo Detention Collection Dashboard page.

Alvys

Best fit: carriers or 3PLs that want dispatch, invoicing and driver settlements in one system and whose marketing copy promises automatic detention and accessorial tracking.

Limitations: the pricing page quotes by load volume and does not mention detention or accessorials. The free-trial page gives a per-load figure that the pricing page does not repeat. Neither page explains how detention is triggered or invoiced, so ask Alvys to reconcile the two prices and document the logic in writing.

Implementation: the accounting and payments module lists invoicing, billing, IFTA reporting and driver, agent and carrier settlement. Ask which plan includes customer invoicing and accessorial rules, because the pricing page does not make that clear in its text.

Evidence: the Alvys pricing page and the Alvys free-trial page.

TruckingOffice

Best fit: owner-operators and small fleets that need dispatch and mileage tools on a low published tier, where detention is a minor line item.

Limitations: the pricing page does not mention detention, accessorial charges or invoicing for any plan. The Basic tier covers full truckload only, and Pro adds LTL. PC*MILER routing is a paid add-on.

Implementation: confirm in writing whether detention can be a separate line on a customer invoice, and whether LTL accessorials require the Pro tier.

Evidence: the TruckingOffice pricing page.

Truckbase

Best fit: asset-based carriers that want invoicing and driver settlements in the same system. The page describes instant invoicing, document filtering and an overdue-invoice view, and it lists factoring integration as coming soon.

Limitations: no detention or accessorial charge is mentioned anywhere on the pages we opened. The only published price is a minimum, and the other pricing units are quoted on request.

Implementation: ask how a detention line is added to a load and whether the invoice packet can attach arrival and departure times as proof.

Evidence: the Truckbase pricing page.

Numeo One

Best fit: owners of small fleets within the published Numeo One truck cap who want a per-truck TMS with a clear monthly minimum.

Limitations: the pricing page does not mention detention or accessorial features. Fleets above the cap move to custom enterprise pricing, and the Spot plans are priced per dispatcher seat, which is a different product from the TMS.

Implementation: confirm whether detention can be recorded against a stop and exported to your accounting tool, and what overage costs once you pass the cap.

Evidence: the Numeo pricing page and the Numeo guide to small-carrier TMS software.

We looked at Rose Rocket and left it out. Its visible pricing page lists invoicing and freight audit but no detention or accessorial features, and part of the page content was truncated, so we could not confirm the rest. See the Rose Rocket pricing page.

Pricing and five-truck math

Pricing checked October 25, 2026. Every figure below comes from a vendor page we opened that day. Any vendor without a published price is marked Quote-based, and we do not estimate prices from memory.

Read the math with three cautions. First, the per-truck and minimum prices look cheap next to the detention specialists, but none of the three TMS products here shows detention logic, so the lower cost does not buy the proof you need. Second, the Alvys figure is per load, so the annual cost depends entirely on volume, and the 100-load row is an illustration, not a quote. Third, the four quote-based tools have no published cost, so request a written quote for your truck count before you compare them with the rest.

Here is what a missed detention line costs in dollars. Assume a five-truck carrier runs 60 loads a month, and 12 of them keep a driver 3.5 hours at a receiver against a 2-hour free-time term, which leaves 1.5 billable hours per affected load. At an assumed $75 an hour, that is 12 × 1.5 = 18 billable hours, or $1,350 a month and $16,200 a year. If the carrier collects 40% of those charges, which is in line with ATRI's finding that fewer than half are paid, the shortfall is $9,720 a year. A telematics-based build would start from Geotab's Zone.mustIdentifyStops flag, which sets up zone-stop reporting, and then read the ExceptionEvent.duration property to measure each wait.

Build it yourself or buy a managed workflow

For many owners, the real alternative is a spreadsheet or a no-code chain built in Zapier, Make or n8n. Those tools can support run histories, retries, error branches and audit evidence when they are configured well. What you own is the design: monitoring that catches a run that failed silently, idempotency so a retried event does not create two detention lines, escalation when a dwell record is missing, access controls on contract data, and maintenance when the telematics API changes.

US Tech Automations describes its service as a managed build rather than a self-serve tool, so the workflows below are proposed, configurable designs, not deployed systems or customer results. Workflow A, detention capture, would start with a trigger: a geofence entry and exit record for a customer site, pulled from your telematics provider's export or API. That requires API or export access and a confirmed list of event fields before anything is built. The action compares dwell minutes with the free-time and hourly-rate terms stored in a contract table kept in Google Sheets, then drafts a detention line for the load. The output is a pending line in QuickBooks, which the vendor's homepage names among its integrations. A person reviews each draft before it is sent, and loads with very long dwell or a missing exit timestamp go to a manual queue rather than auto-drafting.

Workflow B, terms capture, starts when a new rate confirmation arrives in a mailbox you connect. The action extracts the free-time, rate and layover fields into the contract table and flags any field it cannot find. The output is a row in that table, not a bill. The review point is a person checking the first confirmation for each new customer against the PDF and sampling later ones, because an extraction error would carry into every detention line that depends on it. The homepage's own sample support workflow shows a person approving, editing or rejecting each draft before anything sends, and that is the pattern we would propose here.

When NOT to use US Tech Automations: skip a custom build if your TMS already bills detention and you only need cleaner invoice formatting. Skip it if you bill a few detention lines a month and a dispatcher can time them by hand. And if you run Geotab and want a vendor-maintained product rather than a build you own, FleetOptos is simpler to adopt on our read.

Who this is for

Geotab-equipped carrier with written free-time terms: start with FleetOptos or DockChron.
Red flags: no Geotab telematics, free-time terms that live only in dispatch notes, or mostly brokered freight with no truck-level data.

Broker or carrier booking from rate confirmations: start with Bubba.ai.
Red flags: no ELD connection, and no accounting integration that matches your billing system.

Broker billing shippers in bulk: start with TrackFlo.
Red flags: you are a carrier with no customer billing to do, or many of your loads are late arrivals, which the tool excludes from detention totals.

Carrier or 3PL that wants TMS and invoicing together: start with Alvys.
Red flags: you need a firm price before budgeting and the vendor cannot confirm the detention logic in writing.

Owner-operator or small asset fleet that wants dispatch on a low tier: start with TruckingOffice, Truckbase or Numeo One, after confirming detention in writing.
Red flags: detention is your main leak, and none of the three shows a detention feature on the pages we opened.

What to confirm before you sign

Common mistakes

• Leaving free-time terms in dispatch notes. Write the free time and hourly rate into the rate confirmation before the load moves.

• Buying a TMS for its invoice screen when your real gap is missing exit timestamps.

• Counting a vendor's time savings as your own. The 5-10 hours a week figure from FleetOptos is its claim, not a measured result for your fleet.

• Ignoring exclusions. TrackFlo counts only loads where the driver arrived on time, so its recoverable total will be smaller than a raw dwell report.

• Skipping the closed-load test. Trace three recent detention loads from the event to the invoice line to the payment before you sign anything.

Questions buyers ask

Can a TMS replace a detention tool?

Only if its detention logic is documented, and none of the TMS products here documents that logic on the pages we opened. Alvys claims automatic detention tracking, but neither of its pages explains the trigger, so ask for that in writing before you treat the TMS as your detention system.

Do I need telematics to bill detention?

No, but you need arrival and departure times from some source. Driver check-in entries can work when they are consistent, and telematics removes the dependence on someone remembering to log the times.

Why do four of these tools publish no price?

None of the pages we opened for the four detention specialists gives a dollar figure. Budget them as quote-based and request a written price for your truck count before you compare them with the tools that publish prices.

Is a spreadsheet enough to start?

For a few loads a month, a spreadsheet with arrival time, departure time, free-time term and rate can prove a charge. It breaks when volume grows or when someone forgets to log a departure, which is the failure that the telematics-based tools are built to remove.

Where does US Tech Automations fit?

It fits when you want a configured workflow that connects your telematics export, your contract terms and QuickBooks, with a person approving each draft, and you accept that the build and its upkeep are yours to fund. It does not fit if you want a ready-made detention product with a published price.

Pick by the gap you can prove

If your gap is wait time you cannot prove, start with a detention tool tied to telematics and get its price in writing. If your gap is invoices, start with a TMS and confirm its detention and accessorial lines before you sign. Either way, pull three closed loads and trace each one from the event to the invoice line to the payment before you commit. For a configured version of the workflows above, see how US Tech Automations configures this.