Detention. Lumper. TONU. Re-delivery. Chassis split. Inside delivery. The charges themselves aren’t the surprise anymore. The surprise is how casually they still blow up otherwise solid freight.

Most of us can price an FTL lane within a few percentage points. We can negotiate a linehaul like adults. But one messy pickup, one incorrect appointment, one BOL that doesn’t match the PO, and the margin disappears into accessorial noise.

We keep treating accessorials like exceptions

Accessorials keep happening because, in a lot of operations, they’re still managed like they’re rare. They’re not. They’re the predictable outcome of process gaps that show up every day:

• Appointment rules live in emails, not in the TMS. So dispatch guesses, the driver waits, detention hits, and nobody can prove fault.
• Warehouse reality doesn’t match what we sold. We promise drop-and-hook, but the shipper is live load only, and we pay for the extra hour.
• Receivers change delivery windows without updating the rate confirmation. The carrier bills re-delivery, we can’t validate it quickly, and we pay to keep the relationship.
• Proof is scattered. The POD is in one portal, ELD timestamps are with the carrier, check-in notes are in someone’s inbox, and the lumper receipt is a photo in a group chat.

Then we do the worst part: we dispute late. Not because we’re lazy, but because we’re busy. By the time someone looks at a $175 detention invoice, the trail is cold, the facility contact has changed shifts, and the carrier has moved on.

What makes it stick around is incentives. Carriers need to get paid. Brokers and 3PLs need to protect tender acceptance. Shippers want service and low linehaul. Accessorials become the pressure-release valve where cost goes to die.

The industry is shifting, and it’s not in our favor

We’re operating in a market where pricing is tight and tolerance is low. Even when linehaul softens, accessorial leakage doesn’t. It often gets worse because everyone’s trying to protect their slice.

A few trends are pushing this:

• Shippers are enforcing compliance harder. Appointment requirements, check-in procedures, and drop trailer programs are more structured, but they aren’t always communicated cleanly to the people scheduling moves.
• Warehouses are running hotter. Many DCs have less slack, so a late inbound doesn’t just mean a late unload. It means a reschedule, more dwell, and more re-delivery exposure.
• Claims and audit scrutiny are rising. More teams are running freight audit and pay processes that demand documentation, and if we can’t produce it fast, we lose the dispute by default.

From what we see across 3PLs and shipper transportation teams, accessorials can easily represent 1% to 5% of total transportation spend. For a $20M freight budget, that’s $200K to $1M. And because these charges come after the linehaul is “won,” they hit margin directly.

Detention alone is a repeat offender. It’s common to see 60 to 120 minutes of free time in contracts, with detention billing starting at $75 to $150 per hour after that. If we’re eating even two hours a day across a small network, the annual impact gets ugly fast.

The path forward is boring, measurable, and effective

There isn’t a silver bullet. There is a playbook.

Start by treating accessorials like a process, not a pile of invoices.

1) Define what “valid” looks like for each charge Write down the minimum documentation required to approve, dispute, or pass through each accessorial. Not a novel, just a one-pager.

Example for detention:

• Arrival timestamp source (ELD, geofence, check-in log)
• Facility check-in and check-out times
• Appointment time and any reschedule proof
• Rate confirmation or contract clause that states free time and hourly rate

If we can’t get those pieces, we don’t auto-approve. We hold, request, and track.

2) Put charge expectations into the load before it moves The cleanest accessorial is the one we never argue about. That means capturing facility rules at tender:

• Is it live load or drop?
• Appointment required? How far in advance?
• Lumper policy? Who pays? Is an EFS code needed?
• Driver check-in process? Specific entrance? Hours?

If our TMS can’t store these as structured fields, we still need a shared facility profile somewhere the whole team uses.

3) Shorten the dispute cycle Most disputes fail because they’re slow. Build a simple SLA:

• 24 hours to collect proof after delivery
• 72 hours to dispute with carrier or shipper
• 7 days to resolve or escalate

When we move fast, we win more disputes and pay fewer “keep the peace” charges.

4) Measure the leakage like you measure tender acceptance Track accessorials by:

• Facility
• Customer
• Carrier
• Mode (LTL vs FTL vs drayage)
• Reason code

Then rank the top 10. Not by count, by dollars. The same three facilities are usually responsible for the majority of pain.

If you want a shortcut, tools like Debales.ai can help classify accessorials, match them to the right load documentation, and flag repeat offenders so we stop re-learning the same lesson every week.

Things we can do this week that actually move the needle

Let’s keep it practical. Here are five actions a logistics manager or 3PL ops lead can run in the next five business days.

Pick one charge and get strict

Choose detention or lumper, not everything at once. Define the approval checklist and enforce it starting immediately. You’ll get pushback for a week. Then the noise drops.

Build a top-10 facility watchlist

Pull the last 60 to 90 days of accessorial invoices. Sort by dollars. Make a list of the top 10 facilities and the most common charge at each. Share it with scheduling and customer success. This alone usually cuts repeat issues because people stop walking in blind.

Add two fields to your load intake

Even if you’re working out of a TMS plus spreadsheets, add:

• Appointment required (yes/no)
• Lumper policy (shipper pays/receiver pays/carrier pays/unknown)

Unknown is not acceptable for high-volume customers. Force the conversation early.

Pre-wire your rate confirmations

If you’re brokering, update your rate confirmation template with clear accessorial terms: detention free time, hourly rate, required proof, and timeframe to submit. It won’t stop every bad invoice, but it gives you leverage when disputes happen.

Run a 15-minute weekly accessorial standup

One meeting. Same agenda:

• Top 5 charges last week by dollars
• Which were avoidable
• One fix per top facility

Keep it short. Make it routine. Accessorials thrive in silence.

The real shift is this: accessorials are telling us the truth

Accessorials aren’t random. They’re operational feedback with a price tag.

When we treat them like annoying paperwork, we pay forever. When we treat them like signals, we find the broken handoffs between shipper, warehouse, carrier, and our own team.

The challenge for our industry isn’t eliminating accessorials. It’s earning the right to say, with data, which ones are legitimate, which ones are preventable, and which facilities need a new playbook. Once we do that, margins stop being a mystery and start being something we can actually manage.