Guide · Demurrage management
Reducing Logistics Demurrage Costs: A How-To Guide
Demurrage and detention quietly drain margin from logistics operators. Every minute a driver waits at a consignee, distribution centre, or port is a minute you're paying for and probably not invoicing for. This guide shows how automation closes that gap end-to-end.
What "demurrage management" actually means
In logistics, demurrage is the charge a carrier is contractually entitled to when a vehicle (or container) is held beyond the agreed free time at a load or discharge point. Managing it well means three things:
- Recording arrival and departure accurately and incontestably.
- Triggering a claim the moment the contractual free-time threshold is crossed.
- Settling that claim with the counterparty quickly, with evidence attached.
Why most operators leave money on the table
- Drivers forget to log waiting time, or log it from memory hours later.
- Paper PODs and WhatsApp screenshots are easy to dispute and slow to chase.
- Claims sit in someone's inbox for weeks before being raised, and disputes balloon.
- Finance has no clean line of sight from "driver waited" to "money received".
A modern, automated workflow
Rekuver was built around a simple pattern that any operator can adopt — whether they use Rekuver or not.
1. Geofence the site
Every distribution centre and customer site has a verified coordinate and a radius. When the driver's device enters the radius, a wait clock can start automatically. No human action required.
2. Verify the arrival
Geofencing alone can be spoofed. Pair it with a short, single-use code emailed (or SMS'd) to a known contact at the site. The driver enters the code, the system hashes and timestamps it. Now the arrival is counterparty-confirmed.
3. Track waiting time without killing the battery
Poll GPS only when the app is visible, throttle while the vehicle is stationary, and pause when the device loses focus. A driver app that drains a phone in two hours doesn't get used.
4. Capture evidence on the spot
A photo of the trailer, the loading bay, or the paperwork — stored in a private, tenant-scoped bucket and signed on demand — turns "we waited three hours" into something a counterparty can't reasonably dispute.
5. Auto-generate the claim
The moment waiting time exceeds the contractual free period, the system should draft the invoice using the rate card for that customer and that lane. Humans review and send; they don't calculate.
6. Settle through a real payments rail
Tie the claim to a payment link or direct debit so the customer can settle in one click. Reconcile automatically. Disputes become the exception, not the workflow.
A note on fraud resistance
Any system that triggers money movement attracts gaming — by drivers, by sites, occasionally by both. The three controls that matter:
- Single-use, short-lived verification codes hashed at rest.
- GPS + device-time logged on every action, immutable once written.
- Manager review of any session flagged by simple heuristics (e.g. arrival outside geofence, unusually long wait).
How much can you realistically recover?
Operators we work with typically find that 30–50% of billable waiting time was previously unrecorded or unbilled. The recovery isn't from charging more — it's from charging for what was already owed.
Where Rekuver fits
Rekuver implements the workflow above out of the box: geofenced centres, verified arrivals, battery-aware wait timers, evidence capture, auto-generated claims, and Stripe-powered settlement. If you'd rather build it yourself, the pattern above is the one to copy.