Who it is for — drayage and dispatch

Two clocks on every container.

Demurrage runs while the box is at the terminal. Detention runs while the box has been pulled out and not given back. They start at different events, they end with different parties, and they arrive as different invoices — so counting them with one number gets one of them wrong every time. Four of the eleven steps in a forwarder’s day belong to this yard.

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Clocks per container

Demurrage from discharge, stopped at gate-out. Detention while the box is out of the terminal.

Items §541.6 requires

Every carrier D&D invoice checked against all twenty, with the clause number beside each one.

This yard’s day

Four steps of the eleven, and the board they all end on.

Ordered by the cost of leaving them alone. The right column states what each one costs if it is left unattended.

Container free time

4 containers are past free time — detention is accruing

Past free time. Two days left. Gated out without a VGM. And separately, the boxes pulled before the ERD: detention is already running on a container that has not sailed, and it appears on no arrival list anywhere.

The second clock is the one nobody counts, because the box is no longer at the terminal to be looked at.

The truck did not come

Trucking orders past the collection time with no word from the carrier

Pickups whose time has passed with no contact from the driver, and the ones due inside the next twelve hours so that they can be moved before they join the first list.

A pickup that fails without saying so is a free day spent, and free days are the only part of this job that cannot be bought back.

The carrier’s D&D invoice

3 carrier demurrage invoices are still inside the 30-day window to dispute, the first closing in 4 days

The window to dispute closes at thirty days and the queue counts down to the first one. Separately, §541.7 gives the carrier thirty days from the last day charged to issue the invoice at all, and that one is worked out by date rather than argued about.

§541.5: failure to include the required information “eliminates any obligation of the billed party to pay.” A missing item is not an argument that has to be won.

Arrived, and not released

Past the ETA with no arrival recorded, and arrived but not customs-released

Containers past their ETA with no arrival recorded come before tomorrow’s. Arrived and not customs-released is its own line, because it is the one that cannot be dispatched against.

A box customs has not released cannot be pulled, and demurrage does not pause while the release is awaited.

The day, spread across trucks and drivers

Today’s work, assigned to trucks and drivers

The day’s work on one board, assigned to trucks and drivers, with the field app on the other end: barcode scanning, photo, signature and GPS on the proof of delivery, an offline queue for the yard with no signal, and four languages.

Not one of the eleven, but this yard’s own. Waiting time comes back as a charge line on the shipment, so it reaches the invoice instead of a text message nobody can find in March.

What this yard switches on

Two systems, three extensions, and a short list of what stays off.

A system that is off has no menus, rather than greyed-out ones, and is not billed.

SCM

The base · 41 screens

The shipment every move is charged to, the customer card with credit terms, month-end billing and the job’s profit while the job is open. Hired trucking is one of the five modules, so a run that is subcontracted does not fall outside the record.

WMS

Dock to signature · 30 screens

Pickup and delivery runs and the field app — eleven of those thirty screens are the app in a driver’s hand. Barcode scan with the browser’s reader and a zxing fallback, photo, signature and GPS on the POD, and an offline queue so a scan taken with no signal is not a scan lost.

Containers

Extension

The two clocks, boxes pulled before the ERD counted on their own, and the carrier’s D&D invoice audited against the twenty items of 46 CFR §541.6 with a dispute letter written under §541.5. This is the extension this page is mostly about.

Dispatch

Extension

The day’s work spread across trucks and drivers on one board, with the field app on the other end. For a yard that owns its trucks, this is the screen the morning happens on.

Connect

Extension

Container tracking, so the clocks start from an event and not from someone remembering to type a date. QuickBooks both ways: invoices and supplier bills out, payments read back to flip an invoice to paid.

What stays off

And why it is not billed

ABI, unless the yard prepares the filings itself rather than working behind a broker. QMS, unless it prices from rate tables rather than a per-move tariff. Parcel, unless it sends parcels.

One real screen

Free time, counted as two clocks.

The same four containers, on the two clocks that bill. One of them is running on a box that has not sailed.

Fig. 1 — Two clocks, not one column.46 CFR §541.6 · lib/dd.ts

The handover is the part a wall calendar cannot hold: in one movement at the gate the box stops accruing the first charge and starts accruing the second.

Containers — free time · 02 September 4 of 9 containers

Container free time — demurrage and detention, 02 September
Container	Where	Demurrage	Detention	Counterparty
MSCU 214837-6Discharged 26 Aug	Terminal	Day 6 of 5 free PastAccruing	Not startedStill gated in	Terminal
TCLU 733190-2Gated out 29 Aug	Out	Stopped at gate-out4 days used	Day 4 PastYou hold the box	Carrier
TGHU 402118-5Pulled before ERD	Out	Not startedNever at the terminal	Day 2Has not sailed	Carrier
CAIU 990447-1Discharged 31 Aug	Terminal	2 days left	Not started	Terminal

4 containers are past free time — detention is accruingUrgent

The third row is the one no other list holds

A box pulled before the ERD has detention running while it has not sailed, and it appears on no arrival table at either end. It is counted here on its own, because the only screen that could notice it is this one.

Then the invoice arrives, and it is read too

A carrier D&D invoice is compared against the twenty items 46 CFR §541.6 requires, clause number by clause number, and the applicable items are picked by direction so an export is never failed for missing a discharge port. Where items are missing, the dispute letter is drafted and quotes §541.5: failure to include the required information “eliminates any obligation of the billed party to pay.”

§541.7 gives thirty days from the last day charged for the invoice to be issued at all, and that is computed by date. One rule the audit does not cite: §541.4 was vacated on 23 September 2025, and a letter built on it would be built on nothing.

How the audit works →

Get a demo

Forty-five minutes on a real shipment.

One container is taken from discharge to gate-out to the invoice, on a demonstration company or on a copy of the yard’s own spreadsheet. A disputed D&D invoice is welcome. The session ends with a written quotation.

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