Freight terms, defined plainly.

The paper that moves with the load — and the chasing it causes when it doesn't.

Bill of Lading (BOL)

The contract between shipper and carrier for a specific load. It lists what was handed over, where it's going, and on what terms. No BOL, no proof the load existed.

Proof of Delivery (POD)

The receiver's signature or confirmation that the freight arrived. The document that closes the invoice — and the one most often chased by phone at 4:55 pm.

Rate Confirmation

The carrier's written acceptance of a quoted rate before pickup. The number finance checks the invoice against — when the invoice ever gets checked.

Insurance Certificate

Proof a carrier carries the required liability coverage. Certificates expire quietly, and collecting current ones is a job nobody was hired to do.

Commercial Invoice

The customs document cross-border shipments clear on. Wrong or late, the load sits at the border while the meter runs.

Where the rates come from — and where they leak.

Line-Haul

The base charge for moving freight from origin to destination — before anything extra gets added.

Accessorial

Any charge beyond the line-haul: detention, liftgate, re-delivery, extra stops. Individually small, collectively where invoice surprises live.

Fuel Surcharge (FSC)

A floating percentage added to rates to track diesel prices. It moves monthly and is rarely re-checked.

Spot Rate

The price for a load bought one at a time, today. Set by whoever's fastest on the phone — unless you have a benchmark.

Contract Rate

A negotiated rate held for a period, usually a year. Only as good as the benchmark behind the negotiation.

Detention

The meter that runs when a truck waits. Charged per hour after an agreed free period — and one of the most disputed lines on any invoice.

Freight Invoice

The carrier's bill. Frequently different from the rate confirmation — which is exactly why matching the two matters.

Rate Benchmark

What comparable shippers actually paid on a lane, recently. The number that turns "that's the market" into a claim you can check.

How the freight physically moves.

LTL — Less-Than-Truckload

Freight that shares a trailer with other shippers' loads. Priced by weight, freight class, and lane.

FTL — Full-Truckload

A dedicated trailer for one shipper's load. One price for the whole truck, whether it's full or not.

Cross-Border Freight

Shipments moving between Canada and the US. Adds customs, bonds, and paperwork to every lane — and a second currency of delay.

Reefer

A refrigerated trailer. Temperature-controlled freight with its own rate structure, equipment scarcity, and liability.

Flatbed

An open-deck trailer for freight that won't fit or can't go in a van: steel, lumber, machinery.

Intermodal

A container that moves by truck and rail in the same box. Cheaper on long lanes; slower and less flexible door to door.

Who's who in a transaction — and who actually holds the information.

Shipper

The party with the freight. In most mid-market companies, also the party with four other jobs.

Consignee

The receiver of the shipment. Their dock hours, appointments, and rules shape the whole load.

Carrier

The company that physically moves the freight. Asset-based carriers own the trucks they run.

Freight Broker

A middleman who sells carrier capacity at a markup. Useful in a pinch; expensive as a system — and the benchmark stays with them.

3PL — Third-Party Logistics

Outsourced freight management. Can run the loads well while the shipper still owns none of the data.

Freight Forwarder

A coordinator for complex or international moves — consolidation, customs, multi-leg routing.

The software layer — and the records it should be keeping.

Lane

An origin–destination pair, like Toronto → Montreal. The unit freight economics are actually measured in.

Tender

The formal offer of a load to a carrier. Who gets offered first — and why — quietly sets your rates.

TMS — Transportation Management System

Software for planning and executing freight moves. Good at running loads; rarely built to show finance the numbers behind them.

ERP

The system of record for the business — orders, payables, the general ledger. Where freight data needs to end up, without a human re-keying it.

Audit Trail

Every quote, tender, rate confirmation, and invoice in one verifiable record. The thing finance asks for that email can't produce.

EDI / API

The pipes that move data between systems. EDI is the older, batch-style standard; APIs move data as it happens. One of them explains your 5 pm spreadsheet.

Carrier Scorecard

On-time percentage, cost per lane, claims — one carrier at a time, on one screen. What annual rate-increase meetings become when you bring numbers.