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Bill of lading rules

How the crew's bill counts labor hours, how they are rounded for the customer, what submits it, which signatures it uses, how much a long-distance customer pays at pickup, and whether it shows the Full Value Protection deductible.

5 min readChecked October 27, 2026
Owner & admin

Settings › Documents & bill of lading › Bill of lading rules decides how the crew's bill works on the phone.

Before you start

Anyone who can open Settings can change this page. The labor, signature and long-distance settings are saved separately for each move type (pick it at the top); the Cost breakdown words are one for all move types. Nothing is saved until you press Save.

Labor and submitting

  • Calculate labor hours by - Time Input — The foreman types the start and end times. With it, Interval — 15 or 30 minutes, the step the typed labor times move in. - Start Button — The foreman presses Start and Stop on the job.
  • Bill the crew's hours — how the hours the crew records are rounded before the customer is billed for them: - Nearest 15 minutes (5-minute grace) — the default, what every company has unless it changes it: to the nearest quarter hour; up to 5 minutes past a quarter rounds down. 3 h 01 and 3 h 05 → 3 h; 3 h 06 → 3 h 15; 3 h 16 → 3 h 15; 3 h 31 → 3 h 30. - Always round up to the next 15 minutes — any minute past a quarter hour bills the next one. 3 h 00 → 3 h; 3 h 01 → 3 h 15; 3 h 16 → 3 h 30.
  • Submit contract by — What finishes the bill of lading on the crew's phone: the customer's Signatures, or a Submit Button.

How "Bill the crew's hours" works

  • It changes only what the customer is billed for the crew's labor: the labor charge and the Total hourly charge on the bill of lading (on the crew's phone, the customer's copy and the PDF), the closing, invoices, payments due, the customer's page and QuickBooks all use the same rounded hours. Your minimum hours still come first: a job under the minimum bills the minimum.
  • The quote (the estimate before the move) and the travel time are not changed.
  • The crew's worked minutes are always kept exactly. If you pay the crew for the time they actually worked (Settings › Payments & billing › Crew pay time on), their pay doesn't change. With that switch off, the crew is paid the same rounded time the customer is billed, as before.
  • On a long-distance move priced as flat transportation + hourly, Always round up also rounds the loading and unloading hours up when their billing step is 15 minutes. 30 minutes, rounded up stays as it is.
  • It applies to jobs the crew hasn't started yet: each job takes the choice when its bill of lading is made from the order and every time the order is saved before the job starts. A job that has started, and a closing that was submitted, keep the rounding they had, so turning it on or off never changes a finished job.

Signatures and the mileage tariff

What the contract shows:

  • Customer signs every stop — on: the customer signs the start and end at each address. Off: the customer signs once when work starts and once when it ends. (Dispatch can change it for one job in that job's settings on the board.)
  • Use additional Cu.Ft/Pounds with rate per Cu.Ft/Pounds on BOL for mileage tariff — the bill lets the crew add size beyond the estimate, charged at the tariff's rate.

Long distance

What the customer pays when the truck is loaded:

  • Total % of payment due at pickup for long distance moves — from 0 to 100. It's a percent of the total less the deposit: a $4,181 move with a $500 deposit at 50% asks $1,840.50 at pickup ($3,681 × 50%), less anything the pickup already collected. The bill of lading, the crew's Take payment and the block below all use this one figure.

Cost breakdown

The words your customer reads on the bill of lading, for every move type:

  • Packing line label — leave it blank and the line reads Packing, or Packing/Unpacking when the order has an unpacking charge. Type your own words (for example Packing materials) to use them on every bill instead. The amount does not change.
  • Show the Full Value Protection deductible — off until you switch it on. On: when the customer chose Full Value Protection, the bill shows the deductible they picked beside the valuation, on the crew's phone, your office copy, the customer's copy and the signed PDF, with no template changes: - the cost breakdown reads Valuation Cost (Deductible $250.00) — the amount column still shows only the valuation charge, so the deductible is never added to the total; - if your template hides the valuation line, the cost breakdown gets its own Full Value Protection Deductible line; - on long-distance and flat-rate bills, the Other Services box's Valuation row reads Valuation (Deductible $250.00), with the valuation's cost ($120.00) in the amount column.

Basic (released value) coverage and the third option show nothing new. If your template already prints the deductible (the Order valuation deductible variable, or the Declaration of Value block, whose table has a Deductible column), it is not shown a second time.

Copy to other move types fills the others and waits for Save.

Also used by

The closing price counts labor the way these rules say. See Arrive and start the clock for the crew's side.

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