Freight is one of the few costs in your business that can arrive after the fact. Depending on how you settle it, the charge for a consignment you book today might be paid on the spot — or land days or weeks later, on an invoice you didn’t write. How you choose to pay for it — and when — shapes your cash flow more than most operators expect.
There are three common ways to settle freight. None is better than the others. Each suits a different rhythm of shipping.
Pay as you go
You pay for each consignment as you book it. The cost is settled immediately, against the shipment it belongs to.
The appeal is simplicity. There’s no balance building up in the background, no invoice to reconcile at month’s end, no credit arrangement to apply for. What you shipped is what you paid, and the two are already matched. For a business that ships occasionally, or one that wants freight cost tied cleanly to each job, this is the least to think about.
The trade-off is cash timing. You’re paying out at the moment of dispatch, often before the order that triggered the shipment has been paid to you. If your shipping is light, that gap is trivial. If it’s heavy, paying up front on every consignment can tie up cash you’d rather keep moving.
Weekly billing
Your consignments accumulate through the week and settle as a single charge. Instead of many small payments, you handle one.
This smooths the administrative load and gives you a few days between shipping and paying. It suits a steady, predictable flow — enough volume that per-consignment payment becomes a chore, but not so much that a week of freight is a number you need to watch closely.
Weekly billing usually comes with a condition: credit approval. Because you’re shipping now and paying later, the provider is extending you short-term credit, and they’ll want to know you’re good for it. That’s a one-time step, not an ongoing friction, but it’s worth expecting rather than being surprised by.
On account by invoice
Your freight is invoiced on terms, like any other supplier account. You ship across a period, receive an invoice, and pay it when it’s due.
This gives you the most room between dispatch and payment, which matters most when freight is a large, continuous line in your operation. It also fits the way finance teams already work: freight becomes one more account to reconcile and pay on a schedule everyone understands.
The cost is reconciliation overhead. An invoice covering many consignments has to be checked against what you actually shipped. Done well, that reconciliation is quick and routine. Done poorly — or not at all — it’s where wrong charges and mystery surcharges hide. On account only pays off if you have the discipline, or the tooling, to match the invoice back to the shipments.
Matching the model to your volume
A rough guide, held lightly:
- Light or irregular shipping — pay as you go. The simplicity is worth more than the cash-timing benefit you’d get from terms.
- Steady, moderate volume — weekly billing. Fewer payments, a little breathing room, no heavy reconciliation.
- High, continuous volume — on account. The cash-flow room and the fit with your finance process outweigh the reconciliation work, especially once that work is systematised.
The honest answer is that many businesses sit between these, or move through them as they grow. The right choice is the one that matches how often you ship and how closely you need to watch the cost.
Where EQUOS fits
The freight brokerage inside EQUOS offers all three. You can book and pay for freight as you go, weekly once your credit is approved, or on account by invoice — whichever suits your shipping rhythm. Freight is charged separately from your subscription, so the way you pay for shipping stays a decision of its own.
Pick the model that fits the business you’re running now. You can always change it when the shape of your shipping changes.