Moving Company Billing After Delivery: The Federal Calendar for Interstate Balances

The billing calendar in 49 CFR 375.807

Subpart H of Part 375 governs collecting charges. Section 375.801 says it applies to every household-goods shipment that entails a balance-due invoice or moves on an extension of credit, and 375.805 sends a collect-on-delivery shipment that had to be released before all charges were paid back to the same clock: the invoice for all transportation charges goes out within 15 days, as 375.807 requires. The section is short enough to read in full. Its key lines:

• (a) “You must present an invoice within 15 days (excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and Federal holidays) of the date of delivery of a shipment at its destination.”
• (b) “The credit period must be seven days (including Saturdays, Sundays, and Federal holidays).”
• (c)(1) The tariff must extend the credit period automatically “to a total of 30 calendar days for any shipper who has not paid your invoice within the 7-day period.” Charges for impracticable operations not collected at delivery may not be extended beyond 30 days after the invoice.
• (c)(2) The tariff must provide a service charge “equal to one percent of the amount of the invoice, subject to a $20 minimum charge,” assessed for each 30-day extension the charges go unpaid.
• (c)(3) Credit is denied to a shipper who fails to pay a duly presented invoice within the 30-day period, until that shipper satisfies the mover that future invoices will be paid promptly.

The booklet every interstate shipper receives, Appendix A to Part 375, adds lines a billing desk should know. On shipments paid upon delivery, the invoice for all transportation charges is presented on the delivery date or, at the mover’s discretion, within 15 days, weekends and federal holidays excluded. Bills for additional charges based on the weight of the shipment “will be presented after 30 days from delivery,” and impracticable-operations charges not paid at delivery are due within 30 days of the invoice. The invoice and its notices state five items: penalties for late payment, the credit period, service or finance charges, collection expense charges, and any discount terms. On a non-binding move, the weight tickets are presented with the invoice. How the 15-day invoice rule and the 30-day line for weight-based charges fit together in a given tariff is a question for the company’s transportation attorney. This is a summary of public text. Not legal advice.

Where the balance invoice stalls

The rules set the calendar; the company’s own records show whether anyone keeps it. The reasons a balance goes unbilled can be coded, and once coded they can be counted. A starting list:

• Closed at the door. The crew collected 110 percent, the job was marked paid in the moving software, and no step reopens it when the final charges are computed.
• No final weight. The destination weight ticket never reached the office, so the final charges were never calculated.
• Extras not on the record. Services added after the bill of lading was issued, such as an extra stop or a long carry, were performed but never written into the file the invoice is built from.
• Impracticable operations over the cap. The 15 percent collected at delivery was recorded, and the remainder had no line of its own.
• Nobody counts days. The 15-day window and the seven-day credit period pass without a date anyone checks, and the service charge in the tariff is never assessed.
• A dispute with no paper. The customer questions the balance, and the file has no signed estimate, no weight tickets or no written change to answer with.

Disputes have a federal path. Under 49 CFR 375.211, an interstate mover maintains an arbitration program for individual shippers that covers disputes about whether carrier charges in addition to those collected at delivery must be paid. Arbitration is binding for claims of $10,000 or less when the shipper requests it, and the arbitrator decides within 60 days of written notice of the dispute. The file that answers an arbitration is the same file that builds the invoice: signed estimate, bill of lading, inventory, weight tickets and written changes.

Count every non-binding interstate move from peak season

The count needs one export from the moving software and one from the accounting system: every interstate move delivered between June and September, with its estimate type, estimate amount, final charges, amount collected at delivery, delivery date, balance invoice date and payment date. Then add four columns by hand.

• Balance due: final charges minus what was collected at delivery, for every move where it is above zero.
• Working days from delivery to the balance invoice, Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays excluded, with every move past 15 flagged.
• Days from invoice to payment, and whether the tariff’s service charge was assessed for each 30-day extension.
• For every balance never invoiced: its amount, its age and one reason code from the list above.

Illustrative example: a mover ran 40 non-binding interstate moves between June and September. Twelve finished above 110 percent of their estimates, with balances averaging $600, so $7,200 was billable after delivery. Five balances were invoiced within 15 working days, four were invoiced later, and three were never invoiced: two because the destination weight ticket never reached the office, one because the job was closed as paid at the door. Those three are $1,800 the rules allow the company to bill, still unbilled, and the four late invoices started their seven-day credit periods late. The size of the leak, not a guess, decides whether it gets an owner.

Which moves this calendar covers, and which it does not

Part 375 applies to a household-goods motor carrier transporting household goods for individual shippers in interstate commerce (49 CFR 375.101). An individual shipper, under 375.103, is a person named on the bill of lading who owns the goods and pays his or her own tariff transportation charges. A corporate relocation an employer pays for, a commercial office move and a move inside one state sit outside that definition, and their billing terms come from the contract or from state law.

Moves within one state follow that state’s rules. Florida’s chapter 507, for example, defines the estimate and the contract for service a registered mover prepares, and 507.06 lets a mover that lawfully withholds goods for non-payment place them in storage, with a duty to tell the shipper where they are and the amount due within 5 days after receiving the shipper’s written request. The company’s attorney reads each state’s text against the tariff and contract forms.

Give the balance invoice one owner and a date

The fix is a named owner and a fixed day, not new software. One person in the billing office owns the balance list, built the morning after delivery.

• A move is not closed when the crew collects at the door. It closes when the final charges are computed and either equal what was collected or a balance invoice has gone out.
• The destination weight ticket comes back with the delivery paperwork, the same day.
• Every added service is written into the record before it is performed, so the invoice is built from the file and not from memory.
• The invoice states the five items the booklet lists, and the tariff states the four things 375.807(c) requires. Whether the current tariff does is a short read for the company’s tariff publisher or attorney.
• One weekly list: every delivered interstate move with a balance, its invoice date, its age and its next step.

When not to hire anyone for this

A company that runs local hourly moves and binding interstate moves only, with no impracticable-operations charges, has little or nothing to bill after delivery, and this hand-off is not where its money waits. A company whose count shows every balance invoiced inside the 15-day window, with a reason on every open item, does not need outside help with it either.

It is worth a closer look when the count turns up balances never invoiced, when late invoices sit next to other leaks (estimates that went quiet, crew hours past the price, storage lots past their paid-through date), or when nobody can say what the season’s balances came to. The page on moving company consulting lays out where a moving and storage company’s cash waits, hand-off by hand-off. The Revenue Review is a read-only engagement of two weeks: we read the company’s own estimates, bills of lading, invoices and payments, follow each move from delivery to cash, and put a monthly dollar figure on each leak in a written report with a 90-day plan. It is not a compliance audit and gives no legal advice. A free 20-minute call is enough to tell whether a Review fits.