Q&A

Solving the payment bottleneck

Inside Relay Payments’ push to end fraud, streamline admin and give drivers their hours back

(Photo credit Relay Payments)

If you find cash flow stalling and admin work mounting, it might be time to take a closer look at how you handle payments. All kinds of expenses, from filling up at the pump to reserving a parking spot, could be pre-authorized and digitized. The process could cut down on fraud, stop the finance department from nagging you and save drivers time and headaches.

For more on the common pain points and sources of friction in trucking payments, we turned to Spencer Barkoff, president of Relay Payments, an electronic payment network for carriers and brokers.

—Interview by Shefali Kapadia, edited by Bianca Prieto

What are the biggest operational pain points you hear from small trucking companies?

Fraud and operational inefficiencies and delays. Card skimming and misuse erode thin margins for trucking companies, but another major drag is simply the daily grind: waiting for plastic cards in the mail, replacing lost cards, handling declined pumps, issuing one-off authorizations and reconciling missing receipts. Dispatch burns hours on hold. Drivers lose HOS at the island or dock. Accounting fights exceptions and chargebacks. After-the-fact audits and slow reimbursements stall cash flow, and fragmented tools make visibility hard.

If your team is spending hours a week on cards, declines and paper, that’s margin you never get back. Small fleets tell us they feel forced to be payment administrators instead of freight operators. The result is lost time, higher stress and avoidable cost.

With many small fleets relying on manual processes, how do you address concerns that switching to digital payments could be complex or disruptive?

That’s an interesting question, because most fleets actually come to Relay because their status quo payment method is already what’s so disruptive. Late-night calls, lane backups, fraud disputes, paper checks and constant card replacements. We remove all of this chaos with fast implementation is under a week, no hardware and a driver app that works on day one. Cardless, code-based payments mean there’s nothing for fleets to print, ship or replace.

What’s the most common praise you hear from trucking partners about Relay’s impact on their operations?

We hear three themes consistently from our customers:

Any fraud losses they were experiencing are eliminated. By removing cards and ensuring authorization in-app before the pump or service, card skimming and misuse don’t turn into chargebacks or write-offs.
Drivers stay moving. There aren’t declines, stuck drivers, phone trees or waiting on card replacements. So utilization improves and HOS is protected.
Finance gets instant visibility. Receipts and line-item data land in the right place automatically, shrinking exceptions and eliminating reconciliation chaos.

How can small fleet operators protect against fraud or errors in payments?

Eliminate the card surface and move authorization to the phone. Use one-time codes tied to geofencing and spend policies so the right driver fuels the right asset at the right location and amount.

Connect policies to ELD/TMS data to block misuse before diesel flows (on-duty status, truck location, tank capacity). Add velocity limits and alerts for off-route fueling or unusual volume. Centralize digital receipts and automate ledger coding to catch anomalies early. Reconcile daily via automated feeds and review a short exception report, not month-end fire drills.

Overall, to stamp out fraud and errors, think “authorize first, pay second.” One-time codes, eliminating the physical card, geofencing, policies and ELD-aware rules stop misuse at the nozzle, dock and register, so you don't have to chase it after the fact.

Can modernized or automated payments help fleets improve conditions for their drivers?

Absolutely! After all, payment friction hits drivers before anyone else: declines at the island, waiting on approvals, keeping track of paper and reimbursement delays. Cardless, app-based payments let drivers fuel and roll, with receipts handled automatically.

Digital lumper payments reduce dock time and stop the sleepy, stressful 3 a.m. calls. Integrated parking helps drivers find and reserve rest faster. Faster settlement means fewer payday headaches and less out-of-pocket risk. The result is more paid miles, fewer stressful interruptions and a cleaner end of shift.

Just the other day, a fleet operations director told us drivers came to him unprompted to tell him how much better using Relay is than the process they had before. When fueling takes seconds and receipts are automatic, drivers stay moving and make more paid miles, which are the day-to-day improvements that compound into stronger driver retention.