A Look at DPS Payment Times Before the Billing Peak Season

While many TSPs may be in the middle of peak season, or maybe even seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, we are just entering our peak season. July, August, and September are traditionally the busiest months for invoicing, and we are expecting those months to be very busy this year. So we thought it would be a good time to take a look at some DPS invoicing payment times to see how they are looking heading into the billing peak season. The following chart shows average payment times for both DPS and CWA/TOPS invoices.

You can see from this chart that DPS payment times, represented in blue, have dropped considerably since earlier in the year. Over the last two months, DPS payment times have averaged between 9-10 days, which is a very respectable number. It is interesting to note that the DPS payment times have remained consistently higher than those in the CWA/TOPS environment. It was hoped that as DPS became the prominent system in use, invoice payment times would approach those in the CWA/TOPS.

As the preceding chart demonstrates, DPS has overtaken CWA as the invoicing system of record, handling over 81 percent of invoices we submitted in June. However, it still takes slightly longer to get paid in DPS than CWA. There are a few possible reasons for this. First, it is still a new system and even thought PPSOs are getting a lot of practice using it, it is still not as comfortable to them as the system they have been using for years. Also, the DPS tariffs have undergone significant changes this cycle, and there is still a lot of work that is being done to work through some of those changes with PPSOs. Finally, all of the growing pains and learning experience that happen during the shipment management process in DPS affect the billing process. Confusion about a SIT control number, a discrepancy in weights entered, or any of the other possible problems that can come up during a DPS shipment will slow down the billing process.

Even though the DPS payment times are not as good as CWA/TOPS, I think most TSPs would be satisfied if those averages hold during the busy billing season. However, I think that may be a bit optimistic though, as I would expect to see some increase in payment times over the next few months. The increase in workload in the PPSO’s invoice approval queues will alone likely cause a slowdown in payments. The bigger question is how much the peak season problems and scramble to get shipment picked up and serviced will affect the invoicing process. If we are sorting out messes and confusion caused by those issues, we may very well see a significant increase in DPS payment times.

Related Posts

1. A Closer Look at DPS Payment Times - March 11th, 2010
2. “Hotwash” Currently Reviewing Peak Season - August 17th, 2011
3. Recent DPS Problems Cause Peak Season Concerns - March 24th, 2011