For the most part by the time Panther pays they have been paid by the customer. That's the reason for the 15 day delay. This does come out of their money ahead of being paid by the customer.
Well see here is the thing Leo, they are acting small when they think this way. It is not that they are a mom and pop shop where the cash flow is small and there are problems with things like this but rather a ‘big’ corporation with big pockets.
If they need to float a loan to cover expenses, then they really need to examine their finances and get rid of some management. You have 1500 trucks (let's use that for a moment) and they do somewhere around 3300 a week, that is around $5M a week in payouts, if they can't cover this with cash in the bank then what can they do.
I wonder how many actually take advantage of the program?
I would guess, just a guess that 8 to 10% of the entire fleet at most, so if it is 10% of 1500 that is 150 trucks and that works out using the average $14,850 a week that they charge the contractor for a payout of $496K, not a bad return on investment. I think they are treating it like a loan tell you the truth.
If they treated the thing as a payroll, they would not think this way and solve a lot of problems for all but they are stuck on this concept that they are a small expediting company from all I have read. I mean like Falligator being paid dry run pay, they should have paid him detention pay and gone back to the customer and charged them or eat the cost without thinking. Then this run should have been flagged by the supervisors and discussed with sales to prevent it from happening again or making sure that there is a policy covering it.
I think many of the operational problems is caused by paying the dispatchers and management of them hourly (salary) without incentives and not having experience in either business or owning a truck within the staff.