TMS for an asset carrier with a brokerage

An asset carrier that also brokers freight needs one TMS that does two things at once: shows company trucks and outside carriers on the same board, and keeps the carrier and the brokerage apart everywhere the law, the customer or the accountant needs them apart. That means separate authority, separate paperwork, separate customer terms, separate payables and settlements, and margin that can be read per company, per division and for the whole group.

This article uses the example group that appears across our site. Ashgrove Freight is a carrier with 140 trucks, running out of a Mississauga terminal. Ashgrove Logistics is the brokerage beside it. Both belong to the Ashgrove Transportation Group, together with Keel Transport, a 60-truck carrier. The day is Tuesday, September 29, 2026.

What does a carrier with a brokerage need from one TMS?

Five things:

1. One board for company trucks and brokered loads, so the dispatcher sees the gap and the cover options in the same place.
2. A clean path from truck to broker. A load the fleet can't reach becomes a brokerage load with its own rate confirmation, vetted carrier and margin, without being keyed twice.
3. Two companies kept apart: authority, names on paperwork, carrier compliance, customer contracts and records.
4. Two ways of paying: driver settlements at the carrier and carrier bills at the brokerage, both drafted from the same load record.
5. Books per company, with margin by division and a group view that counts sister-company hauls once.

Why put company trucks and outside carriers on one board?

Because the decision to broker a load is a dispatch decision. On Tuesday, Ashgrove Freight's Mississauga board looks like this:

Load 48219 picks up in Mississauga at 14:00. No Ashgrove Freight unit is free before 18:00, and unit 214 frees up at 18:10, which misses the window. If the brokered option lives in another system, the dispatcher finds this out, emails a broker desk, and waits. On one board, the cover options are already next to the gap:

Northline Freight's $1,655.00 is $60.00 under the lane median, so the lane median is $1,715.00. Prairie Foods pays $1,940.00 for the load, which leaves Ashgrove Logistics $285.00, a 14.7% margin. Keel Transport's $1,720.00 would have left the brokerage $220.00 (11.3%), plus whatever Keel earns after its own costs, which is why a group sometimes prefers the sister company at a lower brokerage margin.

Where must the carrier and the brokerage stay separate?

Sharing a board doesn't mean sharing an identity. These stay apart:

The records rule matters more than it looks. Because Northline Freight can ask to see the record of 48219, the brokerage's record has to be complete on its own: the consignor, the carrier, the bill of lading, the compensation and the freight charges collected. A load that lives half in the carrier's system and half in a spreadsheet doesn't meet that.

When does handing a load to another carrier count as brokering?

Federal rules define a broker as a person who "for compensation, arranges, or offers to arrange" transportation by an authorized motor carrier (49 CFR 371.2). The same definition excludes motor carriers when they arrange transportation of shipments they are authorized to transport "and which they have accepted and legally bound themselves to transport."

In practice, that leaves two clean patterns:

• The brokerage sells it from the start. Prairie Foods' overflow freight is quoted by Ashgrove Logistics per load, so load 48240 is "quoted as brokered overflow" and every document is in the brokerage's name.
• The carrier's load moves to the brokerage. When the plan can't reach 48219, the tender that reaches Northline Freight comes from Ashgrove Logistics, under its broker authority.

Knowingly permitting brokerage without registration and financial security brings a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per violation and liability to the injured party for all valid claims (49 U.S.C. 14916). FMCSA published guidance on the definition of a broker in June 2023. Where a specific load falls is a question for your transportation counsel; the software's job is to make the company on each document match the answer.

How does a load move from a full truck to brokered overflow?

It should take one decision, not a re-entry. For 48219, the sequence is:

1. The plan finds no unit that reaches Mississauga by 14:00 and marks the load "Cover out" on the board.
2. The load keeps its number, stops, customer and rate. What changes is which company buys the capacity.
3. Carriers are ranked by how they've run the lane and checked that day. Brightwater Carriers is blocked because its cargo policy lapsed on September 24.
4. A person picks Northline Freight at $1,655.00. The tender reaches Northline Freight's portal, and Northline Freight accepts and signs the rate confirmation there.
5. Tracking, the POD and the customer's updates continue on the same load record. Prairie Foods sees its rate of $1,940.00, never the carrier's cost; Northline Freight sees $1,655.00, never the customer's rate.

Load 48240 takes the other path. Ashgrove Logistics sells it to Prairie Foods for $3,200.00, and Keel Transport hauls it at the group's internal rate of $2,650.00, against Keel's own cost of $2,380.00. That leaves $550.00 at Logistics and $270.00 at Keel: $820.00 for the group.

Driver settlements or carrier pay: what's different?

Both start from the same load, but they are different transactions in different companies' books.

A bill that doesn't match should be held, not paid. On load 48254, Pinecrest Carriers billed $1,940.00 against a $1,780.00 rate confirmation, including 2 hours of detention at $80.00 an hour where the POD shows 1 billable hour. The right payment is $1,860.00, with $80.00 disputed.

For owner-operators on a percentage, the lease must also let them see the rated freight bill or equivalent documents behind their pay (49 CFR 376.12). A settlement drafted from the same record as the invoice makes that easy to show.

How should accounting work for a carrier with a brokerage?

Each company keeps its own ledger. The carrier posts customer invoices and driver settlements; the brokerage posts customer invoices and carrier payables. When a sister company hauls a brokered load, the haul is two real transactions at the internal rate: a receivable at the carrier and a matching payable at the brokerage.

The group then reads margin at three levels:

"Counted once" means sister-company hauls are removed from group revenue. For the Ashgrove group this quarter, that's CA$4.1M removed, leaving CA$38.4M of group revenue, and 1 in 9 loads hauled by a sister company instead of an outside carrier. Our article on groups of companies works through the elimination for 48240 line by line.

What should you check before choosing one TMS for both?

• The board shows company trucks and brokered loads together, with cover options priced and vetted on the spot.
• Every brokered load carries the brokerage's name, authority and rate confirmation, and a complete transaction record.
• Carrier vetting runs every day, and a lapsed policy blocks a tender before it goes out.
• Customer terms are set per company, even when the customer is shared.
• Driver settlements and carrier bills are drafted from the same load record, and a carrier bill is matched to the rate confirmation and the POD before it's paid.
• Each company posts to its own ledger, and sister-company hauls create both sides at the internal rate.
• Margin reads by company, by division and for the group, with internal hauls counted once.

Where does Roadmark fit?

Roadmark is a transportation management system (TMS) with AI agents that price quotes, plan trucks and prepare invoices for your team to approve, built for asset carriers, freight brokers and groups of companies. For a carrier with a brokerage, loads the fleet can't reach in time go to trusted carriers, already priced, and show on the same board as cover next to your own trucks' loads. Carriers are vetted every day, sister companies show up as carriers at the internal rate your group agreed, and each company keeps its own customers, carriers and books. See the carriers page for the board, the brokers page for cover and carrier pay, and the groups page for margin counted once.