Rate Confirmation Checklist

The rate confirmation (also called a rate con or confirmation sheet) is the document that records the agreed terms between a carrier and a broker for a specific load. Once both parties sign it, it is the reference for what was promised — which makes the few minutes you spend reading it some of the highest-value minutes in your week.

What a rate confirmation is

A rate confirmation is not marketing material and not a general price list. It is a load-specific record: who is hauling what, from where to where, for how much, under which instructions. When a dispute comes up later — detention, a rate difference, a delivery instruction — this signed document is what everyone rereads.

The checklist

Work through every item before you sign. A missing or mismatched line is a question for the broker, not something to fill in yourself.

Parties

• Legal names of the carrier and the broker, matching their FMCSA records.
• USDOT and MC numbers for both, so the paperwork ties to the right records.
• A contact name and phone number for the broker on this load, plus the driver's contact for the carrier.

Dates, locations, and times

• Pickup date and time — including the time zone.
• Delivery date and time or appointment window.
• Full pickup and delivery addresses with any dock, gate, or appointment procedures.

Rate and payment

• Linehaul rate stated in full, and whether it is all-in or plus extras.
• Accessorial charges listed individually — extra stops, tarp pay, driver assist, layover, detention, and truck ordered not used (TONU).
• Payment terms — the invoicing period after delivery, and any quick-pay option with its associated fee clearly stated.

Equipment and commodity

• Trailer type and any equipment requirements — straps, tarps, temperature, team.
• Commodity description and weight, consistent with what the dispatcher told you.
• Any hazmat or special handling notation.

Instructions

• Loading and unloading expectations — who counts, who straps, who signs.
• Routing or check-in requirements, including any tracking or communication rules.
• Documentation the driver must collect — signed bill of lading, weight tickets, lumper receipts.

When something does not match

If the paper differs from the phone call — a different rate, a missing accessorial, a shortened delivery window — do not sign it and assume it will be fixed in your favor. Ask the broker to correct the document and reissue it. Small discrepancies become big ones precisely because someone signed over them.

One habit that prevents most disputes: never dispatch a truck against a verbal rate. If the load is real and the rate is real, a corrected confirmation takes the broker minutes to send. If a broker resists putting a term in writing, that term was never firm.

Keep your copy

Store the signed rate confirmation with the load's paperwork — proof of delivery, lading documents, receipts — where you can find it without asking anyone. The moment you need it is always months later, exactly when memories have faded and only the record speaks.

A scan or photo of the signed sheet, filed with the load's records, is usually easier to find than the paper copy. If the confirmation arrives through an app or a load board, export a copy you control and store it with the load's paperwork — relying on a platform to keep your records is a risk you can choose not to take.

Where rate documents fit the bigger picture

A rate confirmation records one load. Before that load ever reaches you, the broker's authority and insurance status can be checked in the FMCSA's public systems — the SAFER Company Snapshot and the Licensing & Insurance system — the same way a broker or shipper looks you up. Verifying the counterparty once, and again when something feels off, is cheap insurance against doing business with the wrong record.