Factoring Integration Internals

This staff-facing article explains how factoring works in the Tai TMS: the Factoring Management area, the supported factoring partners and the documents each requires, how invoices are marked and submitted, and how a factoring company becomes the remit-to and payee for a carrier's pay.

Overview

Factoring is selling invoices to a third-party factoring company in exchange for faster cash. In the Tai TMS, factoring shows up in three related places:

Factoring Management (back office → accounting), where staff review the invoices eligible for factoring, mark them as factored, and submit them in bulk to a factoring partner.
Factoring companies as parties on a shipment and on a carrier, where a factoring company can be attached to a carrier's leg, or stored on the carrier record, so the carrier's pay is remitted to the factoring company instead of the carrier.
Payment integrations (EPay and Triumph Pay), which have their own handling for carriers that are factored.

Tai integrates with a specific, small set of factoring partners (below). Even without a partner integration, staff can still use Factoring Management to manually track which invoices have been factored, and can attach factoring companies to carrier bills for remit-to handling.

How it works

What appears in Factoring Management. The Factoring Management screen searches the invoices billed by your accounting organization and shows only those that qualify for factoring. To appear, an invoice must meet all of these conditions:

The invoice's accounting profile has Preferred Invoicing Method = Factoring (this is the customer setting that opts the invoice into factoring).
The invoice is tied to a shipment.
The invoice is not a revision.
The invoice date falls in the search's invoice date range.

The screen supports filtering by Status (Factored / Not Factored), Vendor (the linehaul carrier), Customer (the invoice payer), Shipment Id, invoice date range, and factoring date range. Each row shows the Shipment Id, Invoice Payer Name, Invoice Total, whether the invoice was delivered, the Vendor (carrier) Name and Vendor Total, whether it is Factored, and a Document Status check mark. Warning icons flag when the carrier "is not set to use factor automation" and when the carrier "bill has not been approved."

Marking invoices. Each row has two per-row actions:

Mark Done — flags the invoice as factored by stamping a factor date on it. This is what puts the invoice in the "Factored" state (the "Mark as Factored" action).
Reset — clears the factor date, returning the invoice to "not factored."

These two actions are bookkeeping flags. They do not, by themselves, send anything to a partner. A successful submission to any of the three partners stamps the factor date automatically, so there is no need to mark an invoice done after submitting it.

Submitting to a partner (the "Factor" action). When rows are selected, a Bulk Operations panel appears with a Factor (N) button that submits the selected invoices to the org's configured factoring partner. Only invoices whose customer has Preferred Invoicing Method = Factoring are accepted by this action. The exact buttons depend on the partner:

For most partners (including Triumph Business Capital and Haul Pay), a single Factor (N) button submits the selected invoices.
For Denim, the panel shows Draft, Non-Factor, and Factor buttons.
For Triumph Business Capital, the Factor (N) submit button is available to all users. A separate partner-labeled split button — offering Validate plus Download Accounting CSV File / Download Accounting PDF File — is shown only to IT Support Admin users. Invoices can be validated before submission through that split button; validation is a Triumph-only step. For other users the panel shows just the partner name.

Document Status. The Document Status check tells staff whether the documents a partner requires are attached to the shipment. The required documents differ by partner (see below), so this column is only meaningful when a factoring integration is configured.

Attaching a factoring company to a carrier's pay (remit-to on the shipment). Separately from submitting invoices, staff can add a factoring company to a shipment's carrier leg (the "add factoring company" action on the shipment). Factoring companies are set up as organizations of the Factor Company type, and only active ones appear in the lookup. When one is added to a carrier leg, Tai inserts the factoring company as a "Factor" party on that leg, copies the leg's buy amount to it, and makes it the vendor on that leg — so the carrier is paid through the factor. Only one factor party is kept per leg: if a factoring company (or another party already sitting above your organization in the payment order) is present, the manual add is blocked with "Factoring Company cannot be added." — remove the existing factor party first to change it. Adding and removing a factoring company are written to the shipment activity log.

Factoring companies on consolidated shipments. When the "TMS-17455 - Consolidated Shipments: Carrier Assignment Factoring Company" feature flag is on:

Creating a consolidation adds the assigned carrier's Factoring Organization (from the carrier record for your accounting organization) as the Factor party on the consolidated (parent) shipment's carrier leg. A carrier with no Factoring Organization adds none.
Each child shipment whose carrier changes to the consolidation's carrier has its factor party replaced with that factoring company, or removed when the new carrier has no Factoring Organization. The same replace-or-remove runs on child legs when the parent's carrier changes later.
The consolidated shipment's pricing breakdown shows the parent leg's organization list with Add Factoring Org and Remove Factoring Org buttons. They follow the same rules as on a regular leg (Accounts Payable Approve Bills or IT Support Admin role, one factor party per leg) and are hidden once a carrier bill exists for the leg.
Remove Factoring Org takes the factoring company off only the leg it was requested for. With the flag off, the removal matches the factoring company anywhere on the shipment.

Factoring company and Remit To Source on the carrier record. The carrier record stores a Factoring Organization (the carrier's default factoring company), a Factor Automation switch, and — when the "TMS-22899 LSP Carriers - Factoring Company Management" feature flag is on — a Remit To Source that decides who appears as the remit-to on bills and payments:

Carrier Name — the carrier's name, with its mailing address, or its primary address when no mailing address is on file.
Carrier DBA — the carrier's DBA name (the carrier name if no DBA is on file), with the same address rule as Carrier Name.
Factoring Company — the factoring company's name and its invoice address. The carrier screen requires a factoring company to be selected for this source.
User Entered — the name and address typed into the carrier's remit-payment fields. The carrier screen requires a company name, street address, city, two-letter state, and ZIP code for this source.

Saving the carrier copies the chosen source's name, address, phone and fax (and, for a factoring company, its mobile and invoice email) into the carrier's remit-payment fields, and bills and the Approve Bills address read those stored fields. Editing a Factor Company organization updates the stored remit-payment details of every carrier that uses it with the Factoring Company source. Choosing any source other than Factoring Company clears the carrier's Factoring Organization. The carrier screen warns when the result is incomplete: "Carrier DBA name is not on file — the Carrier Name will be used instead until a DBA is added." (saving asks for confirmation), a missing mailing address that falls back to the primary address, an incomplete entered Remit To address, or a factoring company with no complete invoice address (saving asks for confirmation and offers a link to edit the factoring company's invoice address, or says to contact a TMS admin). Each warning about an address says bills for the carrier will sync to QuickBooks with no address.

With the flag off, the Remit To Source is not shown and carrier edits do not change it. A carrier bill's address is then the invoice address of the carrier's Factoring Organization (or the factoring company's main address when it has no invoice address), otherwise the entered remit-payment address, and the Approve Bills list uses the same rule.

Which vendor a bill is registered to. When a carrier bill is registered or auto-approved for a leg that has a factoring company attached, the bill is registered to the factoring company, with one exception: if the carrier record names that same company as its Factoring Organization and its Remit To Source is not Factoring Company, the factoring company is dropped and the bill is registered to the carrier. This exception applies only when the feature flag is on. With the flag on, a bill registered to a carrier stores the carrier's remit-payment name and address. With the flag off, it stores only the address and shows the vendor's own name.

Factored carriers in payment integrations.

EPay. When a bill is sent to EPay for a leg whose vendor is a factoring company, Tai pays the factoring company: it uses the carrier's "Epay Factor Company Id", or, if that is blank, looks the factoring company up in EPay under the integration's account number and saves the result. If the factoring company is not registered, Tai raises an Accounting Sync Exception alert and logs "Error sending bill information to Epay Manager. must be registered in Epay." The payee name on the bill is the factoring company's name. For an unfactored carrier Tai uses the carrier's "Epay Carrier Id" and, if missing, syncs the carrier by DOT number first. Carrier sync runs only for EPay Manager sources with the EnableCarrierSync setting on, and it looks up each carrier's EPay id by DOT number. A carrier that has an "Epay Factor Company Id" value is not added as an EPay payee, and neither is any carrier when the source has HasMyCarrierPackets set to true; the EPay carrier id found is still saved on the carrier. EPay documents: an hourly job pulls documents from EPay onto the shipment (matched by shipment number, skipping files already attached) only for EPay Manager sources whose DocumentRetrieval setting is true: a POD or bill of lading is attached as that document type with public access (customers can see it), an EPay "invoice" is attached as a carrier bill and a "rate agreement" as a carrier confirmation (both private, back-office only), and any other EPay document type is ignored. The manual retrieval action refuses a source whose DocumentRetrieval is false with "Document retrieval is disabled for this integration source."
Triumph Pay. When Tai sends carrier payee profiles to Triumph Pay, a carrier with a Factoring Organization is sent with the factoring company's name and address as the remit-to; otherwise the carrier's remit-payment address is used. Carriers marked "Ignore Triumph Pay Bill Sync" are left out. Payments imported from Triumph Pay for a carrier with a Factoring Organization are recorded against the factoring company as the vendor.

Business rules & limits

Supported factoring partners (verified). Tai's factoring integration supports exactly three source types, and these are the names staff select in Tai:
- Triumph Business Capital — invoice data is exported (CSV) with the invoice PDFs to Triumph over secure FTP (SFTP); the integration source uses a Username and Password, and credentials are validated by testing that connection ("Triumph Business Capital Credential are invalid" if it fails).
- Denim — an API-based integration serviced by the Axle Payments integration in Tai (the partner appears in the product as "Denim," but it is processed through Axle Payments). It uses the source's License Key, and testing = true on the source points it at Denim's test environment. Supports Draft, Non-Factor, and Factor submissions.
- Haul Pay (two words) — an API-based integration serviced by the Comfreight integration; submitting triggers a Comfreight factor batch.
These are the only three that the Factoring Management "Factor" action submits to. (Highway has a factoring-company lookup used elsewhere, but Highway is not one of the Factoring Management submission partners. Triumph Pay and EPay are payment integrations, not factoring partners.)
Eligibility gate. An invoice only appears in Factoring Management when the customer's Preferred Invoicing Method is Factoring, the invoice has a shipment, and the invoice is not a revision. If a customer's invoices are not showing up, check that setting first.
Required documents by partner (Document Status). The Document Status check turns green only when the shipment has every document the partner requires:
- Denim: a rate/quote sheet or customer tender document, plus a POD, plus a carrier bill.
- Triumph Business Capital: all four of — a POD, a carrier confirmation, a carrier bill, and a rate/quote sheet or customer tender document.
- Haul Pay: a POD.
A "rate/quote sheet or customer tender document" means an attached document whose file name contains the rate quote sheet or customer tender name.
What each partner checks when you submit.
- Triumph Business Capital (Validate and Factor run the same checks; Factor additionally limits the run to invoices for Factoring customers and to bills for carriers that have Factor Automation turned on): the invoice's charge lines are ready; at least one bill exists (otherwise "There are no bills available to send to Triumph Business Capital."); PDF copies of the invoice, rate quote sheet / customer tender, POD, and carrier bill are attached (the carrier confirmation is generated by Tai); each bill's charge lines are ready; and each bill's carrier has an MC number (the DOT number is used if there is no MC). Protected PDFs are rejected. Invoices that pass are queued and the rest are listed in an error and logged to the organization's collections activity. One CSV and the PDFs are uploaded per bill, a carrier with net terms of 99 is marked quick pay (QP) and any other carrier standard pay (SP), and failed uploads are retried automatically twice (after 10 minutes and after an hour).
- Denim: a POD and a rate quote sheet / customer tender are required ("POD and Rate Quote Sheet are required documents"); the invoice due date and every bill due date must fall between 30 days ago and 90 days ahead; and the customer must have a debtor relationship set up ("Debtor Relationship Not Setup Properly"). With Factor, only bills for carriers with Factor Automation on are sent. Draft sends the job as a draft flagged as factored, Non-Factor sends it as not factored, and Factor sends it as factored. A successful send of any of the three stamps the factor date.
- Haul Pay: only invoices that are not yet factored are sent, and each needs a bill and a linehaul carrier. Tai posts the load, the invoice, and its line items, then the shipment's document, POD, BOL, and invoice attachments. Problems raise an Accounting Sync Exception alert and a shipment note, and a successful send records the Haul Pay invoice number on the shipment.
Validation and IT Support Admin gating. Only Triumph Business Capital has a separate Validate step. The Triumph split button (which exposes Validate and the Download Accounting CSV / PDF options) is shown only to IT Support Admin users, but the plain Factor (N) submit button — and therefore Triumph submission itself — is available to all users and runs the same checks.
Accounting relationship. Factoring companies are organizations of the Factor Company type. When a factoring company is attached to a carrier leg, it is inserted as a "Factor" party and the carrier's pay is remitted to the factoring company (paid as a vendor / remit-to), rather than to the carrier directly, unless the carrier-record exception described above applies.

Frequently asked questions

Which factoring partners does the Tai TMS actually integrate with?

Three: Triumph Business Capital, Denim (serviced by the Axle Payments integration), and Haul Pay (serviced by the Comfreight integration). Those are the only partners the Factoring Management "Factor" action can submit invoices to.

Why do I see "Denim" instead of "Axle Payments"?

In Tai the factoring source type is named "Denim," but invoices for it are processed through the Axle Payments integration. They are the same partner; "Denim" is the name shown in the product.

An invoice isn't showing up in Factoring Management. Why?

The most common reason is that the customer's Preferred Invoicing Method is not set to Factoring on the invoice's accounting profile. The invoice must also be tied to a shipment, not be a revision, be billed by your accounting organization, and fall within the invoice date range you searched. Check the customer's invoicing method first.

What is the difference between "Mark Done" and "Factor"?

Mark Done is a bookkeeping flag that marks the invoice as factored (stamps a factor date); Reset clears it. Factor actually submits the selected invoices to the configured factoring partner, and a successful submission stamps the factor date for you. Marking done does not submit anything; factoring does not require you to mark done first.

What does the Document Status column mean?

It shows whether the documents the partner requires are attached to the shipment. Denim needs a rate/quote sheet or customer tender plus a POD plus a carrier bill; Triumph Business Capital needs all four of a POD, a carrier confirmation, a carrier bill, and a rate/quote sheet or customer tender document; Haul Pay needs a POD. It is only meaningful when a factoring integration is configured.

Triumph says documents are missing even though Document Status is green. Why?

Document Status counts attachments of the listed types. The Triumph submit check is stricter about format: the invoice, rate quote sheet / customer tender, POD, and carrier bill must be PDF files that are not password-protected. The carrier confirmation does not have to be attached for the submit check because Tai generates it.

Why do only some users see the Triumph Business Capital split button / Validate option?

The Triumph split button — which offers Validate and the Download Accounting CSV / PDF options — is shown only to IT Support Admin users. The plain Factor (N) submit button is available to everyone, so any user can still submit Triumph invoices; only the split button's extras (validation and accounting-file downloads) are gated. Denim and Haul Pay have no such split button.

What does the "Carrier is not set to use factor automation" warning mean?

The carrier's record does not have Factor Automation turned on. When you use Factor for Triumph Business Capital or Denim, only bills for carriers with Factor Automation on are included, so an invoice whose carrier lacks it can fail with no bills available to send.

How does a factoring company get paid instead of the carrier?

When staff add a factoring company (an organization of the Factor Company type) to a carrier's leg on a shipment, Tai makes the factoring company the remit-to for that carrier's pay. The carrier's bill is then registered to the factoring company as a vendor. Only one factor party is kept per leg — if one is already present, the manual add is blocked with "Factoring Company cannot be added," so remove the existing factor party first before attaching a different one. If the carrier's own record lists that same factoring company but its Remit To Source is not Factoring Company, the bill is registered to the carrier instead.

What are the Draft / Non-Factor / Factor buttons for Denim?

Denim supports three submission types: Draft (sends the job to Denim as a draft, flagged as factored), Non-Factor (sends it as not factored), and Factor (sends it as factored). The other partners only expose a single Factor action.

EPay isn't adding a carrier as a payee. Is that a bug?

Not if the carrier is factored. A carrier that has an "Epay Factor Company Id" value on its record is never added as an EPay payee during carrier sync, because payment goes to the factoring company. The same applies to every carrier on an integration source that uses MyCarrierPackets.

A bill failed to send to EPay with "must be registered in Epay." What now?

The payee named in the message — the factoring company if one is attached to the leg, otherwise the carrier — is not registered in EPay under the integration's account. Register it in EPay (for a factoring company, the id is stored as the carrier's Epay Factor Company Id once found), then resend. The shipment carries an Accounting Sync Exception alert until it succeeds.

Do we have to have a partner integration to use factoring?

No. Without a partner integration, staff can still use Factoring Management to track which invoices have been factored (Mark Done / Reset) and can attach factoring companies to carrier legs for remit-to handling. The partner integrations only add the ability to submit invoices directly to Triumph Business Capital, Denim, or Haul Pay.