Percentage splits, chargebacks, and escrow lines on one side; your first W-2 company driver on the other. WageTime is payroll for owner-operator fleets, built to settle both in one Friday run.
More than nine of every ten US for-hire carriers operate ten trucks or fewer (ATA, 2025), and in a fleet that size the settlement clerk, the payroll department, and the driver of truck number one are usually the same person. The math is not the hard part. The hard part is that the records have to hold up: to your operators, to a lease dispute, and to the first state agency that asks.
Lease a truck onto your authority and federal truth-in-leasing rules (49 CFR 376.12) start timing you: the operator must be paid within 15 days of submitting delivery documents, whether or not the shipper has paid you yet. On percentage deals the operator is also entitled to a copy of the rated freight bill to check the split. Miss either and the argument is no longer with a driver. It’s with a regulation.
Bobtail and physical-damage premiums, occ-acc, trailer rent, plates, a fuel advance pulled as a money code on Tuesday: the lease must list every chargeback, and the operator can demand the documents behind each one. OOIDA has turned sloppy deduction records into federal class actions more than once. If your deduction history lives across six spreadsheets and a fuel-card portal, you cannot produce it.
Maintenance escrow sounds simple until a lease ends. The regulation expects an accounting of every transaction in and out, interest on the balance, and the fund returned within 45 days of termination. Arctic Express lost in federal court over exactly this, and the FMCSA’s leasing task force reported in January 2025 that fewer than 1 in 100 lease-purchase drivers ever end up owning the truck. Regulators read held money closely. A shoebox of statements is not an accounting.
The day you seat a company driver in truck two, you stop being only a carrier and become an employer: federal withholding and deposits, a state unemployment account, new-hire reporting, and workers’ comp questions your occ-acc certificate never had to answer. None of it waits until you can afford an office manager.
You also drove 2,600 miles this week. After the operators are settled and the driver’s paycheck clears, whatever is left gets computed at midnight in a spreadsheet only you can read. Every hour of that is unpaid office work stapled to a driving job, 52 times a year.
In WageTime, a clean settlement reads top to bottom with no mystery: the load’s gross, the operator’s percentage computed through tiered commission structures, the fuel surcharge passed through on its own line, then every deduction named and dated.
Replaces the eleven-column settlement spreadsheet, and the Friday night it eats.
Truth-in-leasing rules put five recordkeeping-heavy duties on any carrier that leases on owner-operators, and those duties are yours, not your software’s. What WageTime gives you is the record that survives the argument: every settlement line dated and documented.
| Deduction | Amount | Document |
|---|---|---|
| Fuel advanceJun 12 · money code | $400.00 | On file |
| Physical-damage premiumJun 30 | $214.00 | On file |
| Trailer rentJul 7 · weekly chargeback | $150.00 | On file |
| Escrow contributionJul 7 · per settlement | $100.00 | On file |
| Plate renewal splitJul 14 · not yet attached | $87.50 | Missing |
Replaces the chargeback binder you would have to reconstruct from six logins, after the demand letter arrives.
One W-2 hire changes your legal shape: federal withholding and deposit schedules, a state unemployment insurance account, new-hire reporting, and a W-2 the following January. WageTime carries that stack from the first paycheck, in the same run that still settles your 1099 lease-ons.
| Setup step | Status |
|---|---|
| Federal withholding and depositsEffective Aug 3 | Active |
| Texas unemployment accountEffective Aug 3 | Registered |
| New-hire reportFiled Aug 4 | Filed |
| Direct deposit and self-onboardingEffective Aug 3 | Complete |
| First payroll runScheduled Fri, Aug 7 | Scheduled |
Replaces the afternoon on hold with the state unemployment office, guessing which registration comes first.
A five-truck fleet can carry four pay models at once: two lease-ons on percentage, a company driver on cents per mile, a dispatcher on hourly, the owner on salary. WageTime runs the whole yard as one payroll, contractor settlements beside full W-2 tax math.
Replaces three tools pretending to be one payroll, and the January reconciliation between them.
Full-service payroll is $10 a month per person paid that month, plus $50 a month per company, with unlimited runs. No long-term contracts, no per-run charges.
Off-cycle runs and bonuses cost nothing extra. No long-term contracts; cancel anytime.
Example: 50 people paid × $10 + $50 company = $550 for the month
HR & hiring, onboarding, PTO, time tracking, benefits, and workers’ comp are optional add-ons, priced separately when you’re ready.
See a demoMost lease-on agreements pay a percentage of linehaul revenue or a flat rate per mile, with the fuel surcharge passed through to the operator. In WageTime, percentage splits run through tiered commission structures and mileage deals run as per-unit pay codes, with advances, insurance chargebacks, trailer rent, and escrow contributions itemized on every settlement.
Federal truth-in-leasing rules require payment within 15 days after the operator submits delivery documents, whether or not you have been paid for the load. Percentage deals also entitle the operator to a copy of the rated freight bill. Those duties sit with you as the carrier; WageTime keeps every settlement dated and itemized so the record exists when someone asks.
Whether 1099 owner-operators need workers’ comp is a call for you and your insurance agent: some states require coverage for any employee, others exempt true independent contractors. Many lease-on fleets carry occupational accident insurance for 1099 operators instead; third-party guides put typical premiums between $600 and $2,400 a year as of 2026. In payroll, the occ-acc chargeback shows as a named deduction line.
Classification is a decision for you and your attorney, and the federal test keeps moving: the DOL paused enforcement of its 2024 independent-contractor rule in May 2025 and proposed rescinding it in February 2026, while some states apply stricter tests. WageTime keeps both models runnable: contractors and employees in one payroll, 1099s and W-2s both included at year-end.
Not for the 1099 side: self-employed owner-operators claim per diem on their own tax returns, substantiated by their trip logs, and a carrier does not run it for them. A payroll per diem program applies to W-2 company drivers, where it runs as its own earning line configurable as a non-taxable type. You design that program with your tax advisor.
The company pays $50 a month, then $10 for every person who actually gets paid that month, contractor or employee. An owner paycheck, one company driver, and two lease-on operators comes to $90 in a month when everyone is paid. Runs are unlimited, so weekly settlements and an off-cycle bonus cost nothing extra.
Your last settlement sheet, the lease’s deduction list, and a headcount. In twenty minutes on a live demo company, a payroll specialist will build a percentage settlement with your deduction lines, run a W-2 paycheck beside it, and show you the statement your operators would see.
Book a 20-minute demo