Freight companies can wait months to get paid, pushing many toward costly invoice factoring. On the Disruption Interruption podcast, Todd Ziegler, Founder and CEO of TCS Blockchain, explains how faster blockchain-based settlement could cut financing costs for carriers and lower expenses across the supply chain.
TAMPA BAY, Fla., Sept. 24, 2026-- More than 91% of U.S. motor carriers operate 10 or fewer trucks, according to the American Trucking Associations, making trucking an industry dominated by small businesses. Yet DAT reports that carriers typically wait 30 to 45 days for invoices to be paid, with some payment cycles reaching 90 days. For smaller operators paying for fuel, drivers, insurance, and equipment as freight moves, that delay creates a significant cash-flow gap. Todd Ziegler, Founder and CEO of TCS Blockchain, joins host Karla Jo Helms (KJ) on the Disruption Interruption Podcast to explain how invoice factoring has become a routine part of freight finance and why he believes blockchain can offer another way to settle freight receivables. "Most people, when I talk to them, have no idea that transportation companies wait 30, sometimes up to 180 days to get paid," Ziegler says.
The Cost of Waiting to Get Paid
For carriers that cannot wait weeks or months for customers to pay, invoice factoring offers a way to get the cash sooner. The carrier turns an unpaid invoice over to a factoring company, which advances the money and later collects payment from the customer. Ziegler says factoring has become routine in a fragmented trucking market where smaller operators have little room to absorb long payment cycles.
The cost of financing can be less obvious than the benefit of getting paid sooner. Ziegler says carriers frequently describe their factoring rate as 2% or 3%, without recognizing how that fee translates over time. "If you have a 3% factoring agreement as a trucking company, you're not paying 3% annualized for factoring services," he says. "You're paying a 36% annualized rate of interest to get paid."
Those financing costs affect more than carriers' margins because transportation expenses become part of the cost of moving goods through the economy. He describes the accumulated expense as a "silent value-added tax" embedded in supply chains. "Any time you layer heavy financial costs on supply chain actors, that drips down to the grocery store," Ziegler says.
A Different Model for Settling Freight Receivables
TCS Blockchain focuses on the financing gap between completing a freight delivery and receiving payment. According to Ziegler, unlike traditional factoring, TCS uses blockchain-based payment infrastructure and smart contracts to settle freight receivables with fewer intermediaries involved in the transaction.
That structure allows TCS to generate revenue on the back end of the transaction rather than placing as much of the financing cost on the carrier. "We can provide lower costs of capital to our customers on the front end," Ziegler says. "We are disintermediating a lot of financial waste that is incumbent in traditional finance on banking rails."
For carriers, the practical difference is time and cost. Ziegler explains TCS settles most invoices the same day or the next business day and charges 50% to 90% less than traditional factoring. For smaller operators, reducing that financing burden can also mean spending less time navigating financial arrangements outside their core expertise. "Most trucking companies are subject matter experts and exceptional at what they do," Ziegler says. "They're not trade finance experts."
Links
Disrupting Freight Payments: How Blockchain Is Killing the Silent Tax on Supply Chains with Todd Ziegler
Disruption Interruption is the podcast where you will hear from today's biggest Industry Disruptors. Learn what motivated them to bring about innovation and how they overcame opposition to adoption.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-ziegler-b5035814a/
Company Website: https://www.tcsblockchain.com/
About Disruption Interruption™
Disruption is happening on an unprecedented scale, impacting all manner of industries — MedTech, Finance, IT, eCommerce, shipping, logistics, and more — and COVID has moved their timelines up a full decade or more. But WHO are these disruptors and when did they say, "THAT'S IT! I'VE HAD IT!"? Time to Disrupt and Interrupt with host Karla Jo "KJ" Helms, veteran communications disruptor. KJ interviews bad asses who are disrupting their industries and altering economic networks that have become antiquated with an establishment resistant to progress. She delves into uncovering secrets from industry rebels and quiet revolutionaries that uncover common traits — and not-so-common — that are changing our economic markets… and lives. Visit the world's key pioneers that persist to success, despite arrows in their backs at www.disruption-interruption.com.
About Todd Ziegler
Todd Ziegler is the Founder and CEO of TCS Blockchain, a blockchain-based freight settlement company. An attorney by education, Ziegler has spent more than a decade in the transportation industry and has owned freight brokerages, giving him firsthand experience with freight payment cycles and invoice factoring. Through TCS Blockchain, he is focused on using blockchain infrastructure to reduce the time and financing costs associated with settling freight invoices.
About Karla Jo Helms
Karla Jo Helms is the Chief Evangelist and Anti-PR® Strategist for JOTO PR Disruptors™. Karla Jo learned firsthand how unforgiving business can be when millions of dollars are on the line — and how the control of public opinion often determines whether one company is happily chosen, or another is brutally rejected. Being an alumnus of crisis management, Karla Jo has worked with litigation attorneys, private investigators, and the media to help restore companies of goodwill into the good graces of public opinion — Karla Jo operates on the ethic of getting it right the first time, not relying on second chances and doing what it takes to excel. Helms speaks globally on public relations, how the PR industry itself has lost its way, and how, in the right hands, corporations can harness the power of Anti-PR to drive markets and impact market perception.
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