Margins · The record
Margins in production.
The long version, for anyone who wants to check the work. Every figure, the mechanism behind it, and the limits of what it proves.
Back to Margins01 · The ledger
Twenty weeks in one brokerage.
One brokerage, 20 closed weekly runs, March 29 through August 16, 2026.
$4,015,094
Commission settled through Margins
Average weekly payroll
across the closed weeks
$200,755
Loads priced
24,299
Audit lines behind those payouts
one per load, per earner
38,015
Earners on the roster
about 63 paid in a typical week
94
Distinct pay mechanisms in force
13
Exceptions raised and worked
605
Duplicate loads stopped before payment
about $5,491 that would have paid twice
20
Configuration changes filed and reviewed
343
Finance hours returned each week
the team's estimate rather than a queried figure
30 to 40
Every figure except the finance hours is drawn from the brokerage's production system on August 24, 2026. The hours are the finance team's own estimate.
See a week like this one running02 · The deals
Every deal, in one governed place.
Thirteen ways to get paid, one spreadsheet that knows them all, and one person who knows the spreadsheet.
Customer deals, team splits, extra shares, dispatcher pay, draws, escrow, loans, floors. At the brokerage where Margins was built, thirteen distinct pay mechanisms are in force, and before Margins none of them lived in one place. Now each one is configuration, not a formula in a cell.
Every rate and split edit is filed with its dollar impact previewed, approved by a second administrator, and recorded on the audit board. Deals are effective-dated, so re-running an old week uses that week's rates, not today's.
Walk a load's precedence ladderLoad L284100
- Hutchins reserveOffice reserve · 5%$21.00
- Hutchins teamTeam pool · 70%$274.00
- Theo YorkDispatch share · 7%$29.00
- Margins keepsRemainder after payouts$89.00
13 pay mechanisms in force · 343 changes filed and reviewed: 311 approved, 29 rejected
Who got paid
How this load’s $413 of profit was distributed.
Hutchins reserve
Office reserve · 5%
$21.00
Hutchins teamHUTCGRCO
Team pool · 70%
$274.00
Theo YorkTHEOYOH
Dispatch share · 7%
$29.00
Margins keeps
Remainder after payouts (house)
$89.00
03 · The catches
The run stops before it pays wrong.
A spreadsheet cannot notice the same load billed in two different weeks. And it cannot show why a number is the number.
The same load billed twice is a duplicate, and it blocks the run. Re-billed loads with changed financials go to review. Loads whose agent code maps to nobody, loads that lost money, and margins high enough to suggest a missing carrier cost all wait for a person before payday. Warnings ask for a look. Blockers lock the pay step until someone acts.
The same run protects the house. A load below the minimum margin pays zero and says so in words. No deal can distribute more than 100 percent of a load's profit. Margins above a set review threshold, currently just under 60 percent, get a second pair of eyes, and the what-if simulator prices a proposed rate change against the real engine before anyone approves it.
605 exceptions raised and worked in twenty weeks · $5,491 that would have paid twice, stopped across 20 duplicate loads
Open the exceptions worklistCaught before it paid. During configuration, an audit found two people sharing one agent code. A broker's entire book, about $3,961 a week, was crediting to the wrong person. Every run was still a draft, so nothing had been disbursed, and roughly $39,400 went back to the broker who earned it. A system you can audit surfaces that error. A spreadsheet just pays it.
1 blocker is holding the run
Step 3 — Run pay for the week — stays locked until every blocker is resolved. Warnings don’t block.
Blockers
1
must fix to run
Warnings
15
worth a look
$ at stake
$3,442.33
across 16 exceptions
Resolved
0 / 16
this session
04 · The portal
Every earner signs into their own numbers.
Disputes are the tax a brokerage pays for a spreadsheet.
Each broker, dispatcher, and salaried person gets their own portal. Locked statements only: a week appears once the office finalizes it, and every line traces to the load behind it. Their live board, their book by customer, and a scorecard benchmarked against anonymized peers.
Statement emails carry a sign-in link, never financial data. Archive a payee and their sessions end that instant. Nobody waits for accounting to assemble a statement, and nobody argues with a number they can walk back to the load.
See how each person is paidBeck Zimmer
- L284233Meridian Lumber · 22.1% margin$396.00
- L284492Halcyon Glass · 19.9% margin$148.00
Net pay · week ending Jun 20$544.00
270 statements delivered since the end of July · 89 people they reached
Margins
Commission statement
Week ending Jun 20th, 2026
Payday Friday, Jun 27
Beck Zimmer
BECKZFL · Broker · Granite (Denver) · paid as Flat rate
Net pay
$544.00
Margin cliff cleared — full rate on all loads
Weekly average margin 21.5% vs a 13% full-rate threshold — the gate is OFF this week: every load pays full rate, including those under the min margin.
05 · Why it holds
Built to be questioned.
The calculation lives in one place, covered by 39 test suites that run on every pull request. A week can be re-run at any time and gives the same answer from the same inputs.
Corrections never rewrite history. They post forward as their own lines, so what was actually paid stays queryable years later, alongside the reason it changed and the person who approved it.
Margins was not designed and then sold. It was built inside a brokerage's Friday, against real loads and real disputes, until the spreadsheet had nothing left to do.
Next
One pay run, next to your sheet.
Two to three days, on your own loads. Nothing changes and nobody has to trust us. You compare two numbers.