Efficiently Manage Fuel Charges in MYOB Acumatica

The Fuel Charge Challenge

With fuel prices remaining volatile and transport costs continuing to rise, freight carriers across the country are applying fuel levies — additional surcharges on top of standard freight rates — to offset their rising operating costs.

For businesses that deliver goods to customers, this creates a real challenge: how do you accurately pass on these variable freight surcharges without burdening your team with manual calculations, risking undercharging, or creating inconsistencies across your invoices?

The good news is that MYOB Acumatica provides built-in tools to help you manage fuel charges efficiently and consistently. We have outlined three practical approaches below that we have been implementing for clients, so that your freight surcharges are applied accurately and automatically.

Your Options in MYOB Acumatica At a Glance

Option 1 – Shipping Terms with Automatic Freight Calculation

MYOB Acumatica’s Shipping Terms feature allows the system to automatically calculate the freight price on sales documents, giving you a flexible and hands-off approach to managing fuel charges and freight surcharges.

Shipping Terms can be configured to calculate the freight price based on any combination of the following:

• Freight Cost – a percentage based on the actual freight cost charged by the carrier.
• Line Total (Invoice Amount) – a percentage based on the total value of the order.
• Hard-Coded Amount – a fixed freight price.

Break Amounts (Freight Tiers) – one of the most powerful features of Shipping Terms is the ability to set break points based on order value. This means you can configure the system so that:

• Smaller orders attract a fuel charge or freight surcharge.
• Larger orders above a threshold receive free freight or a lesser freight surcharge, encouraging bigger orders from your customers 

Calculated on the Shipment, not just the Sales Order – importantly, the freight price can be calculated at the sales order or shipment level. If freight is calculated at the shipment level, this means that if multiple sales orders are consolidated into a single shipment, the freight calculation reflects the true combined shipment value — preventing overcharging.

Assigned to Customers – once Shipping Terms are configured, they can be assigned directly to customer records so they apply automatically to every order and shipment for that customer, with no manual intervention required.

Easy to Update – if your carrier adjusts their fuel charge rate, you simply update the Shipping Term in one place and the new rate will apply to all future shipments automatically.

Best suited for: Businesses that want fully automated freight calculation with flexible tiered pricing and minimal manual effort.

Option 2 – Fuel Levy Non-Stock Item

An alternative approach is to create a dedicated non-stock item in MYOB Acumatica called ‘Fuel Charge’ and set a default price against it. This item can then be added as a line on sales orders whenever a fuel charge needs to be charged.

This approach works well when:

• Fuel charges are applied selectively rather than to all customers or all orders.
• You want the charge to appear as a clearly visible, separate line item on the customer’s invoice.
• The amount needs to be adjusted on a per-order basis.

When the fuel charge rate changes, the default price on the non-stock item can be updated so that new orders automatically reflect the current rate, though the item still needs to be manually added to each applicable sales order.

Best suited for: Businesses that apply fuel charges on a case-by-case basis and want a simple, visible line item on the invoice.

Option 3 – Ship Via Codes with a Flat Base Rate

A third option is to leverage MYOB Acumatica’s Ship Via Codes to apply a flat freight rate automatically based on the delivery method. Each Ship Via Code represents a specific carrier or delivery service, and you can set a Base Rate – a flat rate charge that is added to the freight amount whenever that Ship Via Code is used on a sales order. This makes it straightforward to embed a fuel charge directly into the cost of a specific delivery service.

This approach works well when:

• You want the fuel charge tied to a specific carrier or delivery service rather than to individual customers or order values.
• You have a consistent flat-rate charge that does not vary based on order size or weight.
• You want to avoid adding a manual line item to every order.

How it works – when a Ship Via Code with a configured Base Rate is assigned to a sales order, MYOB Acumatica automatically applies the flat rate as part of the freight cost calculation. The Ship Via Code can be:

• Assigned to the customer record so it defaults onto every sales order created for that customer, or
• Manually selected on the sales order at the time of order entry for more selective application.

Easy to Update – if the fuel charge rate changes, you simply update the Base Rate on the Ship Via Code and the new rate will apply to all future sales orders using that delivery method.

Tax Category – note that the tax applied to the freight charge is determined by the tax category assigned to the Ship Via Code, so it is important to ensure this is configured correctly to apply the right GST treatment to your freight charges.

Best suited for: Businesses that charge a consistent flat-rate freight or fuel charge based on the delivery service used, and want it applied automatically without the complexity of tiered shipping terms.

Get in Touch

If you are currently managing fuel charges manually or are unsure which approach is the right fit for your business, we would love to help. All three solutions can be configured and tailored to suit the way you work.

Reach out to our team today to discuss your requirements and we will walk you through the best option for your situation.