How TCS pays your COD, and how to check it

Each TCS payment period covers one week of bookings and deliveries, named the way TCS names it: 08_Aug_to_14_Aug_2024. A parcel booked in week one and delivered in week two appears on two invoices: a freight-only line (negative) in week one, and a COD line in week two. A return appears the same way, with no COD on the second line, so the account goes negative by the return charges. That negative balance is not written off; it is carried into the next week and deducted from that payout.

Across the production account ShipOps reconciled, every weekly payout from July to August 2026 fit that model exactly: gross COD for the week, minus freight and GST, minus withholding, minus the carried-forward balance, equals the transfer.

The payout for a week is one bank transfer even when TCS's row-level payment dates split across two processing batches; the receipt is the week, not the batch.

TCS's Payment Detail API gives per-parcel rows: tracking number, COD amount, courier charges, GST, status code, dates and the payment period. The invoice detail report from the portal adds the week's totals: amount payable, paid, adjusted, returns, and net outstanding, with the week's withholding tax. No API endpoint returns the invoice total; ShipOps computes it from the rows and checks it against the portal's figure when you have one.

Withholding is 2% income tax plus 2% sales tax withholding on the COD, with a further 2% for a non-filer. It is deposited with FBR on your behalf and never remitted, never shown as a separate invoice. TCS's delivery charge, as printed on the rows, is inclusive of GST; treating it as exclusive matched none of 282 invoice rows, treating it as inclusive matched every one.

TCS does not expose invoice numbers through its documented APIs, and the "payment invoice" endpoint answers success with zero rows for every input ShipOps tried, including TCS's own sample. So the receipt ShipOps files is synthesised from the Payment Detail rows: one receipt per payment week, containing exactly the rows that week paid.

These are the discrepancies ShipOps finds on TCS receipts, in the order they usually cost the most:

• Delivered on the trail, absent from the payment plane. TCS marked the parcel OK Delivered; no payment row ever carries it. TCS's own "delivered" and "paid" are different systems, and the gap between them is where money sits.
• Paid before delivery. One payout run paid a row whose delivery date was the day after the payment. Cumulative totals stayed exact, so only a per-week check caught it. It is not money lost, but it is a sign that TCS's weekly cut-off is not a wall.
• A return's freight charged, then its COD never credited. The booking week bills the freight; a return means no COD line ever comes. That is correct, but it is also the whole RTO cost, and it hides in the carry-forward unless itemised.
• Short COD on a partial delivery. POK and PD rows carry less than the order's COD. ShipOps flags the amount mismatch rather than marking the order paid.
• Withholding at 6% instead of 4%. The non-filer surcharge applied to an account that is on the active taxpayer list. Worth a conversation with TCS and your accountant.

ShipOps sweeps TCS's Payment Detail API in 31-day chunks on a schedule, takes the paid rows, groups them into the week they were paid, and files one receipt per week with the carried-forward balance applied. The receipt's net is a number you can find on your bank statement.

Every row is matched to a parcel by tracking number. The settlement dashboard shows what reached the bank, what TCS still owes (delivered parcels with no paid row yet), and what is at risk (short-paid, partial, charged twice). Withholding tax is itemised on its own so your accountant can reclaim it.

Because TCS's delivered status and TCS's payment plane disagree more often than other couriers, ShipOps also lets a TCS payment row promote a parcel the trail has forgotten to Delivered, dated by the invoice. The invoice only ever fills silence; it never overrules a trail that says otherwise.