How Do FedEx Ground Contractors Run Payroll from DSW or GroundCloud Data?

Export the week's service worksheets from MyBizAccount and your drivers' timecards from GroundCloud, match each driver across the two, apply your pay structure to the days, stops and hours each driver was actually recorded working, settle anything missing, then enter the totals in your payroll system, which handles the taxes and pays the drivers. Payroll belongs to the contractor, not to FedEx: FedEx's contracting FAQ says service providers employ their own personnel and are responsible for "maintaining payroll and employment records." The worksheets and timecards are the raw material, and the steps below turn them into paychecks.

What the DSW and the weekly service worksheet are

DSW is short for Daily Service Worksheet. It and the Weekly Service Worksheet are FedEx's reports of each day's work, by work area and driver, in the AutoDSW app in MyBizAccount, FedEx's contractor portal. The daily worksheet covers one day. The weekly one covers a FedEx week, Saturday through Friday, with the date on each row. Both export to Excel.

FedEx doesn't publish a public guide to either worksheet, so what follows is what the exports themselves show. Each row is a work area on a day, with the driver who ran it, and the columns fall into five groups:

• Who and where: the service area number, which identifies the CSA, the work area name and number, the truck number, and the driver's name, written last name first.
• Preload: the packages and the delivery and pickup stops planned for the route.
• P&D results: actual delivery stops and packages, actual pickup stops and packages, the in-line scan percentage, non-delivered stops, and status codes such as Code 85 and DNA.
• DOT hours and miles: miles, on-road hours, on-duty hours and potential DOT hours violations.
• Premium services: signature-required, date-certain, evening and appointment deliveries.

Three things about the export matter for pay:

• A shared route shows its total once. When two drivers split a route, the worksheet shows the route's main row with the route's total, then a row beneath it for each driver's own numbers, including the driver named on the main row. Pay from the drivers' own rows. Counting the main row too pays for the route twice.
• One driver can take several rows. The same driver can appear on more than one row of a route. The stops on those rows add up, but the on-duty hours are that day's reading printed again, and the other rows show 00:00 or nothing. Read the hours once; don't add them.
• It isn't the settlement. The daily export ends with FedEx's own note that its stop totals may not include every stop counted for settlement. The worksheet records the work; the settlement statement is what FedEx paid you for it.

What GroundCloud's timecards hold

Descartes GroundCloud's reporting page says drivers "can clock in/out, request time off, and view their schedules" in its Driver App, and that managers create schedules and approve timecards in its portal, where timekeeping reports are available to review and export. Its overview says timekeeping and payroll "roll up right inside the portal."

So a GroundCloud timecard is your own record of when each driver started and stopped, approved by your manager. The worksheet is FedEx's record of what each driver delivered, with an on-duty figure of its own. They answer different questions, and most payrolls need both:

• Day rate needs the dates each driver worked. Both records show them.
• Per-stop or per-package pay needs each driver's own stops and packages, from the worksheet.
• Hourly pay needs the hours worked each day, from the approved timecards. The worksheet's on-duty hours are a useful cross-check.
• A hybrid, such as a day base plus a per-stop component, needs both the dates and the stops.

The trade-offs between those structures are in driver pay structures for 5-, 6- and 7-day terminals.

How to run payroll from DSW and GroundCloud data, step by step

1. Line the pay week up with the FedEx week. FedEx weeks run Saturday through Friday. If your payroll week starts on Saturday too, the worksheets and the timecards cover exactly the days you're paying for. If it doesn't, you split every weekly worksheet across two pay periods. Changing a workweek is a question for your payroll provider or accountant.
2. Export the records. The Weekly Service Worksheet for each station and week from MyBizAccount, and the approved timecards for the pay period from GroundCloud.
3. Match each driver across the records. Keep one roster with each driver's name as the worksheet writes it (last name first, and long names can be cut short), as GroundCloud has it, and as your payroll system has it. A worksheet row that matches nobody, or a timecard with no worksheet row that day, is a question to answer before payroll, not after.
4. Count each driver's days and stops from their own rows. A date worked is one day, however many rows it takes. On a shared route, use the driver's own row, not the route's total. Count only the days in the records: a six-day terminal doesn't mean everyone worked six, and a week is never assumed to be five.
5. Check the hours. An hourly driver needs a real hours figure for every day worked. If a timecard is missing a clock-out, get the actual time from the driver and the manager and record the correction. Don't fill in a typical day. Compare each timecard with the worksheet's on-duty hours, and look into any day where they're far apart.
6. Apply the pay structure. Day rate times days worked, per-stop rate times the driver's own stops (with any tiers), hourly rate times hours worked, or your hybrid. Then add bonuses and take deductions as your pay plan says. How overtime applies to your drivers is a legal question; the overtime step in how to reduce driver turnover points to the DOL's guidance, and your payroll provider or an employment attorney can tell you how it applies.
7. Hand it to your payroll system. Enter each driver's hours and earnings in ADP, Gusto, Paychex or whichever system you use, or import the file your payroll tool produces.
8. Keep the records. Save the worksheets, the timecards and your pay calculation with each payroll. What the hours record has to show is covered below, after the example.

A worked example

These are made-up numbers, an example and not typical figures. A six-day terminal, one Saturday–Friday week, three drivers:

• Driver A, on a $200 day rate. The worksheet shows A on four dates, and the GroundCloud timecards agree. A's pay is 4 × $200 = $800. Not six days because the terminal runs six, and not five because a week "is five": four, because the records show four.
• Driver B, paid per stop. On Tuesday B shared a route. The route's main row shows 140 delivery stops; B's own row shows 52 and the other driver's shows 88. B's Tuesday is 52 stops. Paying B from the main row would pay B for 140 stops, and the route for 228.
• Driver C, paid hourly. C worked five days. GroundCloud has approved timecards for four of them; Thursday's has no clock-out. The worksheet has an on-duty figure for Thursday, but that's FedEx's figure, not C's timecard. The manager confirms Thursday's clock-out with C and corrects the timecard, and only then does Thursday go into payroll.

The same rule applies when you later ask what each driver costs. A day with no recorded clock adds nothing to anyone's hours. Had Thursday never been clocked, C's cost per hour for that week couldn't be worked out honestly, because the week's pay includes Thursday and its hours don't. Leave that week out of the average and say so, rather than assume an eight-hour day.

What the hours record has to show

The Department of Labor's recordkeeping rule, 29 CFR 516.2, lists what an employer's payroll records must contain for employees covered by the federal minimum wage and overtime rules. Among the items: the time and day the workweek begins, the basis of pay (per hour, per day, per piece and so on), "hours worked each workday and total hours worked each workweek," total wages for each pay period, and the date of payment with the pay period it covers. The rule defines a workweek as a fixed, recurring period of seven consecutive workdays.

The DOL's Fact Sheet #21 adds that no particular form is required and that "any timekeeping plan is acceptable as long as it is complete and accurate." It says payroll records are kept for at least three years, and the records wages are worked out from, such as time cards, for two.

Whether a FedEx worksheet, a GroundCloud timecard or both should serve as your hours record, and how the rules apply to your drivers and your state, are questions for your accountant or an employment attorney. This post isn't legal or tax advice.

Tools built around these records

Several products do parts of this work. Each description here is the vendor's own, from its website in October 2026:

• Descartes GroundCloud keeps timekeeping and payroll in the same portal as its routing and safety tools.
• eTruckBiz B.O.S.S. combines timekeeping, payroll, scheduling and dispatch for FedEx service providers, and holds driver punches as provisional until they're reviewed.
• FleetWage imports stop counts from FedEx Ground settlement reports, calculates per-stop pay with up to three thresholds per employee, and exports to ADP, Gusto, Paychex, Paylocity and other providers. It also imports GroundCloud time card exports, matching entries to drivers by name and FedEx ID.
• PnD Analytics, built for ISP contractors, takes the Weekly Service Worksheet, applies your pay plan (base pay, per-stop tiers, bonuses and reductions) and produces a payroll-ready file for Gusto, ADP, Netchex or Paychex.

ADP, Gusto and Paychex are general payroll systems. The tools above hand their results to systems like them.

Common questions

What does DSW stand for?

Daily Service Worksheet. The weekly version is the Weekly Service Worksheet. Both come from the AutoDSW app in MyBizAccount.

Does FedEx set what I pay my drivers?

No. FedEx's contracting FAQ says service providers set "compensation, payment, work schedules and times" for their own personnel.

Should per-stop pay come from the worksheet or the settlement?

Tools differ: FleetWage counts stops from the settlement report, and PnD Analytics from the Weekly Service Worksheet. The two can disagree, as the worksheet's own note warns. Pick one, tell your drivers which, and use the same one every week.

Can I run payroll from the DSW alone?

For day-rate and per-stop pay, the worksheet has the dates and the stops. For hourly pay you also need a timekeeping record. The worksheet's on-duty hours are FedEx's figure, and whether they can serve as your hours record is a question for an employment attorney.

What if GroundCloud's hours and the worksheet's don't match?

They're separate records, kept by different systems. Find out why before you pay: a forgotten clock-out, time before or after the route, a shared route. Then correct the timecard if it's the timecard that's wrong.

How do I pay drivers on a six- or seven-day terminal?

The same way: from the days each driver actually worked. Never multiply a day rate by an assumed five days, and don't assume everyone worked every day the terminal ran.

What your AI payroll analyst does with the same records

Route Impact exists to make FedEx Ground operations more profitable. Your AI staff finds the profit in the contract you sign, the routes you run, the drivers you pay, the trucks you keep and the books you close, and on pay that's your AI payroll analyst. It doesn't run payroll; your payroll system still does that. It reads what payroll and FedEx already recorded: your payroll file (the format it reads today is a Gusto payroll summary export) and your service worksheets, which come in through Connect FedEx, our extension for Chrome on a computer (sign in to MyBizAccount, start a sync), or as an upload. It shows what each driver costs per day worked and per stop, from the days they were recorded working, on your terminal's own five-, six- or seven-day schedule and Saturday–Friday weeks. A driver with no recorded days shows "—", and so does an hourly rate for any pay period with a day missing its clock. It shows "—" before it shows a guess. We're operators too, and the margins are too tight to run this business the old way.