A trucking company can make a lot of profit with right software packages. A small trucking company is not different from a big company in the sense that they must choose the right software to keep their work simple and efficient.
If you operate a small trucking business, then there are a variety of software programs to choose from. We work with over 10 software companies in the trucking industry. Our team has visited several offices of over 20 small trucking business owners to find out what they like and dislike about their software. We’ve also worked with many customers who have switched their carriers.
You started or purchased a small trucking company that provides local delivery and freight service. You may have 1-2 trucks, 2-5 trucks, or some other number of trucks in your fleet. After you determine the size of your fleet, the next decision is what software you will use to manage your trucking company. There are a lot of options out there – some even claim to be ideal for small trucking companies. What should you do?#
What’s the Difference Between Big and Small Trucking Company Software?
Price.
Do you need a software that can manage hundreds of trucks in a variety of fields? It’s out there and you’ll pay for an expensive, hard to learn, and beyond-what-you-need program.
On the other hand, you might get a small trucking company software and end up with something that fails to manage all the parts of your business. It will create a dispatch but not an invoice. The software manages the accounting but ignores maintenance. There is such a thing as too small.
The right small trucking company software needs to be as perfect as Goldilocks needed for her porridge, chair, and bed! Are you asking too much? Not at all, when you understand the value of what the just-right software can do for you.
Small Trucking Company Software Makes You Money
Let’s take a look at Google. You can use Google for the vast majority of record keeping for a trucking business. With Google Maps, you can create a routing. Then you can build an invoicing system. You can create a system to manage the expenses. Now you can find a way to keep track of your customers. You might even find a way to compile an IFTA report. (Good luck with that.)
How much is your time worth?
Let’s just guess that you’re pretty good at programming and Google is your playground. Even so, we’re talking a lot of time to develop five different applications on a platform that, frankly, isn’t really interested in your needs. Google’s suite of programs is basic, not particularly easy to integrate and doesn’t have a database to store your data – unless you want to pay for that. Oh, now it’s not free.
But say you spend 20 hours on each of those 5 applications. (We’re sure you could do that in 20 hours, right? We couldn’t, but you might.) That’s 100 hours that you’ll not be on the road, earning money.
Then if something goes wrong – something always goes wrong – who you gonna call to fix it? Won’t be Ghostbusters! You’ll have to manage it yourself with more hours off the road.
How much is your time worth? Is it worth a week off the road? Two weeks?
Maybe investing a few dollars per day is worth it. You can have a small trucking company software that already takes care of
- Customer management
- Dispatch creation
- Automatic routing with PC*Miler
- Driver payroll or settlements
- Invoice creation
- Accounting, including past due invoice management; expense and profitability reports
- IFTA reports
- IRP reports
- Maintenance scheduling
- Maintenance records
without learning how to write computer code or create something using Google sounds like a better investment.
Customer Development
You don’t want to be dependent on a load board for all of your loads. You might get some good pay with some unexpected trips, but in the long run, developing regular lanes with customers will pay you better and with more consistently. That makes life a lot easier to plan for. Having a system that reminds you of past shippers and keeps track of their contact information so you can be in touch gets you started on that customer development path. Unless you’re going to keep everything handy in a notebook under your seat and will pull it out while you’re waiting for the shipping crew to finish, a good small trucking company software will have that at your fingertips, in your cab, for you to drop a friendly email. “Just checking in…” you could say.
Customer development makes you money.
Small Trucking Company Software Saves You Money
Ever have a driver lose the delivery address and drove extra miles trying to find it? Or dropped a couple hundred on fuel and forgot to get the receipt?
Tracking your expenses is the single best way you have to control your business. We want the lowest possible prices on fuel, but we can’t control that. We can control when and where we buy our tires, windshield wiper blades, get our engine oil changed or have our brakes checked. The prices of those things on the road are high and likely to go higher in an emergency.
By controlling where you spend your money and managing your trucks’ maintenance to reduce the likelihood of an expensive roadside assistance call, you can save a significant amount of money.
Do you have keep records of where and when your maintenance was done? It would be helpful to have that accessible in the cab and not in a file cabinet back at home.
We’re not here to say you can’t build a software system on Google.
We want to know why you would want to that when you can use software ready for your small trucking business right now?
What should your small trucking company software include?
The list above is the basics of what you’re going to need. We know, because we had truckers on our team when we built TruckingOffice trucking management software. Let’s look at the best parts of why our trucking management software is better than all the rest for your small trucking business.
- TruckingOffice enables you to manage every aspect of your business from anywhere in North America with an Internet connection. All you need is a web-capable device like a laptop or smartphone to calculate payroll, invoice clients, figure IFTA taxes, stay on top of vehicle maintenance, and perform hundreds of other tasks that take up so much of your time.
- TruckingOffice is cloud-based. Your software and your company information are kept constantly up-to-date with the latest security protocols—the kind used by the big boys. You’ll never lose sleep worrying about hackers or spend endless hours installing software from fragile CDs. Even if your office is wiped out by a tornado or other disaster, your data will be safe and sound.
- When you use TruckingOffice, you not only get a great product, you also receive the combined knowledge of our team of tech support specialists. They’re always just an email or toll-free phone call away if you have a question or concern
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conclusion
Software is required for every industry these days – trucking is no exception! Truckers have been using software to run their businesses since the early days of computers. Today, they rely on trucking software to stay profitable. Do you know which software package fits your business? Let me help you with that…Hopefully we can have a simple conversation to start getting you on the road to success!
The trucking industry is a competitive one. The market is tough and you have many different types of small business owners trying to get a slice of the pie. In fact, it’s no secret that demand for trucking services has been steadily increasing over the previous couple of years.