Once a year, every truck has to get a new license plate.  If you’re an owner-operator with a single vehicle, it’s an annual expense that you have some time to prepare for.  But the paperwork headache is still a bear.  For the small fleet owner or manager, this can be a logistical nightmare.

One truck – once a year.  Not so bad.  But if you manage a fleet or own several trucks, there are lots of things to consider.

Fleet Managers, IFTA, and IRP

When I had a fleet of trucks, getting new plates was an expensive headache.  I split up the licenses so that the whole annual cost didn’t hit me in one month.  Instead, I spread it out – I had do the report for half my fleet and six months later, do the other half.  That gave me more flexibility in the finances, but it meant I had to do the state miles report every 6 months.

Tracking miles per state is already part of the IFTA report that we have to file every quarter, so it seems like it would be easy.  Just add up the four numbers… but the IFTA report didn’t cover just one of my trucks but all of them.  I had to break out each vehicle individually.  Some of my trucks never left my state – others covered the country and even might have visited Canada.

The International Registration Plan (IRP) was created to solve the problem of licenses for trucks that were moving from state to state or into Canada.  Each jurisdiction wanted the license money to pay for road and bridge construction and maintenance.  When I was a kid, you’d see the back of a truck covered with licenses from states all over the country.

Saving You Time

IRP means I didn’t have to buy multiple plates – that’s saving me hours of finding and filling out forms per state.  But while that’s a nice savings, I do have to send in the miles my vehicles have covered.

You can track all of this on a spreadsheet – I did it for a long time.  But which spreadsheet?  When I was running five trucks, I worked with dozens of spreadsheets to manage my business.  I’d have several going at the same time and sometimes I’d forget to update all of my spreadsheets, so I’d have to track down the information.

There had to be a better way.

My dad came to help me with my business when I was in the hospital.  This was the kind thing that he couldn’t figure out how I managed.  That’s really true for many owner operators – they know their systems but no one else does.  When someone else needs to step in, how can they know what to do or how to do it?

State Miles Report for the IRP

There is a better way.

TruckingOffice was designed to simplify the paperwork of managing a trucking business.  By entering the dispatch into TruckingOffice software, all of the details can be pulled out from there.

Need a State Miles Report for the IRP?  Easy.

TruckingOffice will take the information from the entered dispatches for any range of date.  If you file for your new license in May, we’ve got you covered just as if you were working with a January to December year.

We’ve got all those miles already to go.  Using the industry standard PC*Miler, we’ll figure out those miles per jurisdiction faster than your printer can print the report.  You don’t need to worry about an audit – if you’ve entered your data accurately, your numbers will accurately represent your trucks’ miles.  If you get audited, you’ll have everything you need to show.

You can try out TruckingOffice for a free trial and get started with the IFTA and IRP reports right away.  You can enter data from the beginning of the year or start with today’s loads.  We’re sure you’ll find it fast, easy, and impossible to live without, so don’t wait to sign up for the free trial today.