If your New Year’s Resolution was to organize your trucking business, it’s likely you’ve already forgotten the resolution. Have you fallen back into habits that undermine your desire to improve your trucking business? Let’s get down to the nitty gritty and talk about three reasons you should use trucking software to organize your trucking company.
Organization is the only way to run a trucking company. There are simply too many moving parts to try to keep all in one person’s head. And then that person can’t go on vacation. Don’t do that to your trucking company — or yourself.
Trucking Management Software (TMS) is too valuable a tool to skip.
Reason #1: Use Trucking Software to Organize Your Taxes
Accountants will tell a business owner to use accounting software to organize your business when tax time comes around.
Too bad most accounting software packages don’t help when it comes to the taxes that truckers pay every quarter: IFTA. Do a Google search on “quickbooks IFTA” and you get – pretty much nothing. They have one article published in 2018 about IFTA. It doesn’t say that QuickBooks can help you prepare your IFTA filing.
That’s simple to explain. Only truckers pay IFTA. QuickBooks wants to sell its product to as many customers as it can. Trucking businesses are simply not a big enough slice of the accounting pie to make it worth it to them to compute IFTA.
4 options to organize your taxes
Option 1: Use a self-contained IFTA filing program that expects you to enter all the data.
Benefits: It does the job — provided the software designers have kept up with the tax rates of all states or jurisdictions. ❓
Drawbacks: Entering the data takes more time after entering the same data into an invoicing program. Repeating data entry is an great way to introduce errors that can cost a trucking firm money in penalties and fines. 😮
Option 2: Create a spreadsheet to manage the numbers yourself.
Benefits: It can justify a lot of time off the road. 😆
Drawbacks: It takes a lot of time off the road to create and maintain it. 😕
Option 3: Basic TMS
Some trucking management software packages can take the data from your dispatch and combined with miles-per-state records from the driver, can create a basic IFTA report.
Benefits: You get a reasonably accurate IFTA report. “Reasonably accurate” might not be good enough for the tax man or for you. 😖
Drawbacks: Driver’s don’t always keep good miles-per-state records. 😩
Option 4: Complete Trucking Management Software System PLUS ELD
Benefits: the most accurate IFTA record based on the GPS system of a connected ELD (electronic logging device or E-LOG), so missing driver logs won’t compromise the accuracy of the IFTA report. 👍🏽
Drawbacks: Finding a combined TMS and ELD package that doesn’t break the bank.😂
(TruckingOffice PRO and ELD work together at a price you can afford. Just sayin’. 😉)
Reason #2: Use Trucking Software to Organize Your Rig Maintenance
Every trucker I’ve ever spoken to has said their equipment is not only their biggest asset but also their biggest worry. Keeping a truck on the road safe, secure, and in good working order is the top priority. Every on the road breakdown is one step closer to breaking the business.
Using a TMS that tracks maintenance is the easiest way to stay on top of maintenance. But finding a software package that covers both invoicing and maintenance isn’t quite as simple. Why is that important, you ask?
Who has the money to pay for multiple subscriptions to software? We looked at a comparison website for the costs of using maintenance software. Some of them said “contact us for price” and others didn’t have a price at all.
Why pay for extra software that you don’t need? Use trucking software to organize your rig maintenance. TruckingOffice PRO has the maintenance options you need:
- Complete records in case of an audit✔️
- Scheduling for upcoming maintenance tasks 🗓️
- Easy access when you need to know who handled maintenance in the past 🗃️
TruckingOffice PRO tracks your repairs, helps you know what needs to be done in the future, and doesn’t cost a dime more to do it. 👏🏽
Reason #3: Use Trucking Software to Organize Your Expenses
Truckers do everything we can to control our expenses to keep as much of our pay in our pockets. The challenge is to know if that’s working.
🤬 Expense management seems complicated when we’re on the road. How many of us have lost receipts between the truck stop and our cab door? Sure, we can move to an al credit card system, but when it comes to tax time, those expenses have to be entered into the accounting system. Sometimes that’s months or even a year later – and finding a piece of paper in file might take hours.
Many of our expenses are to be billed on the invoice anyway. Tolls, fees — they add up. If we don’t bill for them on the invoice, they’ll never get paid. 💵
That’s the crux of organization. To make sure your finances are right. That you’re paid properly and promptly. That you pay your taxes and your employees on time. 🕰️
That’s why you should use trucking software to organize your expenses management.
That’s what TruckingOffice PRO does to help you. We’ll help you organize all the important aspects of your trucking business.
TruckingOffice Trucking Management Software
Using a single TMS trucking software package gives the independent owner operator the same benefits that big trucking companies have in expensive software solutions. TruckingOffice PRO offers the best options for the solo trucker or the fleet builder. We’ve got affordable trucking management software that handles everything. TruckingOffice PRO makes your life easier and managing your business smoother by helping you handle your tasks better and faster:
- dispatches
- routing 🚛
- invoice generation and tracking
- expense management
- IFTA and IRP
- maintenance
- Trucker Stats™– reports to show the state of your trucking business.
Combined with the TruckingOffice ELD, you’ve got everything you need to build a successful trucking business – even from the cab of your truck.
Contact us today to learn how TruckingOffice PRO can help you avoid loads that cost you money to deliver and to discover what equipment is the most profitable for you.
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