by Allen Campbell | Aug 22, 2016 | IFTA, Invoice, Maintenance, Owner Operator, Taxes, Trucking Software
You want open an owner-operator trucking business? Welcome to the trucking world – it’s a lot bigger than you thought when you were just a driver. There’s a lot more you have to consider. Consider your maintenance schedule. Working for a trucking...
by Allen Campbell | Aug 18, 2016 | Reports, Trucking Management
Revenue is all about the dollars per mile you get for the load. End of story. Is it? The Whole Story of Revenue or How to Get Out of Florida I know some truckers who say they will never take a job less than $3 per mile. I call it the “Glory Load.” Good...
by Allen Campbell | Aug 12, 2016 | FileSafe™, IFTA, Invoice, IRP, Maintenance, Trucking Management
We heard you. When truckers asked if they could put their own mileage records into TruckingOffice, we decided to find a way: PCMiler. PCMiler is now optional. You can use your own mileage numbers instead. For truckers who want to enter their own data instead of...
by Allen Campbell | Aug 8, 2016 | HVUT, IFTA, IRP, Maintenance, Organization, Safety, Taxes, Trucking Management
I just figured I should remind people that the HVUT is due on August 31. What is that? The Heavy Vehicle Use Tax is another tax we truckers pay to stay on the roads. I think it’s supposed to pay for highway maintenance, but I couldn’t find anything...
by Allen Campbell | Jul 28, 2016 | FileSafe™, Goal Setting, IFTA, Invoice, Maintenance, Trucking Authority, Trucking Management
[bs_well size=”md”] TruckingOffice Wants Truckers to Succeed We’ve been focusing some of our blog posts on goals and goal setting. SMART goal setting SCHEMES to figure out your action plan Measurements to determine where your strengths and weaknesses...
by Allen Campbell | Jul 21, 2016 | IFTA, Invoice, IRP, Organization, Taxes
How long does it take you do to your IFTA? Here are a few signs that indicate that maybe it’s taking too long. Watch for Stopped Vehicles Are you off the road instead of driving? Some drivers say it will take them a good 7 or 8 hours to do the IFTA by hand....
by Allen Campbell | Jul 14, 2016 | IFTA, Maintenance, Organization, Trucking Management
Get Organized WITH Your IFTA! Every year, I thought the same thing – I need to be ready for the IFTA. I’d do everything I could think of to get organized and ready for it. Every year, I’d find something else that could go wrong and I’d spend a couple of days wondering...
by Allen Campbell | Jul 7, 2016 | Reports
It’s becoming a greater problem for truckers to find a place to rest. Truck stops are reducing the size of their parking lots. Walmart lots are getting a reputation for being unsafe to point that some companies tell their truckers not to stop there. Every...
by Allen Campbell | Jun 30, 2016 | Invoice, Maintenance, Owner Operator, Trucking Management
Forget Your Goals? Or Get Derailed By an Emergency? Keeping your focus on your goals with reminders or frequent review of your business helps move you forward, but there are days when the road to success has some expensive tolls. Emergencies crop up and we have to...
by Allen Campbell | Jun 27, 2016 | FileSafe™, IFTA, IRP, Maintenance, Organization, Reports, Trucking Management
As an owner-operator, you’re responsible for all of your paperwork and compliance to all the laws. I found I could get snowed under really quickly if I didn’t take care of my paperwork. If I didn’t do it after every load, I at least had to do it...
by Allen Campbell | Jun 23, 2016 | Customer Development
Just starting out on my own as an owner/operator and I wanted to know why you think it’s important to work on getting customers. I get all my loads from a load board. Don’t you think that’s enough? Welcome to the world of being your own boss. As...
by Allen Campbell | Jun 16, 2016 | Fleet Management, Freight Sales, Owner Operator
Building your trucking business takes an eye for the long haul. Successful fleets are based on long-term partnerships with clients, not on one-time deals. Load boards may help you to find work quickly, but they can’t create the kind of steady, ongoing relationship...
by Allen Campbell | Jun 9, 2016 | IFTA, IRP
I was driving down I-71 last week, dodging road gators. Somebody was driving on bad tires. Or maybe lots of somebodies driving on bad tires. I guess it’s a bad habit, counting the number of trucks pulled over on the side with truck rescue crews parked in front...
by Allen Campbell | Jun 2, 2016 | ELD, IFTA, Maintenance
We decided to have some fun with the Roadcheck Blitz this year. Sing along with us! But at the end, this is how we feel: You know why we pass the Roadcheck Blitz every year? Because we don’t just care about our trucks for only the week before the Roadcheck. We...
by Allen Campbell | May 26, 2016 | Goal Setting, Invoice, LTL, Trucking Management
Back on Leap Day, we posted a suggestion to you to set some goals for your trucking business this year. Then we blogged about the SCHEMES action plan method to help you move toward your goals. We even suggested fuzzy dice as a way to keep focus on your goals. How...
by Allen Campbell | May 23, 2016 | CVSA, Maintenance, MATS, Owner Operator, Safety
Every year, there will be truckers who take a vacation for a few days in June… exactly the same days as the CVSA Roadcheck Blitz. What are they afraid of? Nobody likes this kind of thing. It’s a long, boring, aggravating wait for some pencil pusher who...
by Allen Campbell | May 22, 2016 | Trucking Software
Hope Campbell is graduating from high school today. As of right now, her plans are still not finalized.Everyone at TruckingOffice wishes Hope the best as she starts off on her new...
by Allen Campbell | May 19, 2016 | Invoice, Owner Operator
No question about it, QuickBooks is the current gold standard for small business’s accounting processes. There’s hardly a bookkeeper out there who hasn’t gotten proficient at it in the last five years. Now that QuickBooks is in the cloud and...
by Allen Campbell | May 12, 2016 | FileSafe™, LTL
The first time that Joe and Angela decided to try LTL trucking, the whole process struck them way harder than it needed to be. How difficult could it be to put three loads on a truck in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and deliver them to Houston, Austin, and Lubbock,...
by Allen Campbell | May 5, 2016 | CVSA, ELD, IFTA, Invoice, Maintenance, Reports, Trucking Management, Trucking Software Training
Paul wants to keep on top of his small fleet’s truck maintenance. His boss came down last week with a half dozen unexpected emergency bills that she thought should have been avoided. He wouldn’t argue with that. But managing a fleet of nineteen trucks...
by Allen Campbell | May 2, 2016 | Owner Operator
It’s all about the customer. Bet you wish you had a nickel for every time you heard that. As an owner operator, especially in days when the loads are small and not too many around, you need a way to make sure your trucking customers remember you. Getting people...
by Allen Campbell | Apr 28, 2016 | Business Plan, Goal Setting, Trucking Authority
Did you already forget your New Year’s Resolutions? What about our Leap Day Goal Setting challenge? Yep, most of us do forget our good intentions within weeks of making those resolutions. There are two things that can help us be more successful: Number 1:...
by Allen Campbell | Apr 21, 2016 | ELD, IFTA, Invoice, IRP, Maintenance, Organization, Owner Operator, Reports, Taxes, Trucking Management
We can’t get away from the accounting. We can’t let the accounting get away from us. When we become an owner operator, we take on a lot of extra roles as well, especially bookkeeper (unless you’re lucky enough to have one in your family!) What do...
by Allen Campbell | Apr 14, 2016 | IFTA, IRP, Organization, Owner Operator, Reports, Taxes
Gus loves driving. Every minute he’s on the road, he’s happier than a pig in mud. Becoming an owner operator was a dream come true for him. Gus hates every minute he spends at the computer, trying to manage his books. He’s organized. He’s...
by Allen Campbell | Apr 7, 2016 | IFTA, Maintenance, Taxes, Trucking Management
Leon had no one to blame but himself. The expedited load from Pennsylvania to Mississippi paid a great rate and gave him a great January total. But he’d forgotten to write down his mileage in each state and with the April IFTA forms spread across his desk, he...
by Allen Campbell | Apr 2, 2016 | IFTA, Invoice, IRP, Reports, Trucking Management
Nobody ever said, “I like doing my billing by hand.” The biggest improvement in the trucker world must be the use of computers to route our trucks, manage our accounts and finish that IFTA. We’ve heard about all those different choices that truckers...
by Allen Campbell | Mar 24, 2016 | IFTA, Owner Operator, Taxes, Trucking Management
A recent discussion around the TruckingOffice office water cooler: Who are you going to call if you’re notified you’ve got to deal with an IFTA audit? First guess – an attorney or an accountant. Which would you pick? How would you find someone who...
by Allen Campbell | Mar 17, 2016 | Organization, Owner Operator, Reports, Trucking Management
If you’re an owner-operator or running a small truck fleet, trying to figure out if you’re making money and where you’re losing it is not a simple process. Normal business accounting programs just don’t cut it. That’s why you need a...
by Allen Campbell | Mar 3, 2016 | Reports
Every once in a while, you hear about a big truck wreck caused by a trucker who fell asleep at the wheel, and then the politicians start talking about restricting hours on the road, and once again, truckers get the short end of the stick. More regulations make it...
by Allen Campbell | Mar 1, 2016 | IFTA, IRP, Maintenance, Owner Operator, Reports, Trucking Management
TruckingOffice has been maintaining the old HammerLane IFTA tables for the last few years because we knew there were a few users who still used the program. We can’t find them since the software was sold on disks – nothing online except the tables. This...
by Allen Campbell | Feb 29, 2016 | Goal Setting, LTL, Trucking Management
It’s just another day on the road, right? It’s Leap Year and today’s that extra day on the road. No big deal, right? It can be just another day, but maybe this could be the day that you choose to make extra. An extra day to think about more than...
by Allen Campbell | Feb 25, 2016 | IFTA, Owner Operator, Taxes, Trucking Management
And it’s not about getting it done early this time. Checking your IFTA report a month before the end of the quarter lets you know what states you’ve gone through and what states you’ve purchased fuel in. If you’ve been through a state a number...
by Allen Campbell | Feb 18, 2016 | IFTA, Invoice, IRP, LTL, Maintenance, Owner Operator, Reports, Trucking Management
Does Your Trucking Business Come to a Stop for Paperwork? For most owner operators, paperwork is the worst part of the job. Trying to keep up with all the required records for the government and getting my billing out and the money into my pocket took a lot more...
by Allen Campbell | Feb 15, 2016 | Freight Sales, LTL, Owner Operator, Trucking Management
Hey, Allen, I could use some advice. I’m starting out as an owner operator and I see other trucks with websites on them. Should I get my own website? Do I need a website? Good question. You see a lot of trucks and trailers with a website on the...
by Allen Campbell | Feb 4, 2016 | Freight Sales, Owner Operator, Trucking Management
I can’t argue with how easy it is to use a load board. You’ll find customers there, sure. But is it the best way? Depending on who you ask, we either have too many trucks on the road for the amount of shipping needed, or we don’t have nearly enough....
by Allen Campbell | Jan 28, 2016 | IFTA, IFTA Filing, Invoice, Maintenance, Owner Operator, Reports, Taxes, Trucking Management, Trucking Software
What happens if you don’t file the IFTA? Do you really want to know? The consequences to not filing start at mildly annoying and move up to painful and expensive. The citation is only the first step. Tickets costs vary from state to state, but the fines will...
by Allen Campbell | Jan 21, 2016 | IFTA, IFTA Filing, Invoice, Owner Operator, Trucking Management
QuickBooks is probably the best-known small business software out there. I hear a lot of owner-operators tell me that it’s how they manage their finances. I can understand that for those people who are running a small fleet and have a bookkeeper. On one hand,...
by Allen Campbell | Jan 15, 2016 | IFTA, IRP, Maintenance, Organization, Owner Operator, Reports, Trucking Management
Making New Years Resolutions to Get Organized? As an owner operator, you’re responsible for all of your paperwork and compliance to all the laws. I found I could get snowed under really quickly if I didn’t get organized and take care of my paperwork. If...
by Allen Campbell | Jan 14, 2016 | IFTA, Owner Operator, Taxes, Trucking Management
Estelle and Leon have been on the road for a few years, and alternated sweating out the IFTA tax forms. She’d do them one quarter and he’d check them, and the next quarter, they’d switch. Let’s just say that one of them is not so good at...
by Allen Campbell | Jan 7, 2016 | Freight Sales, IFTA, Invoice, IRP, Maintenance, Owner Operator, Taxes
We get asked – a lot – how to use TruckingOffice with Quickbooks. Until now, there simply wasn’t a good answer for them – and we lost a fair bit of sales because of it. For us, TruckingOffice did just about everything that an...
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