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 if I’d done it right and if I’d get audited… I never did, but that didn’t stop me from worrying about it.
If you’re looking for a way to get organized with your trucking business – there are thousands of other truckers trying to do the same. There are as many systems as there are people.
I moved to a new house this year. We had a lot of stuff to clean out. Some of it was easy – kids clothes that were outgrown, old broken appliances – you know, the stuff you’ll deal with later. Well, Later was here and now and I’d wished I’d taken care of some things sooner. I had to go through more than I expected.
When you think about it, the IFTA forces us to get organized four times a year. Not that we’re grateful for it – but maybe we should be.
Go Clean Your Room
Any parent (or for that matter, any kid) knows this phrase: Go clean your room. I guess I heard it as much as any other kid. I never wanted to clean up. There were other things I wanted to do. Now I find myself saying it to my kids, with about as much success. Now I know why things should be put away where they belong – it makes life easier. I feel less stress when things aren’t lying around.
The IFTA is the equivalent of “Go clean your room” for truck drivers. Get the logbooks out, get the fuel receipts out – and suddenly, it’s done. The office is kinda neat for a change. We put things away. In the same way a kid feels relieved when Mom says, “Ok, it’s good enough, go play,” we feel relief when the IFTA’s done because for a week or so, we’re organized.
Mom was right. Being organized makes running your household and your life better.
I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. Possibly right now, the lack of coherent organization is getting to you. So what do you need?
• A system that works for you in multiple ways. The problem with spreadsheets is that you need so many of them and tracking down the links and the errors can eat up hours and even days. Getting a program that requires you to enter the same data over and over is a bad investment of your time. Having multiple programs that don’t work together makes you double or triple your work.
• A system that works into the future for you. The best way to kill a month’s profits is to have a breakdown on the highway, far from your usual repair crew. An organizational system that allows you to set up regular maintenance and track those expenses is invaluable.
If you go to the library, you’ll find dozens of books on getting organized. Online, there are millions of websites – every single one saying it’s got the perfect solution. That’s good – if you’re the kind of business they’re talking about. But how many of them are about organizing a trucking business?
TruckingOffice is about having an organized trucking business.
Clutter – who needs it when you’ve got TruckingOffice management software?
Your office doesn’t have to have piles of papers and route sheets and tax records piled up. You may need these things for the IFTA, but TruckingOffice Trucking Management Software is about Trucking Management – Trucking Business organization.
We’ve made it simple. An IFTA report is as simple as pressing a couple of keys on your keyboard. But we also have a couple of other keys that will manage your business without the hassle of multiple spreadsheets, importing to some accounting software program, or paying extra for PC*Miler.
We say it every week. Now’s the time for you to try organizing your trucking business with a free 30 day trial of TruckingOffice Trucking Management Software.
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