We got this note from a trucking business owner operator recently. She says everything we hear all the time from other truckers about organizing their trucking business. Is TruckingOffice PRO the solution to this problem?

HELP! I’m about to lose my mind! We have Motive for our ELD. We have Truck Logic for our loads & dispatch & fuel expenses, & QuickBooks for the accounting. My desk is piled high with papers & receipts, I’m behind on the IFTA report. I’m a one-person operations while my husband drives. We have 2 other trucks, so I’m dispatching & HR/Payroll, on top of everything. Can your software really make things easier on me?

From Lynn

Dear Lynn,

TruckingOffice PRO will change your world.

Owner operator trucking businesses struggle to control of the paperwork. Between the IFTA tax records and filings and the normal invoices and maintenance management recordkeeping, running a trucking business takes a lot of attention.

Sometimes, new owner operators think the hard part of having a trucking authority and their own business is easy. They may never be aware of how much is done in the trucking business office.

In the end, it’s about managing and eliminating unnecessary paperwork.

Breaking Down the Owner Operator Organization Chart

Lynn is managing (or trying to manage) three separate systems.

1. Trucking Business
2. Taxes
3. Truckers

Let’s break this down.

Trucking Business for the Owner Operator

Every business is based on one simple fact. People need to make money.

Smart people own their own businesses because they know that’s the best way to make money. But that also puts them into the driver’s seat to manage all the parts of the business.

The owner operator trucking business owner must have their trucking authority. It’s not a long process, or even particularly expensive to get. (The insurance, on the other hand…) But it’s just the start of the business of doing business.

An owner operator trucking business owner has to manage

• load management, such as dispatches and routing
• invoices (current and past due)
• vehicle maintenance records
• business expenses (like insurance, office equipment, software)
• government regulations (DOT, FMSCA, state and local regulations.)

Somehow, there’s supposed to be a profit in running a trucking business, but it looks hard. And it is hard. But there are some ways to manage it by streamlining and by eliminating the unnecessary.

For example, using a standard accounting package to manage a trucking business.

Trucking Software vs. Accounting Software for Owner Operators

We don’t hate accounting software. In fact, TruckingOffice PRO has an export option so that the data from TruckingOffice PRO can be imported into QuickBooks.

But why? Why? Why would you do that? 😩

TruckingOffice PRO does everything you need a standard accounting software to do.

• It creates and tracks invoices.
• It tracks expenses and revenue.
• Specialty reports designed for trucking business are preprogrammed.

What standard accounting software packages cannot do is show how much money you make per mile. That’s the critical number any owner operator needs to know to be sure that they’re making money.

Taxes

Owner operators pay a lot of taxes.

• Fuel tax.
• Highway taxes.
• Vehicle property tax (yeah, that’s a thing we didn’t know about until recently!)

Sure, an accounting software might be able to compute those, if only they weren’t based on miles per state like IFTA and IRP.

All businesses file taxes. It’s the documentation of expenses that causes the paperwork explosions. All those fuel receipts. All the maintenance records. Is a night in a hotel a legit expense? What about a coffee pot for the office? Some expenses are not tax-deductible but still have a significant impact on a trip.

Owner operator trucking businesses have quarterly IFTA tax filings as well as quarterly business tax filings. Don’t miss those deadlines. That can kill your trucking business. That’s why a trucking software program that computes the taxes due for IFTA and IRP is invaluable to a trucking business.

Truck Drivers

As a trucking business grows, drivers get hired. That’s a great sign that a business is growing. In the transportation industry, there are several details that must be managed. Adding human resources to the office tasks takes more time and attention. Once those truckers are hired, then the possibilities of lost receipts, wrong delivery information, or incomplete miles per state records all grow.

Not that drivers are irresponsible. It’s just that the information has to go through another person and that’s often where trouble starts.

Smart Owner Operators Eliminate Paperwork

We don’t mean they don’t keep proper records. We think the problem that Lynn and others like her don’t know what to save or how to save it.

Here’s where TruckingOffice PRO shines. We organize all of that data.

Got a receipt that you’re not sure you should keep?

TruckingOffice PRO gives you the space to upload it now. If later you find out that you don’t need it? No problem. But those records you MUST keep? LIke fuel receipts? Miles per state? TruckingOffice PRO keeps them for you and accesses them when you need them. In fact, by using TruckingOffice PRO and PC*Miler together, your routing and miles per state are automatically calculated. Because TruckingOffice updates the IFTA fuel tax rates every quarter, you can skip keeping that printout of the tax rates, because we compute your IFTA taxes for you.

TruckingOffice PRO creates your invoices for you. No need to print out extra pages of details to add to an accounting software to prepare an invoice. Add all those details into TruckingOffice PRO once and never worry about them again. They’ll be there when you need them. With the FileSafe safe storage, you can even upload pictures of your BOLs and attach them to the invoices so you get paid quickly. Your drivers can even send you the necessary images from their cabs. You don’t have to wait for the drivers to come back home for the invoices to go out!

By using a complete trucking software, Lynn and all other trucking businesses can reduce the piles of paper. IFTA no long is a big task. You can upload the details from your fuel card and get IFTA or IRP over and done with in minutes, not hours.

Owner Operator Organization Starts Today

Organization is the biggest problem owner operator trucking businesses face.

TruckingOffice PRO takes it down to simple and easy.

You don’t have to lose your mind. You just need to lose the paperwork and let loose TruckingOffice’s powerful software to control it all.

Get organized right away by starting right now. You may have details from last quarter you still need to deal with. Sure, we get it. But if you start working on today’s paperwork, you’ll tackle the problem bit by bit without adding today’s paperwork to it the pile.

So Lynn? Please try out TruckingOffice PRO’s trucking software now! We promise you, it will clear your desk and relieve your worry as it helps you build a great trucking business!