Running Your Trucking Company

Who’s running your trucking company? Most truckers on the road are independent owner operators and have to manage their businesses themselves.

While the long hours on the road are the core of the business, it’s the back office that makes the business work. Unless someone is sending out the invoices and making sure the taxes are paid, there’s no business.

Is Your Mom Running Your Trucking Company?

The trucking industry is one full of family businesses. Once a family member knows how to manage the details, they often stay in that same position for years. When the next generation gets out on the road, that adds a lot more stress on the stay-at-home business manager. Instead of one truck, are there now 2 or even 3 trucks with loads to find, dispatch, invoice, and collect payments for?

We want to see growing trucking businesses. But not at the expense of the one back home burning out.

What Does That Business Administrator Do?

We’re not talking about every single owner operator’s family. Every trucking family has their own system how they split the work. The trucker might find the loads on the load boards, or the person back at home might do it.

As long as it’s getting done, right?

But the list of tasks in a trucking business doesn’t end at the dispatch. That’s almost where it starts.

What about

• routing
• expenses
• fuel purchases (per state)
• tolls
• driver settlements
• insurance (purchase and payments)
• invoices
• late pays
• maintenance records
• income taxes
• IFTA
• IRP (What does IRP stand for?)

That’s not even the full list of what it takes to run a trucking business.

When something goes wrong on the road, the amount of work in the back office can double when there are repairs to pay and loads lost. Or if a load is delayed in the shipping dock – pickup or delivery – and the next load is missed?

Keep Your Back Office Happy and Healthy

We shouldn’t assume that everything in a trucking business is run by the driver. Sometimes that is the case. With TruckingOffice PRO, an entire trucking company can be run from the cab using a smartphone or a tablet with wifi. It’s designed to be that simple that running your trucking company can be done from your cab.

But most companies don’t work that way. There’s someone at home, collecting envelopes with signed BOLs and expense receipts and tracking maintenance.

This week, think about the work they do for you. And think about how they do it?

Are you using the best trucking software for them?

To keep your back office happy and healthy, you need a complete system that communicates with your drivers and the office. The best one on the market uses both a complete trucking software and ELD integrated together. With TruckingOffice ELD, communication is instantaneous when dispatch details are updated, or delays on the road impact the delivery. When your trucking business is running TruckingOffice PRO, your IFTA and IRP reports show up instantly with the most accurate miles per state because of the ELD data.

Sure, your back office might like a bouquet of flowers. Or a bottle of something fun to drink. But for the same investment, you could be making their job easier and better, and making your trucking business better for the long haul. Let’s get your back office the tools they need to build a successful trucking office!