Trucking Accounting Software: Sorting and Tracking Expenses

For the owner-operator, trucking isn’t just a job, it’s practically a lifestyle.  Living weeks at a time on the road isn’t a career – it’s a choice to accept the road as home.  

Wherever you live, home has expenses.  We’ve always talked about trucking expenses being fuel, or taxes, or maintenance.  Those are indeed critical parts of your business.

Trucking accounting software helps you to stay on top of business expenses.

Those expenses that you have to track – like fuel, taxes, and maintenance – help you determine the profitability of your business.

Expense Management

The big disasters can close a trucking business in a heartbeat.  But it’s the little ones that will undercut the profits and make it hard to see why an owner-operator isn’t more successful.

Tracking your expenses seems like a bother until a long look shows you where you can cut costs.  Maybe it’s too many coffee breaks, but maybe it’s too many short trips.  Whatever it is, the expense reports can show you where the money is going.  You can decide what to do about it – but only if you know all about the expenses.  Some trucking management software can do that for you, but many don’t do anything more than create a dispatch and a routing.

Maintenance Expenses

When I bought my first truck, the mileage was high, the price was low, and maintenance records were nowhere to be found.  I had to learn the hard way about how to keep my rigs in shape.

I think that most new owner-operators don’t realize the value of keeping the records of a truck’s maintenance.  It can save you a lot of money if you keep track of

• where you had work done in case you have to have it redone
• when you had maintenance tasks done, so you won’t do them again too soon or too late, or
• when it’s time to get things done before they cause an emergency on the road and blow the budget.

Keeping track doesn’t just mean get the receipts and throw them into your grandpa’s cigar box.  “Tracking expenses” means entering them into some kind of ledger, either into a computer or by hand, and organizing the information so you can find it when you need it.  Being able to sort a database to find all the entries of “oil changes” makes it a lot easier when you need to see when the last time you had it done.

The key to success in the trucking industry is tracking your expenses: understanding where your money is going and what you can do to control it.

You need a powerhouse software.

When you choose TruckingOffice, you are choosing our state-of-the-art software which is packed with the powerful features you need to run a modern transportation company, whether you have one truck or a thousand.

Here are just some of the things you can do with TruckingOffice transportation accounting software:

• Calculate and pay your fuel taxes with to-the-penny accuracy. You’ll never again find yourself hunched over your kitchen table with mounds of scribble-filled scrap paper and a roaring headache. Our product does all the math for you, ensuring you pay exactly how much you owe, no more, no less.
• Pay your people accurately and on time. TruckingOffice makes it easy to track compensation rates for both solo and team drivers, keeping your personnel happy and working hard.
• Maintain your company vehicles for safety and long life. As you know, missing a single maintenance step can not only lead to a big repair bill, but it can also expose you to expensive liability issues. That’s why TruckingOffice notifies you whenever one of your trucks needs preventative care. Our software benefits not only you but everyone who uses our nation’s roads.
• Calculate and send out invoices in an accurate, timely manner. As much as you love driving a truck, at the end of the day, it all comes back to getting paid. That’s why our trucking accounting software enables you to stay on top of billing matters at all times, helping you to have a steady cash flow and freeing you from financial worries.

Those are just some of the countless features you’ll enjoy with TruckingOffice. Why not take our trucking accounting software for a free 30-day test drive starting today? You’ll soon wonder how you ever got along without it.