Small business owners and independent trucking professionals know that operating your small trucking company can be incredibly rewarding.
But the industry is changing. Large customers like Wal-Mart and Amazon may restrict independent truckers from getting work with their competition. As a result, there is more stress everywhere in the business.
Plus, with changing regulations and customer requirements, it can be a large task to juggle all the paperwork required just to bid a load and get paid for it. Even using technology to operate your trucking office can be a chore.
Some companies charge huge hidden fees for factoring just to help truckers get paid!
You’re not alone. Here are the top 5 office pains only managers understand:
1. Personnel Shortages
Personnel shortages aren’t just a problem for small companies and independent trucking professionals. From hiring and keeping truck drivers to managing back office tasks, it is difficult to recruit and retain the best talent.
Small trucking office staffs aren’t the only ones who face this challenge. While the numbers are improving, larger carriers report over 80% turnover.
Some economists suggest that as the freight economy improves, these statistics could become worse. As a result, employee retention has never been more important.
Many truck drivers perform both roles. It’s important to make performing the necessary trucking office work as simple as possible to alleviate headaches and keep drivers happy.
2. Driver Satisfaction
The stress of owning and operating a trucking office extends to truckers themselves. While some of the 1.7 million individuals working as long-haul truck drivers in the U.S. perform their own office work, others face headaches with navigating the changing needs of their office managers.
Long-haul truck driving is hard work in itself. Add in the stress of a changing industry, poorly trained office staff, and fighting to get paid, and many drivers are feeling the crunch.
It’s important to make it easy for drivers to perform their core tasks. Those tasks should focus most on safe and efficient transport of freight.
Too much additional processes and paperwork will make it difficult to keep drivers happy.
And poor driver satisfaction means dissatisfied customers.
Give Them a Break
The needs of clients and the industry aren’t going to be erased overnight. Giving drivers the tools they need to perform trucking office tasks fast and efficiently can improve overall satisfaction.
On top of being personally detrimental to relationships and health, changing regulations may even give truck drivers fewer breaks.
And when they do get breaks on the road that time should be spent recharging, not performing office work.
Streamlining the needs of your trucking office will make every part of your business run better.
3. Locating Shipments
If you don’t have shipments you don’t have a business. And if those clients you are sure are long term relationships seem able to fall away in a day, you’re left scrambling to find your next job.
For independent operators, this situation can mean a missed mortgage payment. For small business owners, you may have a group of employees that you’re paying to stay home.
Technology has made the freight industry increasingly competitive. But we all know there are loads out there that need to be moved from Point A to Point B.
The faster you locate and secure them the better your business will do.
Using the right load boards will allow you to connect with shippers fast and efficiently. Plus, knowing how to use the technology can help you show your overall value on the market.
The freight industry isn’t all about low price. You can connect with clients who value efficiency, experience, and safety too.
4. Factoring
Taking care of invoice factoring has long been one of the biggest headaches for trucking professionals. Unfortunately, changes in client needs and freight technology have made matters worse.
Many trucking office professionals have turned to tools and technology that have proved costly. With hidden fees and confusing technology, factoring seems harder than ever.
The right tools will let you ditch old school factoring. You or your drivers will be able to focus on hauling the load and letting the technology help you get paid for it.
Beyond getting paid, your technology also needs to calculate taxes owed and make the entire process as easy as possible.
Make sure you are getting the best of both worlds. You need technology that is easy to use. And technology that doesn’t force you to forfeit big fees for the service.
5. Getting Paid in Your Trucking Office
Between customers, procurement departments, and long lags in invoices getting approved, sometimes getting paid can become a huge challenge. While some of these headaches are on the part of the customer, if you don’t get the invoice right it can cause huge delays.
If you have delays in accounts receivable your whole business will suffer. You may have to borrow money from the bank at costly interest rates just to stay afloat.
You spend the time performing the work, calculating the rates, and creating an invoice. If any step isn’t performed according to client and government regulations it means your invoice will get returned.
You’ll have to start the entire process over again. This might mean getting approval from various levels in your client’s company or going back to the receiver and getting additional information.
By using technology to capture all the required information, capture data for the client’s needs, and create and send an invoice at the press of a button everything is easier.
You will alleviate headaches by using a central app to streamline the process.
Cure the Pain
For owners and truckers with small trucking companies, the question is how to cure the pain. You need to get payments 24/7, ditch old school factoring, and get credit decisions in 24 hours or less.
Haul Pay can help. At ComFreight we provide an app to help trucking companies find loads to haul, and an app to factor their invoices and get paid faster.
ComFreight is changing the way load boards work and improving freight matching! The fast, open load matching and freight bidding marketplace of the future is here!
Ditch the hassles and hidden fees of managing your trucking office tasks. Try ComFreight’s Haul Pay today.
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