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Expense tracking is one of the most challenging aspects of running a trucking business. You are bound to make mistakes when you are tracking your income and expenses, invoices, or taxes in an old-fashioned way or by using obsolete methods. These minor or major mistakes may cost you a lot of money.
Even if you use a spreadsheet system such as Excel, you will eventually lose track of your profit and loss accounts, income, and expense records. Most truck owners, especially small-scaled ones, do not have enough resources to hire a professional accountant. Thus they have to do all tasks manually and handle the accounting process themselves.
However, with professional and reliable trucking TMS software, you can simplify every aspect of the management of your trucking business. You can reduce manual work and administrative tasks, automate your accounting process and streamline complex business operations.
As you grow your trucking business with cloud-based TMS such as LoadStop, you will realize how easy and convenient it has become to manage and track all your income and expenses.
With simplified accounting and invoice management offered by the TMS, your trucking company can save time and ensure accurate invoicing. When your trucking business experiences easy, fast, and seamless processing of invoicing, it will lead to better cash flow and improved business processes.
Below, we have discussed some of the incredible invoice management features a cloud-based TMS software offers.
Create Invoices with One Click
Efficient trucking TMS software helps you save time and reduce manual and administrative tasks. It lets you create invoices with just one click. You can choose from a range of multiple templates and can customize the information you wish to include or exclude.
Track Fuel Expenses
With the help of effective TMS software, you can track all your fuel expenses. You can quickly record details from every fuel purchase simply by logging every time you purchase fuel, the vehicle that was filled, the fuel type, the number of gallons, the odometer reading, the location of the purchase, and the total cost of the sale. What’s more, you can also upload the image of the receipt of the transaction itself.
Send Quick Invoices to Customers & Factoring Companies
Using TMS software, you can send quick invoices to your customers and factoring companies (if you have them onboard). In case you have factoring companies onboard, you just need to include their data in the system, and then you can send multiple invoices and supporting documents directly with just one click. At the same time, you can also create and send multiple invoices directly to your customers.
Track Pending Payments
By deploying TMS software, you can easily manage all the records and track the pending payments of your customers or factoring companies. Similarly, you can update the status of the invoices and manage partial payments.
Equipment Expenses
When it comes to running your trucking company, you must balance the accounting books. This entails you keep track of your equipment expenses. You need to use effective and professional truck maintenance software to track your expenses and repairs.
A TMS solution helps you record payment details by information, mode of payment [cash, check, credit card, or electronic fund transfer (EFT)], and the transaction amount.
All you need to do is choose the category of expense from the drop-down menu or add your own custom categories for your trucking business. For that, you need to create a category first and then add it. You can also split an expense between categories simply by clicking “split.”
Driver Settlements
Settling driver payments can be highly challenging for a trucking business. However, with advanced TMS software, you can effectively handle and manage driver settlements—calculate pay with deductions, reimbursements, or advances.
Below, some of the features of the TMS solution are outlined that further facilitate driver settlements for a trucking business:
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Hauling Charges: You can calculate driver pay based on your settings with the help of a TMS solution. At the same time, you can choose how you will pay your driver and instantly determine the hauling charges.
Fuel Surcharges: With TMS software at your disposal, you can determine your fuel surcharges based on mileage, a percentage of the revenue, or a flat rate per trip.
Add Accessorial Fees: TMS software also lets you include accessorial fees to invoices by choosing the fee type from the drop-down menu or selecting your own custom fee type. The system confirms the changes, letting you send the updated invoice directly to the customers or factoring companies.
Add Reimbursements & Deductions Amount: A TMS solution helps trucking companies reimburse drivers for expenses by adding the total amount and the reason to the settlement. The software automatically adds the reimbursement to the driver’s balance.
Advance Pay for the Driver: Trucking companies can use TMS software to calculate deductions for advance payments and late deliveries from the final settlement balance by adding the total amount and reason for the deduction.
Accounting Integrations
Invoice management feature by the TMS software supports leading accounting integrations such as NetSuite and QuickBooks. As soon as you generate an invoice in LoadStop, all the information and updates will be automatically synced to your accounting software.
Reporting
TMS solution provides robust reporting features, helping trucking businesses see where all their money is going. Truck owners and fleet managers can overview the profit and loss reports for business insights and equipment maintenance reports to see how much money you are making via your fleet of vehicles. Year-end tax reports help you file your taxes on time.
Multiple Carriers Invoicing
An effective TMS solution supports multiple carriers invoicing. It lets you generate and manage invoices for each carrier separately from a single window, resulting in complete accuracy and easy tracking.
Automated Missing Document Check
TMS solution keeps track of all the details and updates you about any missing documents that could cause unnecessary delays in payments. TMS software ensures no administrative hurdles in the payment process and helps you get paid on time.
