New to the forum and am looking for some help with a few questions and figured this would be the place to ask. Please let me know what you think!

A friend of mine owns a very successful accounting firm and has 20 years experience in owner/operator tax preparation and notices that truckers routinely miss deductions due to lost receipts. He finds many guys have to leave their current contract because they don't think they are paid well enough when in fact it is only accounting oversights that send their money to Uncle Sam instead of their wallets. We are kicking around a few ideas of how to help you guys retain your receipts, account for EVERY PENNY SPENT ON THE ROAD, and assist your CPA in accounting for every possible deduction.

What my friend is currently providing for ten truckers is self-addressed, stamped envelopes where they stuff every single receipt and once a week they drop it in the mailbox. He scans all the receipts, making them available online, and itemizes each expenses by category. His truckers can pull up any receipt they've ever mailed him online 24/7 from anywhere in the world and can view their revenue and expense sheets at any time. They have found this very handy in dealing with warranty claims not to mention the time saved by having someone else input all receipts!

When I saw this system I immediately saw much greater potential than just 10 owner/operators. The time they save translated directly to more time on the road/more income and the ability to easily track revenue and expenses is essential with rising fuel prices. My question is: Do any of you think this is a valuable enough service that we should work our tails off to expand it?? And if so, is this something you would actually be willing to pay for?

Thanks for your time. We all appreciate your long hours on the road.

(Disclaimer: This is not a sales pitch. This is an idea we have and think many out there may benefit from it. Just looking to find if this is something that could help you guys out. Thanks)

Hmmmm, i dont see where this idea is much different from what c/c statement's do each month for me.

they show date/time/place/amount/to whom, i use QB PRO it also can show where my $ are being spent.

Thanks for the reply. What we are interested in lessening is the amount of time you spend entering all of these receipts in QP Pro that you could spend on the road, or better yet, with your family. All that data entry time over the year can sure add up...thanks for your feedback.

i find that i do my book work during non working hours, and it generally takes right at a hour more or less.

guess for me it would depend on how much a service your suggesting would cost..

Perfect, these "non-working" hours that are spent on book work are working-hours, you just aren't being paid for your time. I guess each man will have to put a value on how much that hour is worth, multiplied by 52 (weeks).

The cost of the program you purchased to enter them into, the computer and equipment needed to run the program, office supplies to categorize and store the physical copies logically and so on...

I think the real beauty of this idea is that it takes the piles of receipts out of your closet, desk drawer, or seat-back and makes them available on-line when you're on the road, storing the records in a secure facility, and we could even make them available in a bound book at the end of the year for your CPA.

The more we work on this, the more it looks like it we could price it at under $20 a week, and since this service would be a write-off for your taxes, the cost to the owner/operator would be between $12-15 per week. Hopefully all of you guys are at a point where you are making more than $12-15 an hour when you're on the road and this service would pay for itself many times over by more drive-time and less data-entry time. For those not wanting to spend any more time on the road, it allows "non-working" hours to be really work-free and more available time to spend with your families.

As always, thanks for your feedback.

first off, I think its a great idea, one thats been considered by many as a "start-up" at home business.

You may need to work on MARKETING the idea to a targeted audience. something like, having a "rep" at orientations endorsing the program and signing the drivers for you, to a year long contract.

the write-off argument I've never cared for since I'm working for money and not to create "write-offs" and "write-offs" only work after you are actually making a profit.

if those #'s are close to what you can do, imo, i think you have a viable bus. opportunity.

Thanks Bigray and im6under.

Quality and cost are our two biggest concerns, in that order.
This is YOUR business we are talking about and the quality of a product to help YOUR business has to be top shelf.
Consistently providing the highest levels of quality, integrity and accoutability at both a fair and honest price will be challenging but it will be the only way we would do it.

Thank you so much for bringing up the write-off issue. That is exactly what sparked this idea.
Too many O/O's are not writing enough off or not writing off the right things and think they are not profitable or just barely breaking even some years.
Those little $10 receipts that a lot of folks disgard because they are small compared to fuel or tires, ends up being hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars out of the driver's pocket come tax time.

Before this idea even had any real substance to it, my accountant friend had been preparing tax returns for half a dozen O/O's over the past few years. He kept hearing over and over that they were not making any money and that they wondered why they fell for this big dream in the first place. He has found that by having them send him every single piece of paper with numbers printed on them (weekly), the drivers were well within the black at the end of the year.
It is painstaking and meticulous but it has proven itself a necessary evil.

We will keep working hard on the ideas and keep you guys posted.
As always, any input that any of you on the road have toward this will only make it better if we get it going.
Thanks again for all you do.

I'm new to the trucking business. I've been an out of work engineer and had to turn to trucking since there is nothing esle out there. In fact, I'm so new that I will be starting the school Monday, June 6th. Central Refrigerated Services (CRS), Inc is subsidizing the training and fronting the bill at the Truck Driving Academy in Sacramento. After that I work for CRS and repay my portion of the fee on a weekly deduction plan. I can quit within the year but will have to pay back the portion on a prorated bases. It all sounds like a fair deal for an over 40 out of work engineer.

However, they are stongly encouraging the O/O route. I would qualify for O/O after 3 months into my route driving. As a result I'm researching O/O costs to see if after the end of the day I would actually pocket more money as an O/O versus an employee driver.

I'll be driving a Reefer. The biggest unknowns are as follows:

Miles of driving monthly, yearly: based on single driver driving as much as legally allowed
Fuel: based on single operator driving
Maintenance costs
O/O insurance premiums
Medical Insurance premiums for Truckers
Legal Fees
Acctg Fees
Tax preparation fees
leasing costs/terms

If there are any other sources of information and help to truckers on the net please feel free to list them in your reply.

Any advice from any of you older road dogs would be appreciated.

Do many truckers use the Quick Books Pro for accounting or do they use Quicken home and business more?