What would you roll for?

That is what I do, I have my personal expenses figured into my "drivers pay" to myself. The total for everything is the $1.47, and the extra I have left over is put into my business savings account. I also have my Self-Employment taxes figured into that rate.

 

It is best to keep personal and business expenses separate. In fact, it would be much better to have a separate checking account and use that exclusively for business related expenses. That is one reason that I prefer operating under a corporate umbrella. It helps to keep expenses separate. Mortgage and other personal expenses should not be included in your operational costs unless it is for a facility which you use exclusively for your business. Truck expense should include equipment payments, fuel, maintenance, repairs, logs and other office supplies, etc., It would also be good for you to pay yourself like a driver. If you were not able to drive the truck yourself, you would need to hire someone to take your place. Those are still truck expenses.

Trucknpro does have a way to easily put in your deadhead mileage and the new version brings up the mileage from your last run. I don't recall whether Truckers Helper or Easy Trucking has a way to break out the deadhead. I have not used either in some time. You can also do a profit and loss statement for any period of time whenever you wish. You can customize it to some extent. There is an aging feature that tells you whether you have been paid for any particular load. Everyone needs to know where they are at any given time. Being able to have up to date information is critical to operating a successful business, regardless of the nature of the business.

Another advantage of having trucking specific software is you can give a lender current information about your business with the click of your mouse. You can also put in your IFTA or not, depending on your situation. I believe you can try the software to see if it works in your situation. I think the other two also have either an online demonstration or a short trial. I have a couple of friends who have been using Trucknpro for several years. One is leased to a carrier. He spends about 45 minutes per week putting in his loads. If you have your computer with you, it is sometimes easier to put the loads in as you go. It takes the guesswork out of what it cost you to run a particular load and exactly what you cleared to the penny. Trucknpro has a couple of versions and also has one specifically for Landstar BCO's and recently for Conway owner operators and drivers.

One feature that I really like is that you can put in brokers and shippers and there is a comments section to make notes on them, such as rates, freight lanes, pay history, etc.,

You can use a spreadsheet, database or other accounting software, but you need current information about your business. Even if you are a company driver you could use this type of software. It makes record keeping easier and you have all your tax records ready for the accountant or IRS at the end of the year. Truckers can take a per diem for days away from home or use the exact amount of money spent. By putting in everything you spend, you can decide whether it would save money one way or another. Or, you could just add in the per diem as you go along and print it out at the end of the year and you don't need to dig for any receipts at tax time.

 

I am not familiar with "Neat Receipts." If you buy the Trucknpro program, you don't need anything else.

 

I just remembered one other feature you might like if you want to go paperless. Trucknpro allows you to scan in your bills and receipts.

 

When working out costs I always split it in to three separate fields.
(1) Fixed costs.
(2)Variable costs.
(3) load / route specific costs.

Fixed Costs.(per day cost)
I will usually work out what my fixed costs will be over a year.
I base this on a calculation on what it will cost me to park the truck for the year.
Including drivers basic salary ,all licenses,repayments/depreciation,communications , admin overheads ,security at truck yard etc ,ect.
Every last thing , in a fleet the trucks % of all overheads.
I then take this total and divide it by the amount of paying days I can expect per year.
You have to be practical in these projections as there are maintenance days , bad weather days , sick driver days , break down days , waiting on load days.
When you have a realistic projection of number of paying days you expect you can divide the total cost to park the truck for a year by the number of of paying days to get what you must earn per day worked to cover your fixed costs.

Variable costs(per mile cost).
These are much more simple to pin a cost per mile on.
There are however some basic costs that can be missed and bite you in the ### if you don't provide for them.
There is obviously fuel cost that varies per type of load and area of operation.
Then you have maintenance costs.
In maintenance costs you should include an insurance deductible every 300 000 miles because on average this cost will come about this often.
It is also something that affects fixed costs as it affects the amount of days a year you can work as you will loose about 3 days a year on average having this kind of repair effected.
I also include a major repaint every 500 000 miles.
Medical treatment will be needed every 500 000 miles.
Towing / recovery assistance will be required every 250 000 miles.
All these costs have to be factored in because they will have to be paid some time and the revenue has to be earned in order to pay them.


load / route specific costs.
These are simple things like tolls.
Special wash out of tankers.
Permits.
Anticipated additional delays at some customers / ports etc.
What ever is specific to that load or route.


Working out my cost based on the three cost centers.
(Fixed) Work out how many days it will take me to complete the job including the dead head if anticipated.
Then times this by the cost per day I have calculated.
(Variable) Times the total distance of the job including anticipated dead head by the variable per mile cost.
(Specific) Any specific cost to the job added as an additional.

After I have the total of these three I have what the job should cost me to complete.
It takes experience , record keeping and insight to fairly accurately predict some of these things but it is far more accurate then just using rule of thumb cost per mile figures.

I then add the margin of profit I want and cost the job this way.
This can be based strictly on % or as a set figure per day.
I prefer a % profit on turnover with a minimum per day profit ant set my rates this way.
You will be surprised how much your cost per mile differs on different jobs.

 

My truck I is paid off, my insurance is low, I dont idle and I avg. 7.2mpg.

 

Oh, and I have an oil bypass filter.

 

I'm worth more than 50 cents a mile as a driver. But I don't drive for Pape!

 

I prefer to progect costs based on time. We know exactly how many days are in a month. We don't know for sure how many miles we'll run in a month. Of course everything in this industry is based off distance and rightly so.

I like to think of it as maybe a fast food joint. We have rent (truck payments) that occurs everyday wether we are open or not. We have salaries that occur every month. Our variable would be how many hamburgers (miles) we sell. If you sell your hamburger for a fixed price, how many do you need to sell to reach your revenue for the month? Now it goes without saying you want to sell your burger for as much as the market will bear and still hit your target for the month.

One thing I would say regarding the time based fixed cost. If you have a truck payment you of course have to figure that into your costs (time or distance). However if you no longer have a payment to a finance company or bought it outright, factor in a payment back into your company to replace that peice of equipment. Some people tend to think now that I don't have a truck payment I can run for less a mile. You can, but why not bank the money you would have been paying for the truck and buy the next one cash.