mercer transportation

I am more lazy then cj & razorwyr I take snap shouts of my loads and send them to my son who also gets a copy of my statement. I also send him a copy of all my receipts related to the truck and he keeps track of it with Quickbooks and pays my bills cuts me a check and deposits it in my personal account

P.S he also has my EFS account, bestpass, and company credit card takes him an hour or two on Sunday

 

I tried many different software programs thru the years, I always went back to my hand written spreed
sheet very simple

month YTD
INCOME
Fuel
Repairs&Maint
Supplies truck
Insurance truck&w/c
Office Exp supplies
Commissions & fees
Tolls-Scales
Meals (days away from home @ $63 @ 80%
Depriciation (broken down to a monthly $ amount)
Interest (broken down to a monthly $ amount)
Section 179 ( broken down down to a monthly $ amount)
Truck Wash
Utilities ( phone ect)
Taxes & License
Physicals
Travel Exp ( motels ect)
Legal & Accounting
Rent / Lease
Uniforms & Laundry
Dues & Subscriptions
Other Misc Exp
Personal Vehicle



All income for the month / year all expenses for the month / year. I always new new where the truck stood doing taxes was a breeze. I never liked gray areas,

This worked for me for many many years. Just find something that works for you tweak it and know your numbers.

 

Wish I had your list when my son and I frist set up Qbooks

 

I use truckers helper. All statements are emailed to one address and i set down and input trips and expenses on sun while i am doing laundry and goofing off on this thread. The program calculates everything on a cost and revenue per mile basis , down to 3 decimal places.

 

This is exactly how we have done it for years too. The difficulty I am having is a need for a paper settlement sheet. If I have Mercer send me the email too problem solved. You guys are Great!!!! Thanks again.

 

I think you took my above statement a little to literally. I have my expenses broken down to the day. I always know my P/L Balance and am never wondering how I'm going to pay my tax bill (I actually pay quarterly).

And you are 100% correct. if someone has no clue on what the are spending or what they have coming in they will not be around long.

 

That is exactly the way we do it

 

Way back when I bought my first truck, I watched my pennies to the extreme. My first trip out, I had my fuel card, bought fuel, when I got my settlement and saw that I was charged a few dollars for using my own money the card was put away.

From that point on I paid cash, credit card same as cash or got personal check ok'd at a few places,never drew an advance, I could not see paying someone to use my own money. Ran that way for 15-20 years.

Point is, for you newer owner operators, this is a very hard and cruel industry. Very rewarding to be successful in. But to end up successful, you need to hedge everything you can in your favor while you learn how not to go broke.

Many companies will try to cheat and steal you out of some of your dollars, that is one issue you do not have to deal with here.

I'm not suggesting not to use Mercers fuel card. That would be nuts.

 

I under stand what you ment cj my son doesn't care where my pay comes from fuel surcharge, tarp pay, or other he just matches my load comitment pay with the settlement pay then enters the deductions and payments (escrow, EFS, checking account) into Quickbooks

 

I don't know what kind of deductions you have/had, but Mercer is only deducting my fixed costs. I know what those are monthly/weekly/daily. I don't see a need in looking at that everyday or every other day. I know what my load pays, I know as soon as I book a load what I should net out of that based on how many days I will be under said load and what my daily fixed costs are. I don't have a reserve with Mercer, I keep my own reserve in my business account, then pay my personal account once a week out of that. As long as the gross matches what I agreed to run the load for, then I know what the net should be. If that matches, then I know what they took out without looking at it. Why do I have to go back and read something that I already knew what it was before they sent it?