Sending paperwork from truck to shipper/broker

I've got an HP all-in-one in my truck for scanning BOLs only. Other than that, I'm 99% paperless.

New contracts, rate confs, invoicing can be handled with either Paint or Microsoft Document Imaging without printing a single page. It took awhile to get up to speed- but it simplified doing business out of the truck enormously.

You can scan your signature and paste it wherever it's needed on a document. I also use a freeware utility Called Timestamp:

http://www.brothersoft.com/downloads/timestamp-jpg.html

This places the date/time right under your signature.

Instead of printing hard copies of everything (after the load is completed) I save/convert everything to .TIF compressed format. This results in file sizes which are 70-80% smaller than .PDF or .DOC files.

Here's another freeware utility for converting files:

http://download.cnet.com/Office-Convert-PDF-to-JPG-JPEG-TIFF-Free/3000-10743_4-10900900.html

Now, just email it as an attachment to your customer. This knocks 3 or 4 days off the billing cycle.

 

I have a "new customer" file on my hard drive that has a copy of my authority, signed W-9, and Insurance certificate. These documents I just email and don't have to scan them repeatedly.

 

I do the same. I also have a e-fax number for the ones that have to have a fax. Just scan it to computer e-mail it to blackberry fax from blackberry. Everything done from truck.

 

I use efax. I have no hard copies of anything. With efax you can sign and date and edit any fax that comes in and send it back. I have my w9 and authority and many other company and truck documents in my laptop. I can fax anything out. And I can "do things" to the documents if need be in efax before they're sent. I only print the things up when I do my billing at home. It's really nice to not have any paper work around regarding the loads. You can learn to do this stuff in efax by investing not that much time messing around ,and maybe asking questions of efax if need be. I guess it's kinda basic.