whats your most valuable sofware you would recommend?

I am not an O/O but one I have heard of is Trucker's Helper. Not sure if it's good bad or indifferent but perhaps worth a look. Just Google it since I'm sure the link nazis are on patrol.

 

I super appreciate the software that comes with eFax. eFax Messenger. I know, not exactly what you were looking for. This program allows me to do my business w/o messing with printing or carrying any hard copies of any papers. It eliminates a printer in my truck.

 

i been using foglines software. its great if your a one man gang. it is design by a o/o. you can google foglines

 

Drivers Daily Log for a log book program.

 

Windows 7.... Its an operation system I cant do without... but I can go back to XP if needed. (Just have to find the disk)

 

While I'm not a huge fan of most MS software. I do use it.

MS Money does a great job of expense tracking. Using a software generated chart, you can get a look at where your biggest expenses are, with a simple click.

The chart updates and corrects itself with every entry. Has reminders that can be set to pop up and alert you of pending or over due bills. And will give "to date" totals by catagory.

Once you get the software set up, everything is automatic. Except for the entries you'll make when paying bills or making deposits.

There are many others out there, that are free. They may work equally well for you. I only stay with the MS software because it is what I'm most familiar with.

 

Another useful piece of software is Microsoft Streets and Trips - get one of those USB GPS receivers and it's a GPS on steroids. Makes trip planning really easy especially when you don't have fast enough internet to use Google Maps at a decent speed.

 

I'm all about cheap or free. I track my revenue and expenses in Google Docs. I also keep track of my gallons and miles for IFTA there.

I use Prophesy's Webmiler to actually calculate the miles, instead of trying to record them while driving. The basic account that just calculates miles per state is free.

I just recently started using Inkscape to fill in contracts without printing them out. It opens pdfs so that you can edit them (fill in the blanks on the contract) and re-save them as a new pdf so you can email or fax it back in. It's a little bit of a pain because it will only open one page at a time, but it beats the tar out of printing out 14 pages, filling them out, and then scanning them back in.

I use Billing Boss for my invoices, it's really easy to use and saves your customer information so you don't have to re-enter it every time. It also saves invoices as a pdfs.

About the only thing I pay for is my web-based fax number. I use Ring Central, and it works well for me, but there are others out there. This may also be true of the other services, but I can fax directly from my email with RC, which is nice because I don't have to log in every time I fax, and it aslo saves everything I send in the "sent" folder of my email, so everything's in one place. I also have a virtual 800 line through them, it forwards to my cell phone and works flawlessly.