In it simplest form, the driver would save all receipts for meals and incidental expenses while away from home base. When filing tax returns each year, if itemizing, 80% of these expenses can be deducted from gross income.

The IRS, however, has agreed to allow trucking companies to prepay per diem expenses as a non-taxable amount under certain conditions: (1) the company must have an "accountable" per diem plan, (2) the driver must be away from his "home" long enough to require a rest period per the DOT HOS rules, and (3) the driver must have a "home" (if the driver has no permanent domicile he cannot deduct these expenses). If these requirements are met, the per diem amount will be exempt from federal withholding, FICA, and Medicare taxes. If any one of the requirements is not met, the company cannot prepay expenses on a tax free basis. They can still reimburse the driver for expenses if they choose, but it will be reported as regular income.

A plan is considered accountable if: (1) it covers only business expenses, (2) all expenses are substantiated, and (3) the employee is required to return to the employer any prepaid amount over the substantiated amount. Sounds like a head ache right? The IRS however has made it easier by setting a "meal and incidental expense (MI)" amount and as long as the per diem amount is less that this standard amount, rules two and three are considered substantiated. Currently the federal MI amount is $59.00 per day away from home.

Let's take a simple example: A driver is away from home 5 nights and is at home 2 nights per week. Salary is $1000/week including per diem expenses. At the $59 per day amount $236 (59 x 5 x 80%) could be deducted from gross salary before calculating federal withholding, FICA, and Medicare taxes. Instead of paying taxes on $1000, taxes would only be paid on $764. This would benefit both the company and the driver.

The IRS has allowed transportations companies to calculate per diem amounts per, per mile, or as a percent of gross, as long as the total paid does not exceed the $59 per day away from home. If paying per diem as mileage or percentage, this needs to be monitored occasionally to insure that the per diem amount stays below the federal guideline.

There are some negative things to consider however for both the driver and the company.

For the driver:

• If the per diem is being deducted before paying FICA taxes, your retirement benefits may be lower. However, if the tax savings is invested in an IRA or 401K, there is usually a much greater benefit received than from paying additional FICA taxes.
• When applying for a loan, the banks typically look at taxable income. Thus deducting per diem will lower the taxable income showing on the paycheck stub. If the bank uses the 1040 return to find total taxable income, this will not be an issue, as the MI expenses will have been deducted from your 1040 also.

For the company:

• If a company is audited and the IRS finds you have routinely paid drivers more than the standard daily amount, taxes will have to be paid on all per diem paid out, not just on the over payment. It is important to monitor the per diem payments to insure they do not exceed the federal standard.
• There can be administrative costs associated with deducting and monitoring per diem pay. These can be minimized however, by using a good trucking software package such as TruckMaster which makes per diem calculations a simple part of the settlement process.

Talk to a tax advisor before making changes, but generally a company can save a bundle on taxes by paying per diem correctly, plus it benefits the drivers as well.

Craig Sorensen
TruckMaster Solution Provider
TruckMaster Your Trucking Company™

The holidays are over, and we now get to set our eyes on the next eagerly anticipated date, tax day.

'Tis the season to dig out all of the receipts for the past year, categorize them, add them all up, and enter them into the P&L spreadsheet

Time to spend hours on the phone trying to dig up all of the Tax ID numbers that you're missing from those you've paid money to over the year.

Time to break out the electric typewriter, and set upon filling in all the 1099s and W2s that need to be issued to your employees and carriers.

Time to find out, too late of course, that an asset purchase prior to the end of the year would have saved you big dollars in taxes.

Isn't there a better way? Yes.

Trucking software is the better way. With a good trucking software package, all of your revenue and expenses are entered daily, as you process the day's work load. Each fuel purchase, every road expense, all truck repairs, are categorized as you pay for them (or as you accrue the debt).

In fact, good trucking software will allow you to download automatically many of your road expenses directly from your fuel provider shortly after the purchases occur.

You can see from day to day exactly where you are at for each category year to date. At the end of the year, you press a button and out comes the paperwork that needs to be submitted to your CPA for final approval.

With good trucking software, printing your W2s and 1099s is as simple as sticking the forms in your printer and hitting "print".

Really!

So what's holding you back? Is it the time and money that you're currently investing in a) manually calculating your figures, or b) wasting time with poor trucking software that leaves you doing many things manually anyway? Time to break the cycle once and for all.

'Tis the season.

Greg Dodson
TruckMaster Solution Provider
TruckMaster Your Trucking Company™

Business owners and employees with a career in the trucking industry are there because at some level they love it. At every level, it is challenging work and I believe this has a way of pointing out people who are tenacious, hard working, and love a challenge. Certainly, part of that challenge is to be profitable. Unlike the farmer in the joke, you cannot be satisfied simply waiting until the money runs out. You know you must watch every penny constantly so that some of them will get to the bottom line. This is not the "fun" side of the business. However, it is less painful than having the money run out.

One of the first steps in making management less painful is ensuring that everyone understands that every decision made will produce profit or cost the company money. Employees who realize how their decisions affect company profitability are empowered and make better decisions. Therefore, the question becomes how to provide them with this 'awareness'. You can employ the "caught ya" technique, which, unfortunately, is over used. You catch people making bad decisions and embarrass or berate them hoping the quality of their decisions will improve.

Obviously, this causes problems in the personnel management area. It is also after the fact and it is not proactive. It is preferable to provide people with the information to make the right decisions right from the start. If employees see that you are involved in the business and invested in its success and they see their accomplishments as part of the company’s achievements they will follow, and emulate your positive actions. The action that has the most impact is the company's investment in providing the tools and systems that assist employees when making the company more successful. This can be as simple as providing a decent desk chair, or as extensive as a true, enterprise level, trucking software package.

The investment in time and money to ensure the company and employee success shows commitment, and care for the whole team. It is a way of saying, "We are in this together, and we are going to make sure everyone is working at peak performance, using the very best tools and systems possible." This attitude, this commitment ensures your company will be the very best it can be.

We welcome the opportunity to be a part of your success in 2010. Please contact us today to learn how a TruckMaster System is the best gift you can give your company this holiday season.

Kurtis Brown
TruckMaster Solution Provider
TruckMaster Your Trucking Company™

Inside a trucking company there can be many different dispatch departments. Some handle only brokerage, some only company trucks, some only owner operators. There are some smaller companies that don’t have a lot of people but those few people handle everything. In cases where dispatchers run both the company trucks and find outside carriers for their extra freight having a great system that can handle all of these situations is vital.

That's what TruckMaster is all about. Our software is very versatile in being able to handle all of the complex issues of dispatching. When it comes to dispatching, things change every few minutes, from drivers and carriers not being able to take or deliver loads to customers who need loads moved in a hurry.

Inside the TruckMaster dispatch system you are able to:

• Create the load so that you can see it before putting it on a truck. You are able to enter the customer, shipping and receiving information dates and times, weights, comments and your rates to be billed.
• Take that load and put it on a truck whether it is a company truck or outside carrier. If it’s an outside carrier you can rate it and send them a confirmation.
• View all of the available loads that are waiting to be dispatched on a truck or carrier.
• View all of the available loads on the top and all of the trucks and their status on the bottom. From this screen you can select a load and click on the truck you wish to put the load on which dispatches the truck.
• View the status, destination, last call in and PTA of a truck or a trailer.

Knowing where your trucks are at all times is vital and by having a screen specifically to record those check calls from drivers and carriers where they are showing, what they are doing, and if there running on time, as a dispatcher having easy access to tell anyone where they are makes life so much easier, more efficient, therefore more cost effective.

With all of these features that tie dispatching together for both company trucks or outside trucks, TruckMaster Logistics Systems is the trucking system for you. It is easy to learn and easy to use. You are able to keep on top of your loads and able to keep drivers and customers informed. Contact TruckMaster today for a free demo; learn how having a great system can make your life so much better.

Donna Braxton
TruckMaster Solution Provider
TruckMaster Your Trucking Company™

In fact, the quality of the tool was quite often judged by how many things you could do with it and not break it. In my late teens I decided I was too good for farm work and worked on a construction crew for a couple of summers. I worked in concrete and did some framing. I learned a great deal about the proper use of tools during those summers, and having the right tool for the job at hand.

The quality of the tool was not simply judged on brute durability, in fact that took a second seat to precision, and efficiency. It was crucial to have the correct blade, nails, or hammer for the job. I also learned the cost of these professional tools when I had to buy my own. If I wanted to produce the quality and precision job the crew demanded I had to have quality tools.

The lessons I learned about quality tools have stuck with me through the years. I often see people who spend an enormous amount of effort, time, and money on a project or business only to put it all in jeopardy because they refuse to invest in the proper tools. This is not to say that tools have to be expensive to be quality, or, because something is expensive it is quality. However professional tools are held to a higher standard and typically cost more to produce.

Quite often trucking companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars investing in trucks, trailers, even office equipment. But when it comes to investing in the systems which manage all of their investments they falter. Sometimes they will use no system and invest in more employees or they will purchase an inexpensive system that will only manage a part of their business. This leaves the rest of the business to be managed manually or by a different inexpensive solution. These are very dangerous options for a company. As the old adage says if you cannot measure it you cannot manage it. If you measure it inaccurately you are going to manage it inaccurately.

In today's fast paced, and highly competitive transportation industry, measuring every detail of your operation is crucial. You must have the proper tools to measure and manage your company quickly and efficiently. Using a simple, off the shelf, accounting system to manage your trucking company or freight brokerage is not going to provide you the professional and accurate results your company and your customers require. Investing in a true transportation management system that is built and supported from the beginning by transportation professionals will provide you and your company quality and professional results.

Please consider TruckMaster as your company's next investment to ensure you have the proper tools of the trade. We will not only provide you with these tools but also with the expertise and support to ensure that you and your crew know how to use them, and we will ensure you have what you need in the future.

Kurtis Brown
TruckMaster Solution Provider
TruckMaster Your Trucking Company™

Monitoring your Accounts Receivable (A/R) is essential to continuing to operating. You must not allow your invoices to go uncollected for an extended period. A good transportation management system (TMS) software package should make monitoring your A/R simple and easy.

Your Accounts Receivables software should:

• Be integrated with your dispatching system to avoid duplicate data entry
• Allow quick and easy billing, but be flexible enough to allow all types of charges on one invoice
• Allow various charges to be easily and automatically posted to various sales accounts
• Allow consolidation of multiple trips on one invoice if desired
• Allow all, or a portion, of your invoices to be factored and provide an easy way to track factored invoices
• Provide an efficient method of applying full or partial payments against outstanding invoices
• provide for a simple method to write off short payments or track the outstanding balances if not written off
• Have an on-screen collections queue that will allow you see which customers are having payment issues, at a glance, and be able to add collection comments easily and quickly
• Provide a method for adding interest to overdue invoices if desired
• Allow for multiple methods of contact (telephone, email, fax, mail…) and allow you to send statements easily by any of these methods.
• Provide a method to block dispatchers from booking new freight for customers with excessive outstanding invoices
• Provide all necessary reports (A/R Aging, sales journals, statements, P&L….)
• Provide an quick way to compare your receivables aging with your payables aging to easily monitor your financial status

If your current TMS or accounting software does not provide all of these features, contact TruckMaster today for an online demonstration. You can’t afford to allow your A/R to go unmonitored and uncollected. Your software should make it simple and easy to monitor your company’s financial health.

Craig Sorensen
TruckMaster Solution Provider
TruckMaster Your Trucking Company™

Good trucking software should act as a hub to the vital spokes that support your business. Information should flow into your trucking software, where it should be made available to your personnel in a convenient and logical manner.

Good trucking software should monitor this normally diverse data and summarize it in an easy to follow manner. If anything it is monitoring is outside of normal parameters, the trucking software should be capable of alerting personnel that you designate of the situation.

I'm not talking about interfaces to accounting software, maintenance software, billing software, and the like – these functions should be built into the core of the trucking software rather than external software to gain the best efficiencies.

Web Portals

Your customers and outside carriers should be able to perform routine and otherwise mundane tasks through a website that you provide them. Basic functions should include:

Carrier

• Trip Tendering
• Trip Status Submission
• Document Submission
• Payment Status
• Available Equipment Posting
• Trip History

Customer

• Load Submission
• Load Status
• Load History
• Equipment Status

The interface from your web site to your trucking software should be secure, robust, and dependable. If this is set up properly, your website should function as an untiring, 24 hour employee, taking down information and answering questions (see this web portal automation example).

Communication / Tracking Systems

In-cab devices should be directly accessible to your trucking software. Inbound messages should be routed to the correct dispatcher, GPS positions should update the status of the appropriate trip. Sending a message to the driver on a particular load should never be more than a couple keystrokes away from the screens your dispatchers reside on.

A more robust interface will allow drivers to send macros that will take a trip through its life cycle, as well as automatically send a driver his next trip at the appropriate time.

Drivers should be provided a method through the interface of querying routing solutions, finding fuel stops, and retrieving the pending amount of their next pay check. All of these functions will reduce the time your dispatchers spend doing the same.

The major mobile communications & tracking systems to watch for:

• GeoLogic Solutions
• Qualcomm
• @Road
• CarrierWeb

Mileage / Routing Systems

It is vital that your trucking software have a good interface with mileage / routing systems, such as PC*Miler, Rand McNally MileMaker, and the like. A good trucking software system will depend heavily on this data, utilizing it for trip planning, profit / loss calculations, road and fuel taxes, and the like.

Don't get fooled into purchasing a routing system disguising itself as a trucking management system – a jack of all trades is still a master of none.

Fuel Systems

If you utilize fuel cards, your purchase information already exists in the digital world. It therefore makes little sense for your employees to have to enter that data into your trucking software.

When shopping for trucking software, ensure that it not only has interfaces with the fuel card provider you are currently utilizing, but all of the popular ones out there should you choose to change at some point. A few of the major ones are:

• COMDATA
• EFS
• Fleet One
• Gasboy
• Marathon Oil
• MultiService
• PetroCard
• TCH
• T-Chek

Your trucking software should make it extremely easy to reconcile the purchase information provided by your fuel system with the receipts returned by the driver.

In-House / ERP Systems

Many companies have spent years and small fortunes on their proprietary in-house systems. A good trucking software package will have the ability to communicate with these systems. It is 100% inefficient to take data that exists in one software system and re-enter it into another system.

Ensure that the provider of the trucking software has a history of developing custom interfaces to in-house systems, and will be capable of making modifications to the interface as your in-house system evolves.

EDI

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) has become increasingly more important in the trucking industry. A good trucking software package will support all of the major transaction sets, and have the ability to handle the myriad of variations to the "standards" that exist. Transmission should be able to be done via email or ftp, through a VAN (Value Added Network) or direct-to-recipient.

The essential transaction types include:

• 204 – Load Tender
• 990 – Response To Load Tender
• 214 – Carrier Shipment Status
• 210 – Carrier Freight Invoice
• 997 – Reception Acknowledgement

(See Trucking Industry 101 for more information on trucking EDI.)

ACE

ACE (Automated Commercial Environment) e-manifest submission to the US Bureau of Customs and Border Protection for border crossings should be included if you currently or have plans to do business across the US border. Ensure that it supports both the 2-step and 3-step submission process, and has been approved by the Bureau.

Document Imaging

With the advent of truck stop scanning kiosks, good trucking software should be able to receive scanned documents and attach them to the correct record(s), based on the driver that is sending them. This can greatly reduce manual paperwork as well as speed up cash flow.

A well-connected trucking software system is just as important as a well-connected trucking industry professional. Ensure that your trucking software system is, or take a look at TruckMaster trucking software.

Greg Dodson
TruckMaster Solution Provider
TruckMaster Your Trucking Company™

I believe it is this way because the perception that "it is not real until it is printed on paper". Since papyrus took over from clay tablets this has been engrained in us. However, in the technological world we live in we simply do not have room, or time, for paper any longer. We generate so much data each day it would be insane to try to print it all. We see this in the form of websites, on-line banking, and even electronic billboards. Have you been through Las Vegas lately, wow! Just these examples represent tons of paper that we used to use. Now we trust digital images with just about everything in our daily lives, from medical records to our children's on-line grades.

Not so long ago we used to print the final draft of anything out of either fear that it could get destroyed or lost on a computer, or we had that deep seated need to hold the document in our hands to prove it was real. However, electronic data storage has become extremely inexpensive and very secure. With TruckMaster's system, it is also extremely organized and easily accessible.

Because you may attach documents to any file in the system, there is no need to worry about finding your documents. They are directly attached to the very record you attach them. There is no need to worry about extra cataloging or organizing. TruckMaster does it all for you. Anytime you access that record in the future TruckMaster will tell you and show you that a document is attached and available for you to retrieve. It's so simple, and yet so effective.

Think of anything you have to file for your trucking company or freight brokerage business. Anything; Employee files, Driver files, Equipment Inspection reports, Permits, and Licensing, Customer Proof of Delivery documents, Shipment Claim forms and pictures of product, the list just goes on and on. How many file cabinets do you own? Better yet, how many boxes of files do you have in storage?

Imagine all of those thousands of paper documents simply in your system backup file. Often the first reaction is how easy it would be to lose or accidentally delete that file. But wait, it's equally easy to create multiple, encrypted, backup files and save them to multiple locations. How easy is it to make backup copies of all that paper and distribute them to multiple locations? If, God forbid, you suffer one natural disaster how many documents could you lose forever? Now what is real and what isn't?

TruckMaster's document imaging saves you time, money, and keeps your company's data safe for as long as you need it. If you have a TruckMaster system and you haven't used document imaging, call us and we'll help you get started. If you don't have a TruckMaster system we can help you with that too! TruckMaster Your Company Today!

Kurtis Brown
TruckMaster Solution Provider
TruckMaster Logistics Systems, Inc.
TruckMaster Your Trucking Company™