Category: TMS Software Blog

That’s right but you must hurry because this is a limited offer to the first 50 new customers starting today! These new customers are going to get a FREE 123LoadBoard account for up to 1 year courtesy of us. This is their Premium Account which normally cost $45 per month and will stay in effect with your Load Manager subscription.

 

Want more? Customers who go on a quarterly billing instead of monthly will also get 123LoadBoard’s access to PC Miler also at our expense. That is a $60 value! With PC Miler you can obtain commercial routing and miles calculation. This can help negotiate trucking rates when speaking with prospective carriers.

 

Want even more?? Get your 123LoadBoard postings added to your own site at no charge. The Web Masters at 123LoadBoard will send your web designer your own customized page to display your 123LoadBoard postings to your own site. This will give your Freight Broker business an edge above your competitors.

 

Oh one more thing, 123LoadBoard recently released their mobile app and since then they’ve added over 20,000 new carriers to their network. This means your posted loads will get even more attention. Let’s face it, truckers using the new app helps them find your loads easily.

It has been about one month since we launched our new Trucking Dispatch Software for Carriers and the response has been great.  The feedback from our new customers has been both positive and helpful. Positive, because our customers like the ease of use of our asset management module. This feature is great for asset based logistics companies because all of their equipment can be entered easily and tracked separately. All of your equipment maintenance is constantly monitored and alerts are created to make sure you never miss preventative maintenance for any truck or container in your fleet.

We received a suggestion which almost seems like a mistake on our part. The new IFTA download feature that allows a carrier to capture toll and non-toll miles and then download it into an Excel spreadsheet was missing one crucial element, empty non-toll miles. This is a required entry when carriers fill out their IFTA quarterly tax filing. We quickly responded to this and released a new update that includes an extra column for empty non-toll miles. 

The feature that we receive many compliments on is our comprehensive Trucking Maintenance feature. This allows our customers to define all of the different types of maintenance they want to perform on their trucking fleet. This can be something as simple as an Oil Change or something more complex like engine belts replacement. These maintenance items also track mileage and will display an on screen reminder when the maintenance is due. These reminders can be based on miles or by date. For example, changing your oil every 3,000 miles can be set as a reminder, whereas registration renewal has to be done every 2 years.

When a maintenance item is performed, you can actually attach the work order or receipt to the maintenance item for each truck or asset in your company. For more details give us a call for a live demo or watch our How To Videos to see our Trucking Dispatch Software live in action.

Marielis called our office and said she liked the YouTube videos of Load Manager and would like to give it a try. However she explained that her company is not an actual carrier. They provide trucking dispatch service for owner operators and trucking companies. They also offer virtual office services including load matching, rate negotiations, invoicing, paperwork processing, and more.

As part of this, when they print an invoice for their customer they do not want MEK Dispatching, Inc. at the top of the invoice, instead they need to have their customer’s name at the top of the invoice. I explained we can change the invoice to print the booked carrier on the load instead of her company’s name. This would be a simple change and we could have it done within 24 hours. She said that would be perfect and gave me the go ahead to get it done.

After we completed the modification, Marielis was able to print invoices on behalf of all of her customers without having to manually change the each invoice, this saved her lots of time. So if you offer trucking dispatch services and need software to make your operation more efficient give Load Manager a try. We can tweak other features too if needed.

When I first spoke to Ted Sims he was very interested in Load Manager to handle his freight brokerage company. However two of the key things he needed was integrated email and the ability to upload carrier and customer packets. He liked everything else. However after using our freight broker software, he decided he liked the features he saw during a demo of Aljex software and decided to go with that instead. I told Ted no problem and I  would keep his Load Manager site up while he converts over to the new software. After a week he told me it was taking longer that he thought to get up and running. I said no problem I would keep his site up until he was 100% online. Another couple of weeks went by and he told me he was having seconds thought his new freight broker software because it was very difficult to setup and it required a dedicated IT guy to address his setup issues. It also cost a small fortune. I explained to him that if he stayed with Load Manager that I could create the two new features that he needs as long as he would pay my programmers to do it, he agreed.
In just a few weeks we created his customized freight broker software. Now Ted has the best of both worlds, an easy to use system with all the robust features he needs…and the icing on the cake is it will cost him a fraction of what the other freight brokerage software was costing him.
Now within our electronic filing cabinet we have a new document type for categorizing documents by Customer, Carrier, Agent or Other. We also have integrated email with the option of emailing any document to a Customer, Carrier or Agent from within Load Manager. Emailing a Rate Confirmation or a Carrier packet has never been easier!

Nite Ryder Auto Repo company specializes in repossession of automobiles and needed good repo dispatch software for their repossession of autos. Even though Load Manager’s TMS Software is designed for Freight Brokers, it is also flexible enough to handle the needs of an auto repossession company.

 

The owner John, specifically needed software that would allow his staff to enter in the VIN# on the dispatch report so the driver can reference it during the repossession of the vehicle. They also need search capability for the VIN# as well as other criteria that was part of their repossession contract with the bank. Our Freight Broker Software enabled John to accomplish this while also eliminating double entry into their back office accounting software.

However there was another issue, he sometimes would have 7 auto repossessions in one night and he needed a concise report with all the addresses and vehicle information to keep things moving smoothly.  The dispatch report allowed the entry of all vehicles and their reference information which printed them in the correct order for easy dispatch and recover of the vehicles.

JSK Transportation freight brokerage was searching for software that could not only handle OTR loads but also their intermodal shipments. They had looked at some intermodal software systems but felt they were very difficult to use and also very expensive. When they looked at the training videos for Load Manager on YouTube they liked what they saw. The main load board was easy to understand and finding load information was quick and easy. It has one search box which looks for a partial match in all of the key fields and you can sort by any column with the click of a mouse.

There was one problem, we did not have any intermodal software built into Load Manager. Again, building new TMS features into our software was not a problem. We worked with JSK Transportation to develop a new screen for intermodal data and successfully launched this new version. We also created intermodal work order reports for importing and exporting. Now JSK has the best of both worlds, easy to use TMS software and intermodal logistic support.

One of the goals that Terry Higgs of National Freight Movers was a TMS software that would allow him to create separate brokerage offices and build a network of agents. However he also had to safeguard his information so an agent couldn’t just walk off with his customer and carrier information.

To achieve this goal I showed Terry how to setup multiple offices within his new freight broker software. Then we assigned the various agents to their respective office and also assigned a manager to each office. The key to this is Role Assignment. By assigning the “Manager” role to a person, that manager is able to administer all aspects his assigned office but cannot see any customers, carriers or loads in any other office. Terry was assigned the Administrator Role which allows him to see activity in all offices.
Terry also had to manage freight agents’ sales commissions based upon gross profit. To set this up, we updated all commissionable agents with their commission percentage. Then once a week Terry ran Load Manager’s commission report, grouped by Sales Agent. The report has a page break between each Sales Agent so that Terry can use the report as a commission statement for each agent. It also shows the agent’s average margin %. The margin percentage is a key factor and allowed Terry to council agents with lower percentages to help improve their margin. Over a short period of time, Terry was able to build over 20 agents into his company and easily manage them within Load Manager.

Cove Logistics was searching for new TMS Software that could be customized. When Steve and Dave saw Load Manager on YouTube they liked what they saw and asked for a demo. During the demonstration of our Freight Broker Software we realized that they needed some customization to accommodate one of their contract customers. Specifically they had to report back to their customer how well they met promised delivery dates but also had to factor in the customer’s “Ready Date”. Moreover sometimes a late delivery was excused for various reasons so that had to be factored in as well.

We continued to discuss their needs and layout a plan for customizing Load Manager. Along the way we found other small items that would make their dispatching software run more efficiently. This included the ability to change their Pro Numbers and also download their load dispatch data into Microsoft Excel. They were even able to propagate that excel data into a Google Doc which they all shared and updated as needed.

That was almost two years ago and since then Cove Logistics has continued to thrive, moving their Freight Brokerage to a new location to accommodate their growth and improve their customer service. Load Manager has been with them every step of the way.

 

When Drake Transportation wanted to make the move from our desktop version of Load Manager Freight Broker Software to our cloud-based version, one important feature was integration with QuickBooks accounting software. Without it they would have to double entry all brokered loads into QuickBooks. With this is mind we set out to not only eliminate double entry but to also use the Load Status as a trigger for the export.

When the load status is set to “POD”, that means the proof of delivery has not yet been received for the load. When the “POD” is received, then the load status is changed to “INVOICE”. This is when the invoice for the load is usually printed and the Invoice and Bills are exported to QuickBooks Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable. We call this software our QuickBooks Dispatch Module.