Latest

  We’re happy to announce a new release of Freight Transportation Manager, version 1.15! 

• New languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese)
• Driver Credits/Reimbursements (Bonuses) options 
• New expense types (Reimbursement, Advertising, Scale Ticket, Bonus)  
• Broker overview and layouts
• Fleet's maintenance history
• Equipment's inspection history 
• More fields for loads (Remarks for site location, # of pallets, Rate to carrier, Gross Margin)
• PDF Rate Confirmation and Bill of Lading
• Visual path and key fields for loads

Nov 13, 2018

We’re happy to announce a new release of Freight Transportation Manager, version 1.10!

• Now with International metrics
• New languages (German and Italian)
• More international regions/countries 
• Instantly email automated load records to drivers
• More accounting reporting features
• Chatter option to group chat/send files to colleagues and customers
• Customized invoices
• More options for Employee section
• Appointment display for Loads
• More Expense reporting features with Load relationships and summaries 

May 16, 2018

We’re excited to announce a new release of Freight Transportation Manager, version 1.8!  

• More accounting functionality
• Easy way to pay your drivers
• Quick pay calculations, instant invoicing with detailed line items
• Multiple stop options
• Google mapping with distance calculations
• New reports and stylish dashboards for easy financial analysis 

December 11, 2017

Logging information about loads, trucks, drivers and payments is vital for trucking and transportation businesses. Missing details might cause such companies hundreds of thousands of dollars. On the other hand, tracking all details (i.e. in and out times of loads) can add tens of thousands to their yearly revenue.

Keeping these details in a decentralized manner such as sticky notes, notebooks, local computers, is the riskiest approach. Not only these mediums can perish quickly but also keeping the information locally makes it difficult to share across an organization. As a result people need to constantly make phone calls or write emails and text messages in order to update each other.

Quarterly IFTA (International Fuel Tax Agreement) reports, driver settlements, invoicing and payment follow-ups all can take excessive amount of time and effort for the people working in the office. Companies need to calculate number of miles ran and gallons pumped in each state for each quarter. Additionally, pay stubs for drivers and owner operators need to be prepared based on number of miles.

In order to improve cash-flow, invoices need to be collected as fast as possible. It can take up to 60 days to receive payments from customers or freight brokers after delivering a load and submitting its paperwork. If they are using a third party such as a factoring company, then it takes up to 7 days to receive payments. In both cases all the information about loads needs to be accurate for all parties. All communications with the customer or broker need to be logged at all stages so it can be referenced to, anytime along the process.

Traditional TMS

By emerging TMS (Transportation Management System) some of the aforementioned challenges are addressed only to have new ones arise. Usually transportation companies need to hire a team of experts who are able to put together a client/server system. The license for TMS software usually needs to be purchased in a separate contract. 

New computer hardware is purchased and the program is installed and customized in order to meet client's needs. Usually it is a long and expensive process and there is a big risk that at the end it does not match what the customer imagined. The updates for this model of software are slow and expensive. Furthermore, it needs to be planned in advance and the customer must be prepared for a downtime during the process and potentially immediately after that.

All in all, the traditional solutions are expensive with very time-consuming and disruptive implementation process. They require a lot of upfront costs for infrastructure, software license and experts. The down time during the implementation phase and right after that is always expected. For the smaller carriers it's a huge investment that many of them are never going to afford.

CLOUD 

It is time to make transportation software available for all sized companies. This can be realized with affordable Cloud platforms. Cloud pioneers such as Salesforce.com provide the infrastructure and platform for implementing agile and secure solutions. Customers are able to start using these services for free (30-60 days trial). In other words, they can test and evaluate what they are buying before they pay for it!

Unlike traditional TMS, Cloud setup is done in matter of seconds instead of months. The users sign up and a dedicated space with necessary programs are assigned to them immediately. No new hardware or software is needed to be purchased and no IT team is needed to be hired.

Because all users of a transportation company are accessing the same centralized space, the information is shared between all of them in real time speed with a minimum amount of effort. Also emailing systems can be integrated into the platform, so that users can send, receive and log emails without having to touch their email applications.

Cloud platforms such as Salesforce.com have the highest level of security by implementing firewalls and other advanced technologies. Because all data and history are stored and backed up in the Cloud, they can rest assured their company will not be slowed down by disasters like fire or failed local hard drives. Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology is utilized to authenticate and encrypt customer's access to the system. These security and backup measurements has made Salesforce.com reach 99.99% up-time which is an incredible performance.

No matter where team members are physically located, as long as there is Internet communication,  they have access to their environment. Additionally, it is possible to connect with other devices such as smartphones and tablets. It does not matter if they run a single truck or ten thousand trucks, it can be supported as Salesforce.com has the utmost scalability. 

Using scalable cloud solutions  dramatically reduces both added infrastructure costs as well as initialization process. Furthermore, test drives and trial versions let the customers evaluate what they are going to get before even they touch their credit cards. Also the level of interdepartmental communication is boosted as users within a company access and update the same source of information through their web browsers or smartphones.

December 5, 2017