Transport fleet

The office ran on paper and memory. Drivers handed in their trip sheets whenever they got back, diesel slips came in loose from pumps along the route, and driver advances were noted in a diary or on the back of a slip. Fuel was written in one book, trips in another, and what each driver was owed sat in a third. Nothing tied a trip to the diesel it burned or the driver who ran it. At month-end someone had to sit down with all of it and try to make the totals match.

The numbers rarely matched. A diesel slip would go missing, a trip sheet would come in late, and a driver would remember an advance the office had already forgotten. Settling a driver turned into days of back and forth, with the driver waiting for his money and the office digging through paper. Because fuel and trips lived in separate books, no one could say which vehicle or which route was earning and which was losing money. The owner found out how the month had gone only after the month was already over.

Now the trip sheet is logged as the trip happens, and diesel goes in against the vehicle and the trip it was for. Driver advances and dues are recorded the day they happen, not pieced together at month-end. When a driver comes in to settle, the amount is already worked out from his trips, his advances and his dues, so the payment is done in minutes instead of days. The books add up as the work goes on, so month-end is no longer a scramble.

The owner can open the numbers on any day and see which vehicles and routes make money and which do not. Fuel that runs high against a vehicle shows up on its own, so diesel that goes missing gets caught early instead of at month-end. Drivers trust the settlement because they can see how the amount was reached, and the arguments over dues have stopped. Instead of waiting for the month to close to learn how it went, the owner knows where the fleet stands while it is still running.