Putting paper in its place.  6 reasons why UK haulage companies pick Mandata to digitise their business

Relying on paper-based manual processes or outdated and disconnected systems to manage your road transport operation can make every stage of your operation difficult and slow.

Digitising your haulage process from order to invoice makes things simpler, giving you options to work more quickly. Making it easier for your customers to work with you and a lot easier for you to work for them.

ORDERS and JOB ENTRY

1.  Process multiple orders within minutes

When you rely on paper processes, managing many customers with multiple sites, complex rates and various resources can be chaos at times:

Keeping customer records safe and up to date such as address details, site restrictions and job rates can be difficult, but it’s essential to getting deliveries done right and as efficiently and as profitably as you can.  A transport management system remembers everything about your customers so you don’t have to – making it easy to create and repeat jobs going forward. There’s no need to refer back to previous paperwork or check a file. All the details you need are saved in one place and appear automatically for you.

Receiving orders by email or phone can take a lot of time and effort.  Once received, manually entering numerous jobs in to a transport management system, or on to a spreadsheet can be a massive task, taking valuable time out of your day. It doesn’t have to be this way.

As well as being able to place orders on-line, your customers can export jobs from their own system into your TMS within minutes. There’s no need to transfer details from one place to another before you can start to plan.

PLANNING

2. See which drivers and vehicles are available to work when

How do you keep track of who’s available to work and when?  Are you spending more time than you’d like chasing drivers for availability.  There is an easier way.

Using a computerised calendar which is integral to your transport management system, you can manage driver availability easily. You can see exactly which drivers are available for which job; there’s no need to keep manual diaries.  This means you can can quickly plan jobs around real-time availability such as driver sickness, holidays etc.

All it takes is for you to update the calendar with driver shift hours and holidays then your traffic planners can see who’s available to work on any date or time.

It won’t be long before drivers can use a driver Team Admin app to update time sheets and submit leave requests for you to authorise, saving even more time in your day.

3. Plan jobs and make changes easily

Tired of planning collections and deliveries on spreadsheets or whiteboards?  It’s difficult to share updates and changes with your team. With a Cloud TMS you can make changes in real-time for all your users to see, wherever they are.

Once orders are in your transport management system, you can plan loads using the resources you have available – allocating the right driver, vehicle and trailer for the job. When planning full-loads or multi-drop you can optimise vehicle use, minimise empty miles by seeing important things like % load fill, automatic calculations of empty miles, vehicle costs and driver’s hours as you plan. Traffic planners can make smart planning decisions, maximising the profitability of every job you do.

It’s easy to make last-minute changes to your plan when you go digital – if a vehicle is no longer available, simply re-allocate the jobs to other vehicles without reworking the whole plan.

JOB EXECUTION

4. Keeping drivers informed

Working on spreadsheets means manually producing manifest documents and a daily struggle to get paperwork out to drivers.  With a transport management system, once you’ve settled on your plan, you can easily produce .PDF versions of manifests to email, or send details instantly to a driver’s mobile phone.

With an integrated TMS, drivers can benefit too.  They can receive work and view all their jobs for the day via an app on their smartphone.

As they progress work, updates are saved automatically in the TMS for traffic planners to see and ETA’s can be made available to your staff and customers too. Everyone can have the visibility they need.

Mobile phones are not just for fun – they’re an essential business tool for some road transport operators and HGV drivers. With the right app, you can stay in touch with drivers throughout the day using real-time driver messaging as well as receive electronic proof of delivery.

POD and INVOICING

5. Receive electronic proof of delivery within minutes of a delivery being made

Tired of playing the POD waiting game?  Unable to invoice due to lost POD’s?  Going digital can solve your problems.

Waiting for the right paperwork to be returned before you can invoice can be a constant worry for admin staff. When you receive electronic POD’s it makes life simpler for admin staff, your drivers and customers too.  Electronic signatures and photos of POD documentation are saved electronically behind the job for you to view instantly when jobs are complete. Simple!  No delays, lost or damaged paperwork, no errors or rework.

6. Simplify your Invoice process. Email invoices and POD’s to customers, and enjoy the benefits of automatic updates in your accounting system

Digitising your haulage business enables you to invoice as soon as PODs are saved to your TMS. As often or as quick as you like. There’s no need to transfer information from one system to another, or scan documents before you can invoice.  You can see which jobs are ready to invoice and run single or batch invoices. The system does all the hard work for you.

A good transport management system can produce invoices for you, and even email them along with POD attachments to your customers while you do other tasks. Providing all the delivery documents your customers need to pay you.

Moving with the times doesn’t have to be difficult.

We can provide advice on how to digitalise your business and start enjoying the benefits of a computerised transport transport management system.  Give our transport industry executive’s a call on 0191 250 2220 or email hello@mandata.co.uk.  Ask them how to go digital.