In the good times, delivery firms are often happy to streamline their operations and watch the cash flow in.
In the bad times, though, it’s important to have a greater level of oversight over costs so that you can tighten up every area of your operations to ensure your firm is profitable. In this guide, we’ll look at the tracking options you have as a delivery firm, whether you’re running a fleet of five vehicles or 500.
Read on to get to grips with tracking technology that can help you understand your costs.
Fuel Costs
In the past, you would have had to collect receipts from every driver, each time they went to the gas station to fill up on fuel. This was a hugely time-consuming task and one that was open to abuse from dishonest drivers. A far more efficient way to go in this respect is to use fuel cards, which not only offer discounts on your fuel spend, but also help you keep track of all the costs your drivers are incurring in one place. Use this fuel card comparison website to find the best cards for the drivers you’re working alongside.
Planning Software
Another aspect of your daily operations is getting routes and deliveries planned. Here, you’re always looking to add orders and deliveries to vans and trucks that will make your route efficient. Often, though, there are so many factors and criteria to consider that it can be difficult for one planning professional to make the very best decisions every single time. That’s where planning technology comes in, ensuring that you’re always making brilliant decisions about the routes your drivers take and the profit they’re generating from each journey.
Financial Apps
For smaller firms, the SME financial tracking apps that have been released in recent years have been a huge improvement to their overall financial visibility. Many of the features of these apps and services help you keep track of your liquidity in real time, save for your tax bill, and operate a firm that is keeping a firm hold on expenses when times are financially tough. Use these apps and services to give your firm full-spectrum oversight of your costs as they leap and fall in this turbulent time for delivery firms.
Profits
When all is said and done, you always have one number in mind: your profit margin. When the margin is high, you’ll be able to pay bonuses to your staff and take more cash home in profits. When it’s low, you’ll have to consider making cuts. Being able to track this requires a combination of all of the above technologies, which you may find repackaged into the kinds of all-in-one software that large logistics companies regularly use. You should research all these large software offerings to see if any might suit your firm and your tracking requirements.
Keep track of all you earn and spend with the information contained in this short guide for delivery companies.
