New online cartage management programme My Trucking is making life easier for trucking firms, delivering greater accuracy and efficiency of data recording.
Owned and run by Wairarapa-based husband and wife team Sam and Sara Orsborn, My Trucking is smoothing the road for trucking firms, replicating the commonly used diary system, online.
My Trucking is a simple and practical online cartage management programme. It replicates the tried and true diary system most small to medium companies are currently running with, Sara said.
The beauty of the system is it cuts the number of data entries required from five down to one. It also means the days of dockets blowing out the truck window are gone.
With one data entry it produces reports for drivers, agents, farmers and buyers. It also does auto-pricing and remembers pricing from previous jobs at that location.
The idea was born when friends of the Orsborns bought a trucking firm and approached Sam about designing an easy system to help run their trucks.
The firm, Wairarapa Livestock Transport, was involved with the design, meaning the programme has been designed by a trucking company from the ground up.
They loved the result and when another firm heard about it they wanted in too. It snowballed from there.
The Orsborns set a target of getting 10 companies on board this year and have already doubled that, with 20 firms either using or trialling the system. They offer a free two month trial and so far have a 100% success rate of retaining clients after that initial period.
Sam said the main benefits of the programme are its accuracy and efficiency.
“There’s no paperwork. Before there were five different paper records in the diary system and if one of those dockets blew out the truck window that job didn’t get invoiced. This system means only one data entry.
“The feedback has been that it makes their life so much easier and there’s less work for the back room administration staff. Before there was so much double entry, we’ve cut that out and it saves a whole lot of time.”
The system is easy to implement and firms can be up and running from day one. One customer threw away its old paper diary system on the first day using My Trucking.
“It’s a seamless transition and also provides great reporting back to farmers. Anything that helps farmers with their reporting can only be good.”
They currently have a contracting business trialling the programme, which is another huge potential market, and the plan is to set up a version tailored to contractors. Australia is another untapped market.
They are in the final stages of becoming a Xero add-on partner and are working with other accounting programmes to integrate with them, too.
The next step is launching an app for the programme, planned for release in the next few months and they are also aiming to integrate with EROAD, an automatic road user charges business that monitors the movement of all trucks.
“The thing I want out of it is the kilometres. If we can pull the kilometres and I know how much each truck makes, we can start delivering benchmarking. The key to making good decisions is having good information,” Sam said.
“Farmers and farming service businesses are using more technology. The great advantage is with accuracy and efficiency. People are hungry for information so the more we can give them, the better.”
The Orsborns pride themselves on being a small family-run team, with Sam taking on the role of managing director and Sara handling marketing and sales. The third member of the team is Dave McKinley from Technology Solutions, who is in charge of programme and technology development.
Not only are they running My Trucking, but they farm 324 hectares, mainly sheep and cropping, at east Taratahi. Sam is well known in the region as a sheep and beef consultant with Baker & Associates, and is also an owner and manager of the family’s third generation business Sharpes Stockfeeds.
Sara owns and runs her own sales and marketing business, Scoop Enterprises, as well as doing the marketing and sales for Sharpes Stockfeeds. If that wasn’t busy enough, the couple are also parents to three young children.
