Grain harvest kicks off in October across Australia, and New Zealand’s season won’t be far behind. Before the long hours hit, here are MyTrucking’s top tips to help operators get their admin sorted in advance.
Why Harvest Admin Can’t Wait
This year’s harvest is shaping up to be a big one. ABARES is forecasting Australia’s national winter crop at close to 70 million tonnes, among the largest on record. Across the Tasman, The Foundation for Arable Research (FAR) tracks similar seasonal trends for New Zealand’s growers.
Despite these efforts, customers pay nearly 46 per cent of freight invoices late during harvest. Late payments cause serious cashflow problems for owner-drivers trying to keep trucks on the road.
The solution? Operators need tools that go beyond pen, paper and spreadsheets. So the time to set them up is before harvest hits, not during it.
Real Operators, Real Results
In Western Australia, Campbell Transport has cut down on paperwork with the MyTrucking Drivers App. It’s also solved the challenge of dispatching jobs to drivers in remote locations, often for days or weeks at a time. So owner David Campbell wanted paperwork back immediately, invoicing jobs straight away instead of chasing details weeks later.
“With the app, we put a load on and bang, it’s on their phone and they know exactly what they need to do,” says agriculture operations manager Leon Whittle.
It’s a similar story for Horne Ag Logistics in the Western Riverina district of NSW. Before switching to MyTrucking, the family-owned bulk commodity transporter relied on load charts and Excel sheets to manage work.
“MyTrucking has helped us the most with fully customisable data reporting,” Horne Ag Logistics says.
MyTrucking Hacks to Get Harvest Ready
- Go Mobile: Snap job paperwork right on MyTrucking’s Drivers App and get instant updates, no more chasing dockets. It even works out of range and syncs automatically once you’re back in coverage.
- Working with Subbies? We have a range of tools to make working with your subcontractors simple. Don’t forget our Cost Rate feature, which lets you allocate Subbie rates and report with ease.
- Let Drivers Add the Job: Harvest doesn’t wait for the office. Drivers can add jobs on the go as loads happen, and simply repeat the same job load after load, so nothing gets missed when plans change at the last minute.
- Track What You’ve Carted: Set up a Contract for a particular farm or paddock, even without knowing the total upfront, and keep an easy running tally of tonnes carted as harvest goes.
- Plan Ahead with Multi-date Select: Schedule jobs across your whole harvest window in one go, so the season’s set up before it even starts.
- Customer Portal Power: Invite your customers to view their load volumes and paperwork in real-time, no sensitive information, just what they need.
- GrainCorp Sync: Export jobs from GrainCorp and bulk import to MyTrucking. One step to a streamlined season.
Don’t wait for harvest to catch up with you. Start your FREE trial now and hit the ground running when the season starts.
