Business Consulting Firms

About 10 years ago I used Transport Financial Services to recover a portion of the PST that was paid on truck leases regarding the portion of time the trucks spent in the US. We dealt with their satellite office in Oshawa - Fran was the lady we dealt with and she was great.Have not used anybody since then.
 
I have used such company's in the past with little success. I would ensure you truly understand your objective before enlisting their services. If not handled properly you can cause more damage within your company than its worth. If you're concern is with the administration of your company then I suggest educating yourself or staff with BA courses. If you require more than that you can hire good quality people. As an owner you don't need to be a CA or Lawyer you just need to have them available. We are first of all in the people business! It is not about freight, trucks or even rates. My best advice to anyone just starting business is to focus on the small things like truly knowing your customers, employees and their families. Recognize what is important to these people. Treat everyone in your organization like a customer no matter what their position. Be friendly but be careful of becoming friends. Relationship building is the single most important business criteria for success. I have found that profits are normally just the result of doing these small things right day in and day out. Most people don't want to do these things, I don't neccessarily want to do them either but if you want to stand out from the crowd it really is easy. Best of all they don't cost you a cent.

Best of Luck
 
Truckitt you make great points but the most important is know and understand your costs. All of your costs right down to all office expense, cell phones, employees, all government remittances etc etc. Everyone has all these expenses and this will help you price services accordingly. Just because you have money in the bank does not mean you can spend it, remember the cost to make that money has to be paid first, you can only spend the profits.
 
I am in full agreement lowmiler88. In fact, after experiencing the economic climate of the last year or two, maybe leaving some of the profits in the bank as opposed to spending it is a more prudent idea.
 
Business Consultants

I must say that it's refreshing to read the posts of like-minded business people. In a nutshell, my take on things is that it seems the easiest way to look out for my self interests (long term), is by helping to look out for the interests of those I choose to do repeat business with, and who also choose to do business with me. It goes without saying that it's imperative to stay solvent & current!
However, the question remains - Michael, what type of help or direction, are you asking the consultant to help you with? Safety & compliance, tax issues or strategies, raising capital, or a host of things?
 
Cost control!
Prudent management dictates that you know what your costs are, which we do, but we're looking for tips and tricks to controlling that cost. We want to take it beyond the dollar and down to the cent. It's tricky to do. On top of that, I want real-time costing so at any given time I will know exactly, to the penny, what a particular driver, truck, nd trailer is costing me. It's possible, it's just difficult to put together. The ultimate goal is to put more on the bottom line without advancing the top line (income) then everyone wins, customers, drivers, and the company.
 
Before making the decision to enter into a relationship with a consulting firm, be sure that you are getting timely, correct information about the costs you are focusing on. This can be achieved by employing a software program that tracks each expenditure in each department, labour, maintenance, fuel etc.. No software program can tell you if your costs are in line with industry standards but, they will tell you, month to month, quarter to quarter, year to year if you are spending more or less than the previous time period. Any individual increase can now be identified and hopefully explained before the "bleeding" goes on too long.
As you can probably tell, I am a firm believer in information. Without it, you end up guessing and even the best guesser can be wrong 50% of the time. So before you take the plunge with a consulting firm, assure yourself that you have access to the best information possible regarding your costs.
 
Be cautious when sellecting a Consultant, I've been harrassed by some outfit from Chicago from time to time and they just want your info to support other clients they are working for, to be able to offer a comparison to a like sized company.
 
Apparently transpluscorp.com does consulting as I have been told by one of their sales reps. They provide Dispatch/Freight Broker/Warehouse software for companies but have done consulting on occasion if you wish to do just that. They have been in business for 15 years. Im looking at their system for mainly the same reason to reduce my cash flow turn around time and to know my financial numbers/expenses on the fly.
 
Consulting Firm

I am using TaxPro Canada. To be in control of your cash flow-accurate bookkeeping is very important. If you keep your books in order, then you can analyze what is happening with your company and if there are areas for improvement. Also, for me it is very important to work with the consulting/accounting company specializing in our industry, not just a general business consulting firm.
 
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Consultants

What about hiring consultants to help with other operational issues?

IE: Equipment Remarketing ( Sell your own assets )
To Insitute Driver Retention Programs
Help small / medium fleets with trucks specs when purchasing new equipment and also with utilization of equipment -

With the suggestion of such a tremendous driver shortage approaching and all the changing regulations is it worth having an outside company working with you to stay on top of all these issues?
 
Bubba-One:
That's ABS out of Chicago. Stay away from those guys. They are being sued by the attorney general for the State of Illinois for fraud. Looks like some is probably going to go to jail.
Technically, if you use these guys, you violate your C-TPAT agreement with the Department of Homeland Security.

Loaders:
We use the Truckmate system from TMW (formerly Maddocks). It's an awesome system and it gives you everything you need. Like all comprehensive programs, set up is a bear, but once you have it you are golden.

Westway:
Taxpro sounds like the people I am looking for.

Brwnee:
The best tools in my arsenal are my contract safety guy, and my J.J. Keller Fleetmentor Program which is worth its weight in gold.
 
Maddox

Used their system previously.

Probably the best out there that is not in house.

Excellent system, can do so much. Perfect for ltl set up and great for repetitive distributions.

Disadavantages :

high cost
Difficult to get started on.
 
Michael Ludwig said:
Bubba-One:
That's ABS out of Chicago. Stay away from those guys. They are being sued by the attorney general for the State of Illinois for fraud. Looks like some is probably going to go to jail.
Technically, if you use these guys, you violate your C-TPAT agreement with the Department of Homeland Security.

Loaders:
We use the Truckmate system from TMW (formerly Maddocks). It's an awesome system and it gives you everything you need. Like all comprehensive programs, set up is a bear, but once you have it you are golden.

Westway:
Taxpro sounds like the people I am looking for.

Brwnee:
The best tools in my arsenal are my contract safety guy, and my J.J. Keller Fleetmentor Program which is worth its weight in gold.
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Micheal Ludwig,

We are about to upgrade our version of Truckmate and I was wondering if I could ask you some Technical Questions on the version you are running?

We are upgrading from version 6.1 and we are concerned about the large jump in versions to the latest and the problems encountered in the installation process. What was your experience like getting up and running with the new version?

Have you found any problems with any other software / operating system you were running?

How did you find the customer service with Maddocks(TMW) during this time?

What functions of Truckmate do you use? (we are looking at using Truckmate for our payroll)

And if any one else is reading this and has an opinion of Truckmate and their service, pls feel free to reply.
 
We have been using Truckmate for more than 3 years. I can not say enough about the program or the support we receive. Currently we are using version 7 installed when first purchasing the software licence. We operate our entire organization on TM including payroll, we have never experienced any issues with other software. It's not cheap and the maintenance contract is fairly expensive but I would highly recommend Truckmate as a program that can grow with your business. We also use crystal reports with TM providing us virtually any report you can think of.
 
Thanks Truckit

We've been using it for quite a few years but it was always underused. It was used for dispatch, but nothing else. With the upgrade I want to get this program working fully in both payroll and accounting - having it interface with our accounting software.

The last controller never trusted the capabilities of Truckmate - its been wasted for years. I've looked at what it does and it could help us so much.
 
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