ABSOLUTELY, AXON SOFTWARE PAYS FOR ITSELF
“Because we are using Axon, we are running 16 trucks with 2 people part-time taking care of the paperwork… Absolutely, Axon pays for itself.”



CWJ Forklift Service is an oilfield service company operating out of Odessa, Texas. At the time of this interview, they had been using Axon Software for about two years and had seen incredible benefits to the organization and efficiency of their business. We stopped in for a chat with Teresa to hear their story.

I’m Teresa James, I’m an owner, but I’m also the office manager of CWJ Forklift Service LLC located in Odessa, TX.
Tell us a bit about the company.
We started off with forklifts, but now we’re running tandems, hauling casing and pipe, tools, any of those things, out to oilfield locations. Our main focus is providing forklifts on location to unload casing and pipe.
We started using Axon in August 2017. We were leased on to other companies in this area for five years. My husband became really well known with some of our current customers and it allowed us to go out on our own. During the five years that we’d spent in the business, we learned a lot, and decided it was time to no longer be leased on to someone but to make our own way.
Can you tell us about starting out with Axon Software?
Our experience with Axon has been wonderful. Starting a trucking company is very tedious and overwhelming. Axon made it a lot easier. I have all my stuff in one place. I don’t have spreadsheets. I’m not dealing with the mess of other software that doesn’t provide me everything that I need.
It allows me to use only what I want to. In the beginning, for instance, we wanted to be able to do tickets, invoicing, and equipment and driver statements. But it allowed me to grow our business. I can add other features and other modules as we grow and streamline it all with Axon. It’s just been, in terms of training and moving forward, a real easy process.
Has Axon Software changed the way you do business?
It definitely streamlines the process. It makes it more seamless, to enter the ticket in one time. It takes that ticket and pays my driver or my owner operator and puts it into my GL accounts where I need it to go. It creates all of those reports that I can utilize to monitor our progress as a company. It’s almost too easy.
How has your experience dealing with Axon Software been?
Our experience with Axon has been wonderful. I have no complaints whatsoever. The trainer was awesome. She walked us through every single step of my business that I needed to integrate into Axon. It was great being able to reach out before we went live and talk about all the things we were going to do. It was very easy.
Ever since then, if I have a question about anything, I just call in to support and it’s taken care of immediately.
The main thing I can say about Axon support is that I’m never on hold. I hate being on hold. I don’t have the time to be on hold. With other software, I’ve been on hold for 30 to 45 minutes for a simple question. I don’t have that with Axon. If I call and someone’s not available right away, I receive a call back within 10 minutes.
But the great thing is that I’m not on hold, and they’re easily able to remote connect to my computer, walk me through it, and take care of the situation. It really is easy.
What kind of problems has Axon Software helped you solve?
Axon has helped us with so many different things that need to be taken care of in a trucking company. It helped us solve confusion as far as being able to monitor and track everything. From payroll, to fuel tax, to tickets, invoicing, accounts receivable, accounts payable, your bank reconciliation – everything you could possibly think of. It’s in one place, it’s very easy to use, and it takes away a lot of the confusion. It really does.
Our drivers absolutely love our settlements. They’re easy to read, there are no questions, there’s no confusion. I have been with other trucking companies where I’ve had to explain things repeatedly to the drivers every week when they got paid – what deductions were there, why they were there. And now we don’t have that.
There is no confusion on our driver settlements. Even the drivers who normally struggle with those types of situations have no problems reading their settlements. They have no questions about where their money is going
Has the business been streamlined from an invoicing standpoint?
Using Axon for tickets and invoicing allows us to put the ticket in one time and create the invoice without having to mess with spreadsheets or enter the ticket multiple times. It really speeds up everything. I mean, we’re running 16 trucks with just two people working part-time.
Do you make use of the equipment revenue reports?
I use the equipment revenue reports to look at how much we’re running a vehicle, or how much a truck that has some issues is costing us – maybe look into retiring that truck to purchase a new one. It makes it easy to see exactly how much a truck is making, down to the penny. How much revenue, how much it’s costing us in parts, repairs, and payroll. It makes it really easy to see the bottom dollar amount that truck is producing.
Has Axon Software increased productivity in the office?
If we were not using Axon as our software for this trucking company, I would definitely need to consider having five to seven people on payroll to take care of the many, many things that need to be taken care of when running a trucking company.
But right now, like I said, we’re just two people part-time. I’m a mother of three, a stay-at-home mom, working from home. I have someone else doing my billing part-time, and we are functioning very well with 16 trucks, just two of us.
We could easily double our fleet before I’d have to increase my staff.
Would you say the software has paid for itself?
Absolutely. The lack of stress, problems, and mistakes alone. If we were using other programs or utilizing spreadsheets, keeping track in three, four, or five different places. . . . Absolutely, Axon pays for itself. If there was one mistake on one ticket, that would be the price I’m paying for Axon for a month.
Mistakes can easily happen if things are not taken care of the correct way. If people are not getting billed on time, we don’t get paid for it, and that type of thing.
It saves hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, just by using this software. Being able to input the ticket one time with Axon, and it takes care of everything down to the last step, saves thousands of hours a year. I mean, it’s ridiculous how easy that is, to only have to enter it one time.
Has Axon Software helped you maintain or improve your business relationships?
Axon has really helped us build a great relationship with our owner operators, and we can’t function without those guys.
If our customers reach out to us with any questions or problems, I can find it easily and I can resolve any issues right away. I can email straight from Axon to them, which saves me time. I can send them a receivable report when they want to know if they’re behind anywhere very easily. It just takes a few minutes to take care of those situations.
It’s really easy to maintain good relationships with our customers and with our owner operators, because it is a precise program. It allows us to only put in the ticket one time, and the software takes care of the rest.
If somebody in the industry asked about your experience with Axon Software, what would you say?
I’ve actually referred several people who are opening a trucking company to Axon. I said, “It’s called Axon. It will save your life.” I have some other friends using different software, Excel spreadsheets, and everything else, and they are just as busy as we are. But they are spending hours trying to keep up with everything, and there are constant mistakes. I mention it all the time – I say, “Axon, Axon, Axon, it’s so easy!”