Review - Judy Hearn, JHJ Hearn Trucking LLC

We handle different types of commodities – primarily sand for fracking. We also do reefers and flatbeds. We are very fortunate to be in the area that we are. We have suffered through the downtimes of the oilfield but also the upturns. We are looking forward to this next year with a great deal of excitement because we think it’s going to be a great year. My husband Jack started this company in 1983. Before that, his grandfather was in trucking and his great-grandfather was in trucking. He has seen a lot of changes in the industry in the last several years. We started using Axon in 2010. We had been looking for a trucking program for quite some time. We even hired a local company to try to come up with a trucking program because they said there was nothing on the market that could meet our needs. We started doing a little research on our own and that is how we found Axon.

I love Axon. It is one of the most complete programs I have ever used. My background is not in trucking, but I have used a multitude of software during my career. I have never found one that gives me as much detail and information as Axon does. From your business setup, through payroll or work orders, anything. I think it is phenomenal that anything you can imagine you would need in your business, Axon can provide for you.

There have been a number of things. When we first started looking for software, Jack’s goal was to find out what it cost him per truck to run. He wanted to know, ‘How much am I spending for tires? How much am I spending for maintenance? What does it cost me to run this truck?’ He wanted to be able to compare costs for each truck. Axon can provide you with that information. He really likes the equipment revenue reporting. He likes the detail, and with Axon you have the opportunity to develop the kinds of reports that you want. You have a lot of flexibility and he can utilize that.

It has changed the paperwork phenomenally. You can ask Axon for anything you want. One of the greatest things that I like about it is the ability to export. You can export into a spreadsheet if you need to and sort, divide, or categorize however you want. It gives you the information you need. Axon helps you get objective data. It helps you make projections, helps you see what your cash flow is, helps you see what your receivables are. It is a one-stop shop as far as I’m concerned. I love the fact that if you put it in correctly, the information you get back will help you run your company. The Executive Report you get in the financial end is phenomenal.

It’s simple. You put in the information, it churns it out for you, and you’re done. It’s much simpler than before from what I understand. It used to be that you would have to go in and figure out manually how many miles for each date. Find the percentage and total that manually. You can do it with Axon in a matter of minutes where before it would have taken hours. It has simplified it considerably. Now we are able to do fuel downloads, which pull across to each specific truck number. You don’t have to go in and add those manually either, which again simplifies things – the amount of people on payroll, the time frame, and the accuracy.

With the way we format the statements we have had very few questions, other than explaining to them what the rates are, what the expenses are, and so forth. There are a few questions, but drivers always have questions.

Oh my, it has simplified it, because we send out so many invoices. When you’re on a big well, you have a lot of invoices. A lot of customers require that you invoice them within so many hours. Some of them are 72 hours. You have to get the information and get it invoiced quickly. Axon has simplified that process considerably. When you can invoice efficiently, it improves your cash flow. The invoices get out quicker and that means the money comes in quicker.

We used to have a lot more in billing than we do now. I would say it has reduced our costs. If we were doing this another way, or manually entering information, I can’t imagine that we would be able to keep up. I can’t even begin to imagine, I really can’t. We have roughly 85 people in the office and when you’re doing payroll manually it gets quite time-consuming. I can’t imagine doing what we do with just two people, and that is what we have been doing with payroll. I would say that Axon paid for itself within the first year.

I like them a lot. I have barely scratched the surface on how to use them, but I really like the variety that you have and the amount of information that you can get.

Because the customers get clean invoices with all the details, it helps them see that we provide a quality service. We provide quality invoices that designate what the service has been.

I think they are phenomenal people. They are not talking down to you and they are very good at explaining things. If you don’t have an accounting background it can be rather daunting, but they are so good at explaining what you need to do and why you need to do it. If you don’t get it the first time, they are pretty good at going back over it for you. I have been very impressed with the trainers. I love the Axon support team, I really do. I have used them on a lot of issues we have had, and they have been phenomenal in helping us. That would be one thing that I would rank Axon very high in, the customer support.

We started about three months ago. We tried it out and decided we liked it, so we went ahead. It’s easy to use. It has been very helpful in having the drivers get their paperwork back to us on a timely basis, especially if we have a timeframe to provide an invoice to the customer. By using the app, we don’t have to rely on snail mail, which is what we had before. Now it is much more time-efficient, and the paperwork comes in a form that we can read. It has been a great asset for the company.

I think it is. It’s easy to navigate and you can find anything you want. I love the fact that you can get history reports, or you can get activity reports. The information that those provide to you is, again, such a great tool in managing your business.