Lindamood Heavy Hauling has gone from 20 trucks to 50 in four years, with another 15 on the way. Meanwhile, they’ve had to hire only one person in the office. How is this possible? We spoke with Michael Briseno and Aletha Pattison from Lindamood to hear about changes in the company since upgrading to specialized software for their industry – Axon Software.
Q&A
Tell us about yourself and the company.
Michael: My name is Michael Briseno with Lindamood Heavy Hauling out of Irving, Texas. I am the head of heavy haul and logistics.
Aletha: I’m Aletha Pattison with Lindamood Heavy. I’m the accounting manager for our company.
Michael: We started Lindamood Heavy Hauling back in 2007. It was pretty much me driving a truck at the time. Jake [owner] would come in and help me periodically when he wasn’t working on other jobs. We did this mainly in our spare time, and then it grew into a full-time gig where I was doing nothing but hauling every day into the night, 24/7. We worked seven days a week back then.
We quickly found out that we could make this into a really big, unique business if we put in the hard work. I think it was in 2008 when we decided to add on more trucks. I finally quit driving in 2014 and went into the office full-time, growing the business and developing more customers.
We purchased Axon in 2020. We really didn’t have a good dispatch or accounting program at the time. We were doing it the old-fashioned way, pen and paper, a couple of computer programs like Google Sheets. Axon developed us into a better company all around because we can track our trucks, our loads, and all the money. It made us more aware of everything we’ve spent, where to cut costs, and where we need to add money if necessary.
Aletha: Axon has been an excellent system for us. It has worked for all our dispatch needs, and it integrates with accounting for AP and AR. We can track all of our load costs through the system, and all of our invoices from vendors, escorts, and permits are tied together into the load in Axon.
How do you utilize the reports you get from Axon?
Michael: The old way was pen and paper. We would have to go back through files in the old system to find a load that we did five years ago. Now, with a couple clicks of a button, we find out exactly where it is.
Axon has made us way more efficient, because we are able to pull reports to look back and say, “Hey, did we make money on this? Did we make money this quarter? No? Okay let’s look back and see why we didn’t.” We can pull all the reports, go back into line haul, see how much money we spent on escorts, how much we spent on Texas permits. It is really itemized out to make us more efficient.
As far as maintenance goes, we can look back and see every dollar that we spent on each asset that we own. We put all of our maintenance costs into the loads, and we can pull that right back out to see how much we spent on each asset every time something happens.
We can say, “We already spent $10,000 fixing this trailer six months ago. Do we need to dump another ten into it, or should we just do away with it?”
What are some of the problems you had previously that Axon has helped with?
Aletha: Axon has given us the ability to look back and refer to previous loads that were very similar, several years prior. We can look at what was needed for those loads at the time, compare the similarities, and decide what to do differently this time. We didn’t have that prior to Axon.
On the invoicing side of Axon, everything is right there. And it’s a very user-friendly process to bring the loads from dispatch to invoice the customer. Keeping track of them getting paid and the backups of when we sent them really works for us.
How does Axon specifically help with your heavy hauling business?
Aletha: Through Axon, we have a complete list of all of our trucks, trailers, and the pieces of the trailers. When we’re dispatching a load, the system allows you to put in the weight that you’re hauling and all those special descriptions of what you’re going to pick up and haul.
We have the ability to build the dispatch for the drivers so they know exactly which truck they’re taking and all the pieces of the trailer they need. Those need to be ready for them to haul the types of loads that we haul.
Did you find the system easy to learn?
Michael: I will say that learning and operating the system was very easy. You’re shown how to do it, and all the other pieces just fall into place. I put my pricing in here, I can get my mileages over here. It’s very helpful and intuitive.
Had you missed billing orders in the past with your older methods? If so, has that changed?
Michael: Before Axon, we had paper bills of lading, and we dispatched off a notepad. Unless I physically went in and matched up the bill of lading to my notepad, nobody knew if it was billed or not. We tracked it on an Excel spreadsheet.
If we missed it, nobody ever knew. I think we missed a couple a month, absolutely. Papers sticking together, something falls out between my office and Aletha’s office, and it’s gone.
Now, everything is done with the driver app. As soon as a driver is done with the load, he clicks that load as delivered. Boom. We can go into Axon and bill it immediately.
Within an hour we have it billed, whereas with the old way it may take weeks.
Have you grown since implementing Axon?
Michael: I think we had around 20 trucks when we started with Axon in 2020. Now [2024], we are up to 45 or 50, and currently awaiting another 15.
We’ve added one AP person, and going forward I don’t see us having to add a whole lot because the system is so efficient.
So, Axon has definitely helped us grow and made us more efficient with day-to-day activities – without adding a whole new team to help with dispatch and billing and everything else that goes with it.
Aletha: If we added another 20 trucks to our fleet, with the way Axon works, we would probably only need to take our part-time worker and increase her hours to full time.
Would you say the software has paid for itself?
Aletha: Very quickly. Implementing Axon Software is very affordable for the work that we produce using the system.
Working with Axon has been very enjoyable. A pleasure. All the employees we work with are very supportive and I’m glad we made the change.
