“AXON PAYS FOR ITSELF!”
“We Could Easily Double Our Fleet Before I’d Have To Increase My Staff.”
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.
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.
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.
I’m Teresa James with CWJ Forklift Service. I’m an owner, but I’m also the office manager.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!”
HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE?
When you’re assigning equipment and drivers to an order, it helps to have an estimated driving time. For example, you can assign a short trip to a driver who only has a few hours remaining before their break
Axon Software attempts to time an order’s route by checking the Lat/Long or address for each pick/drop.
Tip: If the calculation for Estimated Driving Hours fails, use Map » Order to check for an invalid address or Lat/Long.
Once your truck is on the road, the system will use Proximity Events and your truck’s Satellite/Axon Truck Link GPS readings to estimate how much driving time is left on the order.
Shipper: Chicago
Pick: Lafayette
Consignee: Indianapolis
The Remaining Time will be calculated using the estimated driving time from the last Satellite/Axon Truck Link GPS location to Lafayette to Indianapolis until the Tractor registers a location in proximity to Lafayette. Once the tractor registers in Lafayette, the remaining time will be based on the estimated time from the last Satellite/Axon Truck Link GPS location to Indianapolis
Tip: Hover your mouse over the Remaining to see what location was used to calculate the remaining driving time.
INVOICE IN HALF THE TIME
Axon Software provides you with a full range of options to make invoicing your customers as easy as possible.
- Invoices can be generated directly from the orders, trips, or work orders screens.
- A master template for invoices that occur on a regular basis is a timesaver.
- You can import invoices from another Axon company – if, for example, you run both a brokerage company and a trucking company.
- If you sell parts using the Work Orders application, the system will automatically update your inventory.
- You can settle your invoices through a factor company or EDI.
Want to learn how to put more money on your bottom line while spending far less time working at it than you do now? Call now 1.800.567.8385 or fill out our form below to reserve a copy of the free book: “HOW WE TRIPLED OUR FLEET SIZE WITHOUT ADDING ANY OFFICE STAFF!” In this amazing book, you’ll discover:
- How properly integrating your dispatch and operations software with your back‐office systems can slash your current office staff’s workload in half!
- How a simple one‐step interface option can help cut 10 days of work or more—each and every month—off your fuel bill processing.
- What most trucking software companies don’t want you to know about their so‐called “Real‐Time” systems that could cost you thousands of dollars every month.
- Why integrating your Accounts Payable transaction entries with your operations software will save you over half a week of work—every month.
- And much more!
