Finding ways to save time and cut corners without making mistakes is critical in the trucking industry. That is how you improve your bottom line and get a stronger return on your company's investment or ROI. One of the most prominent ways of managing your expenses starts in how you structure and organize payments and invoicing, as well as data and filing. You can optimize these processes with financial solutions like factoring, the process of selling your invoices with paying terms to receive cash right away, as well as with specialized automation. Look at the latest trends of how the trucking industry is automating operating expenses.
Automation for back-office processes
The way automation works for managing operating expenses is tackling those tedious tasks handled in the proverbial back-office. These include filing invoices, tracking driver licensing documents, processing cargo claims with insurance, and managing payroll.
Along with back-office processes, you also want to reduce operating expenses, including accounting costs, marketing and advertising, office supplies and equipment, vehicle expenses and insurance, travel costs, and attorney fees.
Also, your operating expenses for the trucking industry include taxes and licensing for your trucks. Throughout the process of managing each of these expenses are areas where you can use automation. It might be through the automation of marketing tasks or an automatic re-purchasing system for your office supplies, to name a couple of examples.
Trucking technology and automation
Technology specific to the trucking industry is also working toward automating as many of these processes as possible. For example, you have electronic logging devices or ELDs handling hours of service rules and monitoring driver behavior. All this data used to be logged manually by commercial truck drivers. That took up valuable driving time and was a costly venture when drivers made paperwork errors.
All the driver data is captured automatically using ELDs and sent directly to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). This step-in automation will significantly expedite the way hours of service records are obtained, and driver data is gathered. Trucking carriers can also use this data about driver behavior to increase efficiency in operating expenses. They will be able to incorporate the information into research into ways to update fleet and driver practices, equipment, and technologies.
Learn more: Going Digital. How the trucking industry is becoming more efficient
Benefits of automation back-office tasks
If you and your team are concerned with the cost analysis of updating to an automated system, consider all the pros of this process.
- To reduce human errors while cutting back on labor costs associated with manual entry.
- To save money and time associated with completing the most basic and mundane processes.
- To submit an electronic version of a document or piece of information for shipper, receiver, or insurance provider, as they ask for it.
- To can optimize the storage and use of your data, from guaranteeing the protection of the information you collect.
- To easily file invoices of clients and shippers with an automated system without having to do anything by hand.
Risks and concerns with cyber automation
Concerns with an automated system for operating expenses involve cyberattacks. If you have everything managed within a cloud-based system and via an onsite or offsite server, you run the risk of having a cyber hacker threaten your system's security. The total cost of cybersecurity breaches in 2019 was nearly $4 million and continues to grow in threat. With increased dependence on technologies, including the Internet of Things or IoT, this issue must be dealt with simultaneously.
Ultimately, the trucking industry has collided with the technology sector. Now, along with automating operating expenses, trucking companies embrace digital load boards, trucking apps, and other automated technology forms. We can anticipate even more of a reliance on technology in the future of trucking and transportation.
To take on the challenges involved in the new processes that you can implement in your trucking company, you must have an improved cash flow that allows you to keep up with the market. You can trust a factoring partner to enable you to monetize your invoices in record time. Contact us to discover more!