Industry
Bookkeeping for owner-operators and small fleets
Cost per mile you can actually rely on, settlements broken out so you can see what the deductions cost you, and per-truck numbers that show which unit is carrying the operation.
Cost per mile is the whole game
Every decision in trucking comes back to one number: what it costs you to run a mile. Without it, a rate per mile is just a number that sounds good or does not, and the difference between a load worth taking and one that quietly loses money is invisible.
Getting there means fixed costs and variable costs separated, and both allocated against real miles run. Truck payment, insurance, permits and plates do not care how far you drove. Fuel, tyres, maintenance and tolls do. Mixed together they produce an average that is wrong in both directions.
Settlement statements
If you run under someone else's authority, your settlement is not your revenue. It is your revenue minus a list of deductions: dispatch fees, insurance, trailer rent, fuel advances, escrow, tolls, damage claims.
Booked as a single deposit, all of that disappears. You never see what you actually grossed, and you never see what the deductions are costing you over a year. Broken out properly, most owner-operators find at least one recurring deduction they had stopped noticing.
Factoring is the same trap, larger. The factor advances you a percentage and keeps a fee. If the advance is recorded as revenue, your gross is understated by the fee every single time, and the annual cost of factoring never appears anywhere in your books. It is usually a substantial number once you see it in one place.
Fuel, and the records IFTA is built on
Miles by state and fuel purchased by state, both reconciled to what actually happened. That is a bookkeeping job, and it is the foundation the fuel tax return is built on.
I keep and reconcile those records. I do not file the return, and I do not advise on it. That goes to your CPA or your permit service, and they get numbers that tie out rather than a shoebox.
Per-truck profitability
With more than one unit, the fleet average hides everything worth knowing. One truck with a maintenance problem or a driver running empty miles will drag a profitable operation down while the combined numbers still look acceptable.
- Revenue tagged to the unit that earned it
- Fuel, maintenance, tyres and tolls coded to the truck they belong to
- Fixed costs allocated so each unit carries its share
- Repairs tracked per unit, so you can see when a truck is telling you it is done
It is the same structure as job costing for a contractor. The job is just a truck, or a load.
Maintenance, and knowing when to replace
Repair spend per unit, tracked over time, is what turns a replacement decision from a gut call into arithmetic. Most owner-operators keep every receipt and can still not answer what a given truck cost them last year.
What stays with your CPA
Per diem, depreciation and how the equipment is treated for tax are all tax questions and they belong with your accountant. Whether a driver is an employee or a contractor is a legal question and belongs with an attorney. My job is records that support whatever answer you get.
Who this suits
Owner-operators running one truck, small fleets up to a handful of units, hotshot and box truck operations, dump and aggregate haulers, and local and regional carriers. Under your own authority or leased on.
Common questions
Do you file my IFTA return?
No. I keep the mileage and fuel records by state that the return is built from, and I reconcile them. The filing goes through your CPA or your permit service.
I use a factoring company. Does that complicate things?
It is straightforward once it is set up correctly, and it is the most commonly mis-recorded thing in owner-operator books. Handled properly you see both your true revenue and exactly what factoring costs you per year.
Can you tell me my cost per mile?
Yes, and it is usually the first number I get a new trucking client to. You cannot judge a load rate without it.
Where to next
What does a mile actually cost you?
If that number is a guess, every load rate you accept is a guess too. Tell me how many trucks you run and how you get paid.
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