Trucking Industry Software Slashes Payroll Processing Time
 In
this recent interview, we spoke with Jim Wallace, President of
Harvest Unlimited Inc. a trucking company from Newton, Alabama.
Harvest operates approximately 22 trucks primarily servicing the
Carolinas, Texas and the Midwest.
Tell us about your experience dealing with
Axon Trucking Industry Software.
"The technical support has been excellent. The customer service has
been very friendly and has always been helpful. Even when the person
that has been assigned to help us isn't available, somebody always
is. I've found the program to be very, very helpful, very useful,
and exceptional."
Tell us a little bit about the problems that
you've solved with Axon Trucking Industry Software.
"Well, the problems that I had were with payroll and with fuel
integration. Our payroll used to take two to two and a half days
using another trucking program (I hate to use the word
'competitor'), but now it just takes a matter of maybe an hour or an
hour and a half to finish it all up and verify it -- a stroke of a pen
or a stroke, really, of a key.
We utilize the fuel system; we integrate our fuel
reports from EFF. They are assigned immediately to the trucks so we
can charge it off correctly for the settlements.
We had a problem with the invoicing - we used to
have to do it manually. Now we just hit a button, and it prints it
out, and we can reprint it.
This gives us a lot more time. Because, before,
we had such limited time, especially with the payroll taking two or
two and a half days. It was just so time consuming. If we made an
error, it just threw us behind. Now if we make an error, which we
do, it's so easy to correct and just allows us to go on."
Has Axon improved your office productivity?
"Oh, 100 per cent. We can utilize our staff members. Everybody is
basically cross trained. We just had a young lady that had to be out
for a week and, with the program being so simple to use, easy to
cross train, somebody else stepped in.
We're multi-tasking; one administrative personnel
can handle all the units, where we were using two (two and a half
really) before. And the morale is really super, excellent. It's
really made everybody happy."
Has the Axon Trucking Industry Software
enabled you to increase your fleet size or the profitability of your
fleet?
"I think when we started - now this may sound silly, but when we
started with Axon we had more trucks than we do now. But it helped
us to identify the owner operators that were not profitable, so we
were able to eliminate non-profitable trucks. And the
bottom line is profit so, even though we downsized a little bit,
we're moving back in that direction of upsizing again, because we
can pick and choose very carefully who we want now."
Can you estimate your annual return on
investment by using our software?
"I believe that we can recover our initial investment in 18 months.
The end return from utilization of the program has probably
increased my profit by about five or five and a half percent on the
bottom line."
How has working with Axon trucking industry
software helped you maintain and improve your customer relations?
"Well, since we have order numbers, and it's multi-tasking, and we
have so many people that can utilize it; at any given time we can
look up where a truck has been because we use the driver call in to
check calls. And I like that because when we enter it, it puts it
right to the minute. That call in allows us to give the customer the
estimated time of arrival, which helps with their unloading, and it
also helps with the loading on the next end with the shipper."
Tell us a little bit about the support you
receive from Axon.
"Axon to me is just a phone call away. With a simple phone call,
Derek, our primary customer service rep., answers everything that I
need to know. He helps Janina and Becky over in the accounting
department. If we have a question, he's very knowledgeable, and he
answers immediately. If he's not there, he calls back within a very
short period of time. He will even go online to show us different
things that we need to do or to help us upgrade. The service is
excellent. Like I said before, if he's busy, we've often had other
representatives come on line and say "hey, this is what you need to
do, and it's done. Like when I had the other program; it might be
three or four hours or it might be the next day even because they
just weren't as efficient and really not as professional as you all
are."
How did you like the training?
"The training was super.
Very easy to understand. Our trainer was very knowledgeable, very
patient, and just walked us step by step through everything and,
after the first few times, it was so easy to grasp. And, as you
probably know, I never even went through the whole program before I
purchased it. That's how confident I was in it at the time, and I'm
even more so now."
Compare your experience with Axon to the
experience you've had with other systems.
"Well, the other program was so difficult to move around in; you
almost had to have it set up on three different stations so that you
could do three different things. With Axon, I just move from
function to function to function. Like I said, the payroll is very
easy to do. The payroll took me two days to do with the other
program. Customer support wasn't as professional as Axon. We
wouldn't get phone calls back in a timely manner. The programs were
not as easy to use. It was frustrating. Sometimes we'd just get up
and walk off."
How do you find the real-time, total
integration that Axon trucking industry software provides -- the
ability to enter something once and have it instantly update all of
the programs for you automatically?
"I love it. It's so easy to use and one of the things I like with
integration is, of course, my
fuel system being integrated. And it's 'real-time,' right then.
And the same with the financial side of it. I can
use that in real time; I can check on any load, any truck, coming
and going, know what they're doing, what they're going to make this
week, how the profitability is running, what we need to do to change
a couple of things, so it's very easy. I just love it. It's so user
friendly."
If one of your peers in the trucking industry
asks you about Axon, how would you describe your experience with us?
"Well, my experience with you all has been excellent. It's always
been very professional; nothing's ever been rushed. Whenever we have
a question, we've never been made to feel like it's a stupid
question. It's because we don't know how to do it; it's a fair
question, and you all treat it that way. And your explanations are
easy; they're to the point, they're concise; and you know I would
recommend it to anybody. And I have!
It's so easy, and it's cost effective. It's
really a great program, and that's it."
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