Like it or not, trucking has become a data-driven business for carriers large and small. Knowing which customers and which lanes are the most profitable are necessary in a business run on razor-thin margins. Knowing your costs, means:
- Managing your daily loads, power units and trailer
- Dispatching drivers,
- Accurate, timely billing, settlement, payroll, and full accounting,
- IFTA reporting,
- Advances,
- Manage claims, driver onboarding, and carrier verification
- Managing sales and credit check
- Organizing your branches and agents if you have them,
- Document management,
- Load tracking and driver messaging,
- Posting to DAT load boards, searching DAT loads for a match based on truck location, rate, etc. ,
- Connecting to an ELD / GPS system.
It may sound daunting, but all that can be done within your carrier TMS.
Large, publicly traded carriers have been doing this for years and have enjoyed the advantages the technology gives me. Today, the same technology is available to DAT carriers – at no cost.
Free. I’ll say that again: a fully functional carrier TMS is now available free to all DAT carriers thanks to DAT teaming up with AscendTMS.
You’re probably thinking: ain’t nothin’ worth anything that’s free. What’s the catch?
There is no catch.
Because the AscendTMS is cloud-based – that is, offered through the Internet, with no IT department required to support it – you can install it and have it running in less than 10 seconds.
Still skeptical? Read these reviews of the AscendTMS and see how it stacks up against others in terms of cost and technical requirements:
- CrowdReviews.com
- Capterra.com
- SoftwareAdvice.com (managed by Gartner Consulting)
DAT offers carriers a completely free TMS system with all the features mentioned above (that includes matching your upcoming empty trucks with available loads from DAT’s super-database.)
Here’s the best part: You can try it for free by going to www.TheFreeTMS.com/features/dat.
What do you have to lose? Except perhaps the efficiency and profitability your competitors will be enjoying.
Tim Higham is the president and CEO of AscendTMS. You can reach Tim directly at THigham@InMotionGlobal.com, or call 813-681-5000 x 1323.
