“When You Lose an Important Staff Member, Make Sure Your
Software Can Take Up The Slack!” - How one
Missouri group discovered the secret to running both a trucking and
a logistics company with one software system, less people, and more
free time!
 Doris
Morris, is President of Plant Peddlers Inc., a trucking operation
based out of Willow Springs, MO, and their sister company, logistics
broker Plant Peddlers Express LLC. In this interview, Doris speaks
to us about their Axon Experience.
Tell us about your company.
“Both of the companies were started in 1996. It started out with
just my husband, and then my husband and I together, and we've just
increased in volume and in employees over the years. With Axon, I
think we'll be able to continue to grow and handle the growth that
we've already experienced.”
Tell us about your experience with Axon.
“It’s been excellent, right from the time that we first dealt with
our Axon rep. We got into a lot of details before we even made the
decision to invest in the software, and he was very helpful walking
us through it. And then when we made the decision, our trainer was
excellent. We have a few things that were probably just a little bit
different than some other companies, and he was—and still continues
to be— excellent. If we have any questions, the people at Axon are
easy to access. It's been a good experience.”
Describe some of the issues that Axon has
helped you solve.
“We didn't have any type of trucking software program prior to Axon
so it was a very time-consuming process. The dispatcher would have
to type up order confirmations. Then we'd have to manually create
our invoices. So there was a lot of duplication of the work. We used
a lot of Excel spreadsheets, and now it's all there in one system.
We're able to answer questions and not have to manually go and track
down the paperwork, which was double the work. We had a lot of
problems. We pretty much did everything manually. Now it's a lot
easier all around.”
Describe how Axon has changed the way you do
your fuel tax.
“Our Safety Director does all the
fuel tax reportings and
equipment statements. Before we had Axon, we used Excel
spreadsheets to figure out the total miles and the fuel. That was
time consuming and left room for error.
Now, our operators have fuel cards from Comdata
which we're able to directly import into Axon. We're integrated with
PC*Miler so Axon
figures the miles instantly. The fuel tax reports are updated with
the current rates. It saves a lot of time and decreases the margin
for error that we had before.
We’re saving a lot of time! Before, we would
manually take the figures off the trip envelopes (and sometimes the
drivers hadn’t even put them on there properly), and then we'd enter
them into a spreadsheet. It was a lot of time and work.”
Tell us about your owner operator statements.
“Not only do we like the detailed equipment statements, but the
owner operators have commented that they are a lot easier for them
to understand. And being able to enter the equipment transactions
through the payables invoice helps to make sure the deductions
aren't missed. It also eliminates the double entry we had before.
Importing the file from Comdata directly has
helped a lot because the fuel and owner operator advances
automatically go to their settlements without all of the manual work
we had to do before to try and make sure we didn't miss them. We do
our owner operator statements weekly, and Axon has probably saved us
a half a day each week.”
How do you find Axon’s invoicing process?
“One of the biggest things is not only the time that it's saving,
but the invoices look so much more professional than they did
before. The time spent is a lot less, and the cost is less as we
don't have to get the invoices printed anymore. Once the dispatcher
enters the order, and we receive the paperwork, it's just a matter
of looking over what they've entered and making sure everything is
correct, and we can bill it. It is very nice not to have to do all
the double entry. And it looks a lot better too.”
Have you noticed a change in the productivity
in your office as a result of using Axon?
“We did decrease one staff member, but it wasn't completely because
of Axon. We had someone leave, and we did not need to replace that
person. We are definitely able to move more orders, but I think that
the biggest thing that we've seen with Axon is being able to use the
staff that we have more effectively. Before, we didn’t have time to
do follow-up calls, and some of those things that you need to do, as
effectively as we should have. With Axon, we have been freed up to
be able to do more of those types of things.
Basically, we’ve dropped one staff person, and
we’ve been able to improve the effectiveness of the remaining
staff.”
Tell us about the support that you've received
from Axon.
“The support has been excellent. One of the things that we like is
that our support person can sign on and see what we're seeing, and
they can walk through it with us. It's been excellent. There's just
not enough good to say about the support and the trainers. They are
all excellent.”
Has Axon helped you in dealing with your
customers?
“Not only with our customers, but with the carriers on our logistics
side. It's an everyday occurrence that either the customers or the
carriers need to know the status of their invoices. Axon's decreased
a lot of the time spent researching because you can usually just go
in and find it right away. If they don't know the order number,
there are several ways that you can access the information and help
them so much faster. You don't even need to get up and leave your
desk to look up the information. It's right there. And all the
dispatch activity
that's taken place on that order is updated so that everything is
right there. You can look up an order and know all the problems and
everything that's happened on it. Axon has greatly improved the time
and the effort to assist the carriers and the customers.”
Has that helped you grow your business?
“Oh, I'm sure it has. I would definitely say that in the short time
that we've used Axon, it's paid back for itself with increased
productivity and customer service and the decrease in errors. It is
something that you get your payback from pretty quickly.”
Tell us about the ease of use of the software.
“I think it's very easy to use. Once you get familiar with the
screens you can go from one module to another without having to
close the screen you're in. The longer that we've had it, the more
familiar we get with it. It's pretty self explanatory once you start
working with it, so it is very easy to use.”
How would you describe your experience with
Axon to your industry peers?
“The way I already have to a lot of people - it's great! One of the
things that I like to tell everybody is that it covers everything
you need from start to finish. It's not just dispatch or just
accounting. It's the whole package, even interfacing with PC*Miler.
It saves us money not having to pay someone to do our T99s and our
W2s. And it cuts down the time on tax preparation.
We all tell people how much we like Axon. I would
recommend it to anyone. Obviously it’s primarily used by trucking
companies with drivers and owner operators, but it’s also good for
logistics companies.”
Would you want your direct competitors using
Axon software?
“Sure. It makes everybody's life so much easier that I wouldn't have
a problem with someone else taking advantage of it.”
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