Not Just For The Big Guys

Following are excerpts from a recent interview with Chris Queen, CEO of Chris Queen & I Trucking of Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

Chris, tell us a little bit about your company.
We're a 48-state hauling company with specialized trailers, 53 foot drive-ins with trains that are built inside. We haul brand-new elevators to new construction sites all over the country.

Tell us about your experience with Axon Trucking Software.
Everything, so far, is great. It saves us so much time and the best thing about it is that I'm able to track each piece of equipment to find out how much revenue it is generating. Any time I have a problem with something or a question, I just give Axon a call or email, and they pretty much have an answer for me before the end of the day. I mean, very helpful. There is no time that I have to wait for anything. They get it done and get it back to me as soon as they can.

Tell us about some of the problems Axon solved for you.
Well, when I first got the software (about 8 months ago), I had six drivers. Now I have 21 drivers, so one of the problems it definitely solved for me was being able to keep track of all of my drivers - of where they're at, what loads they're on, when they're available. Dispatching has become much easier. If I didn't have the software, I'd probably have to have three more people in the office just to keep track of the drivers we have now.

Managing our fuel tax is much, much easier now. Before Axon, we had a third-party company that would do it for us. They would charge us per truck per quarter. Now, with Axon Trucking Software and with the PCMiler module also activated on it, it's pretty much a couple clicks of a button, and the fuel tax is generated and printed and ready to go.

The driver settlement option is another great feature of the software. Before Axon, we had three different places that we had to put data. We had a database where we put the jobs; we had a spreadsheet where we computed what they made, and then we had to use QuickBooks to do the payroll. With Axon, all we have to do now is go into the Pay tab, click on Pay the Driver. If he's on percentage or mileage, it's automatically calculated. We can print the driver settlement for the week and it's ready to go.

How has the software changed the way you do invoicing?
When we used to do invoicing, we had to take the data from the database, then go back into QuickBooks, type it in again and then generate an invoice. Now, all we have to do is put the information in Axon, and it does it all. We click a button and it prints an invoice based on the data that we put in there, the same with the driver settlements. Once we put the data in, there's no more duplicate data entry that we have to do.

How has Axon's equipment revenue reporting helped you?
With Axon, I'm able to track each individual piece of equipment or look at it as a whole to see what the company is doing or what each piece of equipment is generating as far as revenue and dollar per mile. It helps out a lot because a few of my drivers -- I didn't realize before -- weren't getting enough miles or enough revenue for a truck, and we were losing money. We sat down and had a talk with those drivers and said, 'Look, here's what we need to do to make this profitable for everybody,' and they've stepped up to the plate and now we've got everybody rolling good and we're starting to make a good profit now.

Has Axon helped improve productivity in your office?
I had a full-time bookkeeper with six trucks, and now she works part-time for me with 21 trucks. We've actually gone down in how many hours she works per week even though we've grown.

Like I said before, we had to enter information in three different places -- database, spreadsheet and QuickBooks -- but now, with Axon, we put it in once and we can print anything we want from the order confirmation to the driver settlement to invoicing just straight from putting in the information one time.

A while back, you had a hurricane hit your area and it knocked all your power out. Thanks to Axon's online nightly backup service, you were able to recover lost data and get back in operation quickly.
Yeah, that is great. When the hurricane was coming, I wasn't concerned with my data and the software because I knew Axon had a backup. So that was my last concern; as a matter of fact, when I got back to the office when the power came back on, we were up and running again. Even though we were down here with the hurricane, I had drivers all over the country still working and running and we had to stay in business.

Compare your experience with Axon software and your experience with any other software systems you've worked with.
The simplicity of using Axon versus using three types of software before has just made us a lot more efficient, and it is a lot easier to work with. I can tell that we wouldn't have been able to grow from six trucks to 21 without it.

When you compare Axon to other trucking software you looked at previously, what stands out?
I think the ease of the use of it, the support that we get from you guys. I have drivers that get paid different ways, and they always call and say, 'How much did I get paid on this job or that job?' and it's just the click of a button and we can give them that information. At any given time, if I need to see how the company's doing, a couple clicks of a button and you can look at that. The overall ease of the software, plus all the difficult tasks that you are able to do with it, makes it great software.

If one of your peers in the trucking industry asked you about Axon, how would you describe your experience to them?
I would say that when I looked at it with six trucks, I was thinking that it may not have been software that I needed at the time because I only had six trucks. But you guys were able to work with me on that as far as the payment schedule, and if I hadn't gotten it then, I wouldn't be to 21 trucks now. So I would tell anybody that if they were looking to grow their company and not have it cost them a lot of money down the road, they could get the total package from you guys and save a lot of money and time doing it that way.