• Use revenue codes—Revenue codes don’t have to be tied to your general ledger. They can act as place holders without being tied to anything. This gives you a simple tool to use in an amazing assortment of ways. You can assign a revenue code to anything you want and then pull up the data around that topic and view it in reports.
• Use date options and the “Totals” button—Reports can be run by ship date, bill date, or delivery date. The “Totals” button gives you access to a wide variety of data with a single click. Do you want to know everything you’ve done between Toledo and Memphis? Search it and use the “Totals” button. Or use it to get totals for customers.
• Recognize rhythms—You can configure reports to show figures for each hour of the day and each day of the week. Use these to see what your daily rhythms are. Use longer term reports to determine your weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual rhythms. Gaining this visibility puts you in the position to take action to generate more business when you tend to be slow or to handle the loads more efficiently when volume is high.
• Find the weak spots—Do you have a lot of deadhead coming out of Georgia, but you always find good backhauls out of Texas? Configure your data, look underneath the numbers, figure out what’s working and what’s not working, then do something to remedy the problems.
• Detect trends—Don’t assume that the status quo won’t change. For example, keep a close watch on your lane density on each major lane and notice if there are changes. Maybe service failures have crept up slightly for one of your top shippers in one lane and you’ve been getting less freight as a result. You want
38 THE ABILITY TO DO MORE
to nip this in the bud. You can take action to solve small problems before they become big problems if you are careful to detect trends.
• Run reports as frequently as needed—In some cases you need data to be updated hourly and in other cases you want to view changes over a longer time period. You have to decide how to structure that to support your business objectives. As a reference point, I recommend running the 25 reports listed below every day and getting the data in front of someone on your staff. In some case, I would want these reports updated hourly. This list won’t be the right fit for every business, but it’s a starting point.
• Daily Revenue • Top Customer • Customer History • Short Pay • Open Item Recap
• Order Revenue Analysis
• Idle Trailer • Empty Mileage
• Orders Lacking Paperwork
• Tractor Continuity • Brokerage Revenue • Accessorial Charges
• Customer Order Count & Customers Below Order Goal
• Trailer Pool
• Safety Data/Reports-Register-Accident By • Service Failure • Empty Miles Lost Revenue • Commodity Revenue • Claims • Tractor Mileage per Day • Lane Analysis • Customers without Activity • Driver Recruiting • Vital Signs • Profitability Analysis Reports
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