Hi, Rick here with Drive Line Systems. About 8 years ago, I started an auto transport company from scratch. I never had any experience in logistics in the past or knew how the game worked. I never thought about doing an inspection report on a vehicle or even providing customers with a bill of lading.

Things started to pick up after a few months, and within a year, I was running full loads in both directions of my lane. I was a one-man show; I kept track of the vehicles that I was shipping on my phone, using notes and text messages to track what I was supposed to pick up. It worked in the beginning since I did not have that many orders on a weekly basis—just enough to fill a truck. Things soon took off, and I found myself dispatching 4 trucks, driving, talking with customers, booking orders, sending invoices, and dealing with customer complaints. You name it; I was doing it all.

I soon found myself with the following issues: forgetting to send out invoices, missing orders since I did not have a proper way to keep track of the bookings, and having customers chase me for invoices (the honest few that did). I’m embarrassed to admit, but I soon found myself under a lot of stress and started balancing it out with a lot of alcohol (which does not help but makes things worse, I know). Fast forward 6 years, and I said enough is enough.

I put all the trucks on hold, along with my downward spiral, and came up with a proper business plan. I was asking myself why I felt like I was burning out 24/7, and I realized that I had absolutely no procedures in place to process an order, submit an order through a proper form, and input them into a proper customized (for my company) software. Lastly, I needed a system in place to accept payment prior to dropping off the vehicle to ensure I get paid 100% every single time.

Today, I work about 5 hours a day, dispatch more than 16 trucks, and have shipped close to 2000 vehicles in the past 6 months. Things are so easy and straightforward to process that I hired my first office staff. She is the only one helping me in the office; she puts the orders in, keeps them all up to date, and looks after the payments. The one thing I always loved doing is building loads for drivers/trucks and talking with customers, which I still do to this day.

With a focus on creativity, strategy, and results, we help brands achieve their full potential.

Using Airtable, create a fully customized platform tailored to your company, where all orders are accessible at a glance. Choose which province to look up an order from, and build an order for each truck in seconds. Automatically invoice all your orders (100% bulletproof), and mark vehicles that are inside the terminal for a second or even third driver to pick up the vehicle for its final leg. Create a task or workstation for one of your office tasks so that the employee knows exactly what to do based on a ticketing system (one of the most straightforward systems available). Add a new order via an online form, attach gate passes, and integrate any accounting software with Airtable.