The first question
How do I find out whether a truck is actually making money?
Rationale Services sets your books up so each truck is a reporting unit. Revenue earned by that truck and its fuel, maintenance, insurance, driver pay and finance cost are all recorded against it. You get contribution per truck per period, and the trucks losing money stop hiding inside a fleet total.
A fleet average conceals a wide spread. One tractor on good lanes with a steady driver can subsidize two that are breaking down, running empty or sitting. Until cost is allocated per unit, that spread is invisible and decisions about replacing equipment, dropping a lane or adding a truck are made on feel. The allocation has to be consistent rather than perfect, so that this period can be compared with the last one.
- Each truck set up as its own reporting unit
- Fuel, maintenance, insurance and driver pay allocated to the unit
- Contribution per truck, every period
- An allocation basis held steady so periods compare
Loads, settlements and the cost of running the fleet
Can you tell me whether a load was profitable?
Rationale Services can report at load level where your records support it. Linehaul revenue, fuel burned, driver pay, tolls and any accessorial charges are tied to the load, so you can see margin by load, by customer and by lane rather than only in the monthly total.
Load-level reporting depends on your dispatch or transport management system carrying the detail and on that detail reaching the books. We work from the exports your system produces and set up the mapping once. The result changes how a business quotes. Owners who can see margin by customer usually discover that their largest customer is not their best one.
Who reconciles my settlements and all the deductions taken out of them?
Rationale Services reconciles every settlement statement to your books. Gross pay for the load, advances, fuel purchases, insurance, escrow, trailer rent, damage claims and administrative charges are each recorded in their own account rather than being collapsed into a single net amount.
Recording only the net deposit is the single most common error in trucking books. It understates revenue, hides the real cost of fuel, and makes it impossible to argue a deduction you believe is wrong. We keep gross and each deduction separate, reconcile to the statement, and flag anything that does not match what was agreed. Bookkeeping describes how that close runs.
How much of my revenue is going on fuel and maintenance?
Rationale Services reports fuel and maintenance as a share of revenue, per truck and for the fleet, period after period. Fuel purchased through a card program is reconciled against the card statements, and maintenance is split between routine servicing and the large repairs that distort a single month.
These two lines decide whether a fleet is viable, and both are easy to misread. Fuel bought on a card and deducted from a settlement can be recorded twice or missed entirely. A major repair charged in one month makes that month look terrible and the next three look better than they are. We separate routine from major spend so the trend is readable and an aging truck shows its true cost before it strands a load.
Services
The services carriers use most
The same work described elsewhere on the site, built around settlements, units and driver pay.
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Bookkeeping
Settlements and deductions reconciled line by line, every period.
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Accounting and reporting
Monthly accounts with profit reported per truck and per lane.
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Licenses and registration
Business registration and license applications for a carrier.
Drivers, payroll and getting started
How do you handle owner-operators and employee drivers in the same business?
Rationale Services keeps both sets of records cleanly, because they are built differently. Employee drivers go through the pay run with hours, rates and withholding records. Owner-operators are paid against settlements with their own deductions. We keep the documentation each one needs and report driver cost per truck on a comparable basis.
Our part is to make sure the records match the arrangement you actually have and that the paperwork behind each one is complete, so the question can be answered from your files rather than from memory. Where it needs specialist advice, we will say so.
Can you handle payroll for drivers?
Yes. Rationale Services runs payroll for carriers with mixed pay structures: per mile, per load, hourly, salaried, with detention and accessorial pay on top. We take the inputs from your dispatch and settlement records, process the pay run, and post driver cost against the right truck and period.
Driver pay rarely fits a standard payroll template, which is why so many carriers run it on spreadsheets and reconcile it later. We build the calculation around how you actually pay, document it, then keep it unchanged so each run can be checked against the one before. Payroll covers the run itself.
What do you need from me to get started?
Rationale Services needs access to your settlement statements, bank and fuel card feeds, your dispatch or transport management exports, equipment finance documents and your current books in whatever state they are in. From there we rebuild the recent periods so you have a reliable starting point.
Most carriers come to us with the invoicing working and the cost side guessed. The first phase is almost always catch-up and cleanup, and we would rather do that properly than report on top of numbers we do not trust. How we work sets out the sequence, what it depends on, and how we scope an engagement.
Questions
Common questions from carriers
We are an owner-operator. Is that too small?
No. A small operation needs the same clarity on fuel, maintenance and settlement deductions as a fleet, and it usually needs catch-up work and the pay side set up correctly.
Do you work with our transport management system?
We work from the exports and reports your system produces rather than requiring a particular product. If it can produce load and settlement detail, we can map it into the books.
Can you help us set up a new carrier entity?
We handle business registration and license applications as a service — see business licenses and registration. We confirm the scope for your operation at the outset.
Can you work with us remotely?
Yes. We work remotely with carriers across the United States, which suits an industry where nobody is at a desk. See where we work.
Find out which trucks are carrying the business
Tell us how you are paid and how you pay your drivers, and we will set out what reporting per truck would take.