Category: CarShipIO Car Hauler Software

How to Avoid False Damage Claims

False damage claims can be a major concern for car haulers, as they can lead to financial loss and damage to your reputation. Here are a few tips to help you avoid false damage claims when transporting cars:

  1. Document the condition of the vehicle before transport: Before you begin transporting a vehicle, document the condition of the vehicle with photos and a written description. This will provide evidence of the vehicle’s condition and can be used to refute false damage claims.
  2. Use a bill of lading: A bill of lading is a document that details the condition of the vehicle at the time of pick-up and delivery. By having the customer sign the bill of lading, you can protect yourself from false damage claims by showing that the vehicle was inspected and accepted by the customer in the condition it was in at the time of pick-up.
  3. Communicate with the customer: Communicating with the customer throughout the transport process can help prevent false damage claims. By keeping the customer informed of the vehicle’s whereabouts and the estimated time of delivery, you can often address any concerns they may have before they become a bigger issue.
  4. Invest in GPS tracking: By using GPS tracking, you can monitor the location and movement of your vehicles, which can provide valuable information in case of a false damage claim.
  5. Invest in surveillance cameras: Having cameras on board your transport vehicles can also help prevent false damage claims as it will provide you with a visual record of the vehicle’s condition during transport.

To avoid false damage claims when transporting cars, one can document the condition of the vehicle before transport, use a bill of lading, communicate with the customer, invest in GPS tracking, invest in surveillance cameras and train the drivers to be extra careful and document any damage or issues during transport. This will provide evidence of the vehicle’s condition and can be used to refute false damage claims.

As a car hauler, false damage claims can be a major concern. Not only do they lead to financial loss, but they can also damage your reputation. Protect your business and safeguard your finances with these essential tips to avoid false damage claims:

  • Document the condition of the vehicle before transport
  • Use a bill of lading
  • Communicate with the customer
  • Invest in GPS tracking
  • Invest in surveillance cameras
  • Train your drivers

Don’t let false damage claims slow down your business. Implement these strategies to ensure the smooth operation and protection of your car hauling business.

Benefits of electronic proof of delivery mobile app (ePOD)

An electronic proof of delivery (ePOD) mobile app can provide many benefits for drivers in the car hauling industry. Some of the key benefits include:

  1. Increased efficiency: An ePOD mobile app allows drivers to easily capture and transmit delivery information, including signatures, photos, and notes, directly from their mobile device. This eliminates the need for paper-based proof of delivery and can greatly speed up the delivery process.
  2. Improved accuracy: Electronic delivery records are less prone to errors than paper-based records. An ePOD mobile app can automatically capture GPS location data and timestamps, providing accurate and verifiable proof of delivery.
  3. Increased transparency: An ePOD mobile app can provide real-time visibility into the delivery status of vehicles, allowing managers and dispatchers to track the progress of deliveries and quickly identify and resolve any issues.
  4. Enhanced security: Electronic proof of delivery records are stored digitally, providing an added layer of security compared to paper-based records that can be lost or tampered with.
  5. Better customer service: An ePOD mobile app allows drivers to quickly and easily capture customer feedback and any issues that may have arisen during the delivery process. This information can be used to improve customer service and to resolve any problems that may have occurred during transport.
  6. Increased cost savings: An ePOD mobile app can help save on costs associated with paper, printing, and storage. It can also help automate the delivery process which can help reduce labor costs.

As a car hauler, an electronic proof of delivery (ePOD) mobile app is a game-changer. It increases efficiency by allowing drivers to easily capture and transmit delivery information, improves accuracy with GPS location data and timestamps, provides real-time visibility for managers and dispatchers, enhances security with digital storage, and improves customer service. Plus, it saves costs on paper, printing, and storage. It’s a no-brainer, ePOD mobile app is a must-have for any forward-thinking car hauler.

7 reasons why 1 in 2 new auto carrier companies are out of business in the first year

At CarShipIO we interact with thousands of new and existing carriers every month, and we see some not so encouraging trends with newer car hauling companies that unfortunately make the same mistakes of not realizing few key points on time and not starting their new business on the solid foundation right from the begging, as a result as many as 50% of newly created auto transport carriers are going out of the business in the first year, 70% in first 24 months.

Here are some issues New Car Haulers face:

  • NEW BUSINESS AND NO EXPERIENCE.“With Greater Power, Comes Greater Responsibility” When a driver opens a new company, they are new to the business and are trying to find out for themselves what is right. It’s too complicated for the driver to keep things together by themselves. Sometimes they have friends/partners who may help, typically it may be a wife/girlfriend or relative, but they also don’t have experience. Even new owner-operators who have years of experience being a driver for other companies, fall short in realizing all the unknowns of being a company owner and not just a driver for yourself.
  • TRYING TO MANAGE EVERYTHING BY THEMSELVES.Every new company receives thousands of calls from people who are trying to sell them over the phone or email. Many get “official-looking” forms with warnings urging new carriers to pay/subscribe to something they are tricked to think they need. Car haulers get scammed and as a result, don’t know who to trust, they shut down and may miss or ignore products or services that will make night and day difference in a day today. Refusing dispatcher, while not having great dispatch or communication experience and load planning and billing process, not knowing PVM rate may result in doing a lot of extra work but not getting paid enough.
  • COMMUNICATION.Communication is KEY to a successful operation, but most new car haulers do not realize it for years if they are lucky to stay active that long. Every car hauler signs up with Central Dispatch and realizes that he is wasting too much time on booking loads that he should. Communication is a big-time leak here if they don’t know the rules of the game. Besides calling, texting to book a load, the driver needs to communicate with a broker/shipper about ETA, status updates, missing or bad information, and payment. Lots of carriers ignore and do not pay proper attention to communication, which reduces the chance of them getting repeat business and some of them may even get a bad rating despite doing hard work, delivering cars on time. You may think it is not fair, but Shippers want to work with professional companies and drivers that are great at communicating, which can save shippers a lot of time, eliminate errors, and in turn allow shippers to provide better quality service to their customers.
  • UNORGANIZED DISPATCH PROCESS.When companies start getting more work, they realize that each broker has its own rules, instructions, and requirements. Managing all of that in Gmail or text messages is a lost battle. They will many times lose time and money because of missed documents or not paying attention to details in instructions. What will you do if a broker calls and asks for a picture of the vehicle that was delivered a month ago, because of a damage claim, or not delivered claim, but you never documented delivery with pictures, or took a pic and sent it to your wife, and she recently upgraded her phone and all the photos are gone. Now you both look unprofessional. What if you’re missing a VIN number or completely ignored brokers’ instructions on pickup, or what needs to be collected at pickup, or how to submit billing, all of this will add up in wasted hours and extra miles, without getting paid extra for it.
WRONG PAYMENT STRATEGY.

Many new companies choose to not bother with billing, as they do not have a process and that seems overwhelming, plus they are afraid of not getting paid or paid on time. While it is true that a $1 today is worth more than a $1 tomorrow, and it’s easier to get COD payments, when a new carrier chaises just CODs that may not be smart overall. When a driver takes just COD loads they typically get paid 5-15% less and will have more dry runs or running with empty spots on the truck longer just to take another COD load. Why? Because it may be hard to find another COD load in the same area/route. Plus, sometimes CODs turn out to be not CODs, but some version of quick pay was not communicated well or changed last minute and the driver needs a way to handle that. Going with a Factoring company is an escape for many until they realize that now they have to do more paperwork and communicate yet with another company, that takes 2-10% fee and still does not pay you 100% of your owed money. In reality, many drivers do not get full use of 100% of the Cash they collect right away anyway, and just end up driving around with cash before they make a stop at the bank, as most of the bills and payment are not paid in cash anyway, so it’s more of a peace of mind, knowing that you got paid, not something that is more efficient for the business when you consider the use of funds, getting paid less, and having less loads to choose from.

Auto Transport Dispatcher – Save Time and Money Guide


How to save time and money as an auto transport dispatcher?

This specific post is related to a ton of auto transport dispatcher out there that want to improve their daily operations by focusing on these key indicators:

  • Time
  • Organization
  • The Process of Load Management
  • The Process of Trip Management
  • Documentation if necessary – BOL, Invoicing, Inspection Review, Contracts, reports

First of all the most important asset in the every single business out there is managing your time – and if you’re not owning time as a dispatcher, and time is owning you – then the truth is that work is going to overwhelming and stomp you on daily basis. Mastering this core asset will help you focus on:

  • Actually staying connected with your customers and drivers
  • Spending more time to find quality of work you have for the company/companies you’re working for
  • Having more time will open up business opportunities that you’re ignoring because of your stomped scheduled

An auto transport dispatcher is going to work on daily basis with different loads big brokers out there, big load boards to find loads for the drivers. They always need to get that dispatch sheet from 10+load boards in different formats and manage them all together – the amount of paperwork gathered is insane and not organized in the proper way.
That’s where a load of time is wasted. Manually checking in the load boards, requesting the dispatch sheet via the email/load board, going back to save, going into your email to send it to the drivers, checking with the driver if he received it, calling him 3+ times, then checking if he got the correct load number, pickup and delivery information. Sending the BOL, and invoices is another one – an auto transport dispatcher can send typically other 20+ of those a week. That’s actually near thousands of transport documents in a year – think about how much time you need to spend on to perfect and check that paperwork every single time.

What if someone told you can save all that time for your right away and you can actually focus on bring more loads to the drivers – as that is what you’re getting paid for? Would you consider it as an auto transport dispatcher? I bet yes!
So if you want to change it, here’s a framework that you can use that we developed in our system CarShipIO for auto transport dispatchers:

  • Imagine yourself uploading all dispatch sheets in one single place from all the loadboards out there, and big brokers ( there are more than 20+ out there in the auto transport industry).
  • Dispatching it right away with just creating a organized trip for all your drivers, will loads, vehicles, miles, addresses, customer information, ability to edit the load, add more loads, delete the loads.
  • Everything is integrated with a driver app on the driver end, and he sees all that info without any information slippage. They have the ability to do everything they need, inspection, electronic bill of lading, change status of loads so the auto transport dispatcher and customer sees it, add vehicles to a load, automatically scan vin code, add expenses.


The real benefit is saving your time, your driver time, your company times, your customer time, and the receive time with everything being organized around the concept of load, trip, driver.

We highly recommend trying it out as we believe time is going to be single biggest asset out there for you – read more info here. 

By our average calculations saving 5K $ by using the system on yearly basis is very welcome for your business. 
Sign-UP here, use it and get that benefit.

Car Hauler BOL and eBOL

Nowadays car haulers do a lot of paperwork, one of them is the BOL.

A Bill of Lading (BOL) is a document that is related to the auto transport business. Another definition is a legal document issued by the carrier company that will be given by the driver who meets to pick up your vehicle. The Bill of Lading is emitted at the pick-up time, it will serve as a receipt of your vehicle getting picked up and as a contract regarding the transport of your vehicle.

The general information for the BOL will be:

  • Origin and Destination of the Vehicle
  • Dates and Time
  • Vehicle Make, Model, Year, VIN & Mileage
  • Vehicle Inspection Report
  • Other Vehicle Description
  • Customer Agreement to Terms & Conditions and Driver Agreement to Terms & Conditions
  • Form of payment
  • Carrier Contact Information

As an auto transport company/carrier make sure to check out or inspect the cars, before signing the BOL. The possible damages must be recorded at the time of delivery. As a car hauler or other party, the Bill of Lading will be the single evidence supporting any further discussions and claims related to these damages. Always make sure you check the vehicles accordingly, report all the types of damages so you can increase customer loyalty and your carrier rating. The BOL is an operational process that you’re going very often, and you also need to make sure you don’t lose it and that it gets to the relevant person (customers/receivers), otherwise, you risk having a little bit of hassle.

Generally speaking, the trend for the paper BOL is starting to transition to a digital BOL, because of technology, eBOL ( Electronic Bill of Lading) solutions is becoming more and more popular. 

eBOL is a quick tool, that you can use your mobile device like a phone or tablet. At the minimum, you can generate digital BOL, that will produce you a professional looking printed BOL with all the details filled in. The auto transport world is changing rapidly and is going digital as well, like any other business. Imagine that in the near feature every car hauler that wants to stay in business will just go to his customers give them the mobile device, they will sign and that’s it, NO MORE PAPERWORK!!!

At the end adapting new technology and efficient processes that it brings, will make your car hauler business sustainable, scalable and growing fast. Like it or not, but we still need to transport vehicles and pay our bills, so if you are left and are not performing efficiently you are wasting time and money while allowing your competition to deliver more cars in less time. Feel free to ask any questions or share your knowledge about the BOL and eBOL by leaving a comment, CarShipIO team would be glad to help you or engage in the comments.
Until next time. 
Happy car hauling, CarShipIO Team 

Starting new Car Hauler business and “I Never have time” excuse

We have been facing a paradox problem that we would like to address and explain. Most of the business owners, whether they are the truck drivers themselves or are the managers of drivers, face the same issue of having “no time”.  They are always busy.
This cycle never ends, at first they are looking for job, then it’s a back and forth communication with the customer, price estimates, and quotes, sorting the cars on the truck, notify customer when picked up, delivered, stuck on a road, etc etc… just never ends, and no time to expand the business nor relax.

CarShipIO Car Carrier Software has a solution.

We have created a one stop do it all software that it designed specifically for auto haulers. We help you give correct estimates, in an instant see which job is profitable, or pays more. With just a click of a button, you can update the status of your jobs, so that all of the parties can be aware where the vehicle is at.
No more phone calls to brokers, dispatchers, and customers!!!

Right here you can also create a custom invoice and BOL and either email it, fax it or print it for your customers.

There is no more need to scribble on a paper the damages/scratches to a car, the driver can take/upload pictures with his phone and either save them into the system or email to the customer or broker right away!

CarShipIO knows your problems and has easy solutions. But in order for an automated process to work it’s best, you have to make a little commitment and enter your info, that you enter anyway, but in a more accustomed way. Once you enter all of the info, such as your truck details, customer’s info, broker’s info, insurance etc.

CarShipIO car carrier software will automatically remind you about maintenance that needs to be done on a truck, it can calculate the profitability of your run based on the gas usage of your truck, knowing your customers, it can send them invoices and BOLs, and status updates with your command. With just a little commitment you can create a big helper for yourself that will save you a lot of time or create you time to expand your business.
Initially, it is very difficult to start, find this time especially during a busy season, but it is an investment – investment in your future, in the future of your own business. Having all of the documents, receipts, invoices, notes, customers, trucks in one place gets you ready for the tax season, saving you a ton of time of looking for all of the info for the past year, it gets you ready for audits, and simply with just a few clicks summarizes your business for your own knowledge. You can know profitability by a driver, a customer, a trip. You can easily eliminate extra expenses such as maintenance when it was very predictable.

Please do yourself a favor and invest your time today for the easier future!
We are always here to help, our advanced technical team can set up an individual time with you to help you get started using our software for car carriers and answer any technical questions you may have.
Sign up today. We are here to help you getting to where you really want to be.

Best Practices when you are delayed or truck broke down

Have you ever been delayed by weather? Did your ever had your truck break down? You are hauling ten cars and 10 customers are relying on you to be on time. Logically you need to notify everyone, and if your next trip is already planned out, those customers need to know you will be delayed as well.

The key to effective notifications is having all the customer information including email and phone numbers so you can notify them immediately.  It would also be good to notify other contacts associated with each load, for example any contacts who are waiting for you to deliver the vehicles listed on the order.

Maybe you are lucky to have someone at the office who will notify everyone on your behalf, but if you don’t then it’s up to you to do that. Even if you have everyone’s numbers and email addresses, you still need to search for the contact info, and make the call, compose and send an email or text message right?

There is a better way and that is a mobile application that allows for instant notification of ETA to everyone on your trip.  
With your mobile device you suddenly have that power – send out a notification to as many people as you need to on that trip.  Your customers will appreciate the notification and you are more likely to keep them as a customer the next time they need to transport their vehicle because you took time to manage their expectations.

Luckily there is a tool that provides Notifications for every step in your process: Starting a Trip, Picking Up Vehicles, Delivering Vehicles, General ETA to your destination. That tool is CarShipIO online business management tools, which  are designed specifically for your Auto Transport Business so you are prepared for anything that comes your way.

Increase car hauler business efficiency by using the correct tools

We all know that time is valuable, and if you are spending time less efficiently than your competition you are losing your money and need to look at your car hauler business process for possible inefficiencies and address them immediately. The more time you can free up, the more you can invest that time into growing your car carrier business and keep your customers happy.
Let’s look at some inefficiencies and some solutions in your Transport Business

Invoicing

How do you invoice your clients?  If it takes you more than a minute, you are probably spinning your wheels going from one application to another or writing invoices by hand.

The solution to is to store all your load information in a software that also lets you invoice clients with just a few clicks, so it takes less than 10 seconds to generate and send out the invoice.

Think about it this way – let’s say it takes you 5 minutes to generate and send out an invoice today vs 30 seconds you could be spending with an online business management tool. If you invoice 10 clients each day, then you are wasting 45 minutes, and 3hrs per week on generating invoices which adds up to 156 hours per year of wasted time…

If you can free up 3hrs per week, you can do something more productive like work on finding quality loads or spend time working on your marketing, that time can translate to thousands of dollars each week just by invoicing faster. I hope you see how you can get a nice Return on Investment by switching to an application that manages your loads in one place just for the sake of saving time on invoicing.

Another added benefit for a car carrier is getting PAID FASTER since you can generate invoices with one click right after delivery right from your mobile device! If you are strapped for cash, this gives you the much-needed cash flow and additional ROI because you aren’t borrowing at a high-interest rate or using money factoring services.

Ask yourself:

How many customers did you forget to invoice or did not collect payment because it slipped through the cracks? Payments not collected may cost your business thousands a month. What if that no longer was an issue? Some applications track late invoices as well as loads that you need to invoice, this will ensure you don’t miss a payment.

Trip / Load Planning

How do you plan your trips today? You have 10 pickups and 10 drop offs and all you have is print outs or files in your cloud storage. Planning your trip is not an easy task and you may use several applications such as online maps or GPS and you spend 1hr or more. Some just outsource it all together and pay as much as 25% or more for this service.

It doesn’t have to be this way, some applications save time by combining all your loads on one map in a Trip Planner, a map view using your loads pickup and delivery address.  Once you plan your trip, the details are instantly synced up and your drivers can see the trip and load details on their mobile interface. When everyone is collaborating in real time, any updates in trip details and the pickup/delivery information is as easy as making a change to the data.  Now count how much time of your day gets drained on the phone or emails with your drivers just dealing with dispatch before or after they start their trips… Ok, say it’s on average 2 min per load, multiply that times loads per week… you get what we are saying?  Now your drivers see the changes real time!

Customer Updates and Follow-ups

When a customer inquires, how do you know when their vehicle will be delivered up? Do you make a phone call to your driver? Do you text them? How much time does that take? With automatic status and ETA notifications, every time you or your drivers does a pickup/delivery they can update the status on their mobile device and automatically notify your customers. Also your customers will be happy knowing they can check the status of the car shipment any time like on a UPS shipment – and that’s good customer service. So if both you and your customer see the vehicle status real time you will see a drop in call volume.

So let’s review how an online application saves you time and money over existing processes in your Auto Transport Business:

  • Save time by generating invoices in under 30 seconds and by avoiding double entering loads into multiple places.
  • You get paid faster because you can invoice from your truck as soon as you deliver, which saves you money and increases cash flow.
  • You stay on top of your finances, get reminders on late or unpaid invoices, you never miss a payment again and/or forget to invoice in the first place.
  • You plan your trips faster, your driver sees all the trip details on their mobile device instantly, updates load status real time, which cuts down on call volume from worried customers.
  • You communicating effortlessly with your drivers, customers, dispatchers.
  • You use extra time and money you save to grow your business.

    There are many other money and time saving features an online business management tool provides to help you run your business more efficiently.
    CarShipIO is such a tool designed exclusively for your Auto Transport business. Our car carrier software and auto hauler software saves you time, money.
    Sign up for our service today – we would love to hear how you are saving time and money once you become our customer.

Managing Car Carrier Business with CarShipIO is Smart

Managing loads is the essence of your business.

That’s why CarShipIO Car Hauler Software gives you the online tools you need to make your job easier, more efficient and faster by eliminating truckloads of scribbles, spreadsheets and faxes. With CarShipIO, you can stop pushing paper and start pushing your business forward.

Here is how

Say you are a truck owner and you just dropped off your cars on a Friday afternoon. If you are still billing your customers the old way, you’ll probably wait until Monday to generate a new invoice from scratch, print it, fax it and hope the customer will receive it. If he doesn’t, you’ll have to resend the invoice again and make lots of phone calls to double-check if it had arrived. And let’s face it, chasing after your invoices take time. In fact, you might find yourself working overtime just to keep up. And that’s time away from growing your business – and your family.

When you use CarShipIO Auto Transport Platform, billing your customers becomes a walk in the park. Just drop off those new shiny cars (or beat up clunkers) and with a few swipes on your mobile app, you can mark the load as Delivered and send that invoice right from your truck, together with any other important documents, like your BOL. And you don’t need to enter your customer’s information. It’s all at your fingertips. So now you can get back home and enjoy that weekend.

And there is lots more. With CarShipIO you can track your entire business with just one click. See the status of all your trucks and know where they are within seconds. Track your jobs from “quote” to “complete” and build schedules and plan out routes in a new, more efficient way. You can even make accurate job estimates or track your expenses and get important reminders.


So what are you waiting for? We can help you get out of the rut and get you moving a whole lot faster. Register with CarShipIO Digital Office today.
It will make you, your customers – and even your dog – very happy.