“We sponsor more little-league teams and charity golf tournaments than I can count. What’s in it for us? Good corporate citizenship. People in my community feel better about my company and we have little trouble filling jobs with good candidates who live in our area. We’ve even pulled in new customers.”
—MSM Transportation’s Mike McCarron
Want more more ideas on how to improve your company’s image? Here are five.
Determined to get your financial act together this year? Instead of counting down the days to a deadline, or grappling with a year’s worth of statements, insist on quarterly tax-planning sessions with your accountant so you can plan, budget, and make adjustments throughout the year.
“I can’t tell you how many times a client has found a receipt for a major repair months after a review of the last three months’ financial statements clearly showed that a big expense item was missing. This probably would have been overlooked with only an annual review.” —Scott Taylor, TFS Group
Among owner-operators and carriers they’re leased to, the fuel surcharge debate has moved beyond how they’re calculated to how they’re treated on broker settlement statements. Some carriers show fuel surcharges on their broker statements with revenue, others show they as a reimbursement.
A surcharge is an additional, variable cost that’s added to the basic rate for the service. It’s separate from the rate, fluctuates with the price of fuel, and in theory will go away once fuel prices decline. Reporting it as income creates additional, unwarranted expenses for the owner-operator, says Scott Taylor of TFS Group. Learn more here.
The preparation and coordination for clearing the border start long before the truck leaves the loading area. It takes a team of people—both at the shipper and the carrier, working together.
Your cab’s fresh-air filter keeps dust, hair, fibers, and other impurities from clogging heat exchangers and the evaporator core—and cleans the air that you breathe. Inspect the filter using the same mileage or operating-hour schedule you use to schedule your oil changes. If you can’t shine a flashlight beam through the paper pleats, it’s time to replace it with a filter that meets the original-equipment spec. Read more HVAC maintenance tips from Red Dot Corp.
When a company borrows money to buy assets, it records the loan on the liability side of the balance sheet and the assets—for instance, trucks—on the asset side. This can impact productivity ratios or profitability ratios like return on investment (ROI), return on assets (ROA), and return on equity (ROE).
“If your company has depreciating assets like trucks and you don’t generate an improved return or profitability for each dollar you invest in those trucks, your financial ratios may be out of order not only for internal reporting, but also for your company’s future financial needs,” says Olen Hunter, director of sales at PacLease.
“Full-service leasing can minimize the number of assets you use to produce a certain amount of income or profit,” Hunter explains. “Your company’s balance sheet will look much more favorable.”
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