Eight in the morning, and there are already four portals open
One pickup order came in last night from a client's portal, another is inside an email with an attachment, a third one you have to go looking for because that customer never tells you, and meanwhile the phone is ringing about a load that was supposed to leave
Then the round goes on all day, statuses to update on the couriers' systems and on the clients' portals, each with its own screen and its own wording, delivery notes to prepare, transport documents to put together, delivery confirmations to chase, and at the end of the month the invoicing that has to match what was actually done, not what was quoted
Anyone who works in a haulage company knows this part takes up one person in the office, often more than one, who spends the day typing into other people's screens
The truth about this business, said plainly
You work inside other people's systems, the portal belongs to the client and the client makes the rules, the courier's system belongs to the courier, you just log in
You can't change them, and you can certainly ask for a direct integration with your transport management software, but they are the ones who decide, on their own schedule and their own priorities, you're the supplier and at that table you don't count for much
So, as long as that integration isn't there, there are two roads, either you send a person into that portal, or you send an automation that makes the same moves, it opens, reads, fills in, checks, saves, there is no third road and whoever promises you one probably hasn't looked at your work
What the system can do inside that round
These are examples of things the system can do, not work already delivered for someone, Muffin Suite started recently and I'd rather tell you now than later
- The system logs into the clients' portals with your credentials, takes the new pickup orders, and writes them into the transport management software with sender, consignee, packages, weight and requested date
- It reads the attachments that arrive by email, PDF or Excel alike, and carries them in the same way, with nobody retyping them
- It takes the statuses from your business software and pushes them onto the portals and the couriers' systems, one at a time, with the right wording for each
- It prepares the delivery notes and the transport documents from the order data, and files them with the name and the folder you use
- It downloads the proofs of delivery and attaches them to the right file
- Before invoicing it compares what was done with what was ordered, and sets aside the lines that don't add up, a pickup made twice, a waiting time never charged, a weight different from the one declared
What stays with the people in the office
What stays is the trade, the part the customer really pays you for, deciding how to put a run together, dealing with the driver and with the client when something falls through, fitting an urgent delivery onto a vehicle that is already full, arguing a charge and getting it accepted
The system does the mechanical steps, the ones that are always the same, where a person gets them wrong precisely because they are always the same
Why an office hour weighs more in this business
The margin on a run is what it is, you know it better than I do, and as tight as it is, every hour spent retyping data into a portal eats it far faster than in other businesses, not because that hour costs more, but because there is less left to take it back from
If you want an idea of what those steps cost you, there's a calculation to do with your own numbers, with no percentages I have no way of proving to you
Who writes it for you, and on what terms
I'm Antonio Fuccillo, my VAT number is 04650850243 and I work from Nove, in the province of Vicenza, I write the automations myself and I answer the messages myself, so there's no salesperson in between, you talk straight to the person who does the work
You show me a round, a short screen recording is fine, I look at whether it can be done and I tell you the monthly fee before we start, that figure stays in writing and you approve every addition, if you'd rather start with a question, message me on WhatsApp at 352 012 5997 or come through the contact page