Who told you, “Do it right the first time and you won’t have to do it again!” in your life? When it comes to creating rate cons, they were right. If you depend on rate con templates, you’re going to have to do it again. Who wants to do it twice?
Rate Con Templates on the Internet
We know they’re out there – rate con templates generated as you need them online. Some of them charge, some don’t. Some will let you customize them, some won’t. They print out as PDFs, which sound like a good idea, but it isn’t.
Why not?
3 reasons why online rate con templates are bad.
- Numbers
If you have Grammarly or some other proofreading software, it may catch typos for you. There/their/they’re and to/two/too – maybe it’s been a long time since high school, or English is your second language. A rate con is a legal document, and the last thing anyone wants is to look stupid – or get something wrong that will lead to problems in a delivery. But Grammarly doesn’t spellcheck your numbers. You could inadvertently move the decimal point and have a huge snafu over an invoice. Or mix up the weight – 15,000 lbs. is a lot different from 51,000 lbs.
Even if you get the numbers correct, you’re still prey to the most common typo – re-entering data. A rate con template will not transfer those numbers to your billing software. You’ll have to retype them – and there’s the problem. It’s way too easy to mix up numbers and not notice. That will delay your payment from the shipper and paying the trucker who took the load.
- PDFs are not searchable.
Say you’ve got a perfect rate con PDF. It’s just the way you want it. Now you’ve got another trucker to take a load. You remember some details, but not all. Can you find it again?
PDF files are not searchable except by title or date. You might end up spending hours on that search. At some point, it’s just easier to recreate it than keep looking. But I want to kick myself in the butt every time I end up looking for a PDF.
- Rate con templates online may not save your data
There’s a rate con template online (no, we’re not going to link to it) that you can use for free. But you have to re-enter all the terms and fine print every time you use it. Is this really “free” when you have to spend time doing the same work over and over again?
Then there’s the problem of billing. A PDF rate con created by a rate con template doesn’t link to an invoice. How can you track it? Has the trip been billed? Has the driver been paid? Is it tracking the load for you?
The best solution isn’t free, but it will save you money and headaches.
TruckingOffice Brokerage Software creates rate cons
Instead of using a template, use a system that will use and reuse your data without you entering it again (and maybe again.) Enter the load data one time. Enter the terms one time. Enter the trucker one time.
And TruckingOffice Brokerage does the rest. Track the load, store the necessary documents, and handle the billing and payments all in one program.
Complete Software Completes Your Business
Doesn’t it make sense that using a system that does it all for you without extra effort?
Using a complete brokerage software isn’t an optional expense. Trying to start a trucking brokerage company is hard – why make it harder by “making do” with a word processor or spreadsheet you’ve already got.
Brokerage programs don’t work on spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are an invaluable tool, but they’re not a great tool for brokerage. Cells are too limited. Searching is limited and linking to other spreadsheets for shippers and truckers gets complicated. And DO NOT add a new line to a spreadsheet if you have macros or formulas. The world may end. I’m not joking.
TruckingOffice Brokerage software avoids the entire linking problems you’ll have if you try to bootstrap your own system. Sure, you could use free Google Docs and Sheets – somehow – to create a working system. But why reinvent the wheel when you could be spending your time building customer relationships and finding reliable trucking companies to handle the loads?
Rate con templates don’t organize your brokerage business. They make it look organized the way a closet door hides a mess behind it.
Free Trial of TruckingOffice Brokerage
Make the right choice as you start out your truck freight brokerage business. Give TruckingOffice Brokerage a try for free! Our free one-month trial gives you access to the entire program – from customer to rate con to trucker to invoice – without the headaches of building a system that will take time and may not be able to grow as your brokerage succeeds.
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