Do you figure your time into your IFTA calculations?
If your IFTA filing takes you off the road, you’re losing time. That means you’re losing income. It’s not like when we get paid a detention fee when we’re stuck in the shipping yard. It’s pure loss.
What Is the IFTA?
What is the International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA)? And why do you need an easy way to submit accurate quarterly reports? To answer the first question, the IFTA is a simplified method for collecting and distributing fuel use taxes. Commercial motor carriers need an IFTA license and decal to operate among jurisdictions. The jurisdictions include 48 contiguous US states and 10 Canadian provinces.
Drivers with qualified motor vehicles must register with the IFTA. The license and decals issued for each vehicle must be renewed every year to avoid fines or penalties.
Fuel tax rates vary by jurisdiction and are subject to many regulations. Also, you must submit quarterly reports and pay your IFTA tax on time if you want to continue working as a motor carrier. The fines and interest rates on delinquent taxes can be significant. Delinquency can also jeopardize your ability to renew your decals. These are all good reasons why you need an easy way to stay on top of IFTA reporting.
Are you a procrastinator? If so, you’re likely to forget IFTA due dates. Or, you’ll wait until the last minute to do the reports. But, you can get your reporting done with complete accuracy and on time with TruckingOffice’s TMS.
How much time do your IFTA calculations take?
At this point, we’ve been in the 21st century a long time. You wouldn’t think that people are computing their IFTA tax filing by hand. But many are doing that – even if they’re using an IFTA software.
You’re functionally doing your IFTA calculations by hand on scenarios where:
- You’re using a stand-alone IFTA program
- You are relying on an accountant or bookkeeper
- You’re using a series of spreadsheets that you’ve cobbled together
Why do we say this? Because each of these systems requires you to enter data into a system. Or worse, you’re paying someone to do it for you.
So how much time are you giving away for free to compute your IFTA calculations?
QuickBooks doesn’t do your IFTA calculations
Accountants and bookkeepers want your data in their preferred format. And that’s QuickBooks.
Don’t get us wrong – QuickBooks is a great accounting program. It does everything a CPA or a bookkeeper would ever want for the usual business.
Trucking isn’t the usual business
Ok, because of how the government sticks its fingers into business and industry today, there’s hardly a business that doesn’t have a specific report that it has to provide. Trucking is at the top of the heap for unusual tax forms that we have to fill out and IFTA is at the top of that list.
We have IFTA. That’s only one of the government intrusions we deal with. Because it’s only our problem to deal with, QuickBooks* isn’t going to come up with a solution.
So you need something that’s going to handle all those IFTA calculations:
- miles per state
- state/jurisdiction tax rates
- fuel purchases already made in which states.
If truckers aren’t thinking about how much time it takes to do all this work, they’re in one of two groups:
- They don’t think about the income they’re losing because they’re off the road and they don’t worry about doing it wrong (and getting slapped with fines and penalties.)
OR
2. They already use TruckingOffice trucking management software solutions.
IFTA Calculations Solutions
When you use a trucking office program that manages all the parts of your trucking business, you don’t just have a software, you have a solution. You have a solution to
- IFTA
- IRP.
You have a solution for dispatching and routing that puts the numbers into a system. So when it’s time to do those IFTA calculations, you don’t have to waste your time by reentering data (and maybe screwing it up by entering them wrong.)
The miles per state? You let PC*Miler compute them. The tax rates per state? You let TruckingOffice update them for you.
The time you need to spend doing your IFTA calculations? You don’t have to spend time – it’s a push of a button on our dashboard and it’s done.
How much time does it take to handle your IFTA with TruckingOffice?
About 45 seconds.
Even better, you can do it in your cab, while you’re waiting for the crew to load your trailer. You don’t need a calculator. All you need is wifi or data on your phone and your IFTA report will be done in seconds. So instead of being out of a day’s pay, you’re on the road and making more money.
Don’t wait on your IFTA calculations any more than you’d wait for a cup of coffee at a truck stop. Your trucking office can be with you every day – at home or on the road.
Want to see how easy it is?
We’ll give you a free trial of TruckingOffice trucking management solution right now. You can enter all of your trips from the past quarter and discover how good it feels to get that IFTA filing done right away, with confidence that it’s done right the first time.
*We don’t want you to think we don’t like QuickBooks. We do have a way to transfer your data from TruckingOffice to QuickBooks to make your accountant happy.
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