Problems of
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THE HAULIER AND CARRIER
The Fourth and Last Book of the Series which " S.T.R." Recommends to Those Hauliers who have Not been Keeping Proper Accounts
NOW I reach the last chapter of this short series. i must deal with the fourth of the set of books which I have recommended to hauliers. The first one was for keeping records of operating costs, the second for notes of maintenance expenditure, the third for establishment costs, and the fourth, with which I am now going to deal, is for records of work done and money reeeived, or due to be received, on account of that work.
The details of this book will naturally be affected somewhat by the type of business in which the reader s engaged. The entering up of the work of a general carrier will, for example, be different from that of a haulier whose main interest is the cartage of building and road-making materials. The man whose main interest lies in Covent Garden, or, because there are places other than London, in the conveyance of garden and farm produce, will want something a little different from one who is chiefly concerned in long-distance haulage. Most of these differences, however, will make themselves evident in regard to the drivers' records of the work they do, and, besides outlining a specimen page of the book itself, I am describing in this article a couple of these forms for the receipt of notes of the drivers' work.
So far as the book itself is concerned, the first essential, following the principles that I have already established as necessary to the attainment of the end in view, is that the entries should be comparable with those of the other books, so that comparison of costs and revenue may be made and an accurate idea of the profits which are being made, or which are not being made, be acquired.
Perhaps I should repeat, for the benefit of those who have not read all these articles, that the principal object I have in view is to devise a scheme of bookkeeping whereby a haulage contractor can tell at a glance, at any time, what he is spending every week. In this, the book of revenues, he should also be able to tell, just as easily, what he is earning so that he can compare notes and know, at any time, how he stands financially, and how he is progressing, if at all.
To that end, each page of this book must be set apart for one week and should be divided up into days, like that in which the operating costs of the vehicles are entered. The idea is shown in Fig. VI, which is almost F..elf-exi3lanatory. Space is provided, it will be noted, for the entry of particulars of the work done, for the price to be received for it and for the mileage registered against the job. It is important that the mileage should be entered correctly, because the record thus obtained is useful for showing how much dead mileage is being run. Many hauliers fail entirely to realize how much of their possible profit is eaten up because of idle running. It is almost as important u46 that they should realize this as it is that they should become properly acquainted with their actual costs.
At the foot of the page provision is made for entering up this dead mileage as well as for a weekly analysis of the progress to date. Here again the object I have is still the same, namely, that of keeping the haulier regularlyinformed of his position, so that he cannot run for long with the idea that he is making a profit whereas he is actually operating at a loss. In Fig. VII a sample page is completed. To avoid making this series too complicated I have selected two examples of driver's report sheet. They apply to the two principal classes of work in which hauliers are engaged, and are typical of what is required for the purpose.
The first of these, Fig. VIII, is the one which is adaptable to the use of the haulier whose vehicles are hired out completely on day-to-day contracts. It serves a double purpose, being suitable for the entry of orders as well as for use by the driver to enter.details of the work done. For entering the order the space down in the right-hand lower corner of the form is provided. The clerk in the office will enter that up, putting also the name of the hirer, the address to pick up the load, the type of vehicle and the time that it is needed. That leaves only the data down the right-hand column to be entered by the driver and, possibly, the centre portion, in which appears a description of the work to be done or the work which has been accomplished by him. There is a space for the hirer to sign his acceptance of the work as satisfactory and for the amount due or paid as the case may be.
This is actually a copy of a form sent to me by a hanlier. His difficulty was that the form, as it stood, needed .either transference to a ledger or pasting down in a book, so that his records could be kept intact. I
see no way of avoiding something of the kind, unless, as I .advised him, a loose-leaf book be kept and these order forms be placed in their proper order in drat book. That, I think, is the best plan.
The other form, Fig. IX, is the sort of sheet which should be used by a haulier whose principal business is the collection and delivery of miscellaneous parcels. There is one of these forms, or tickets, required for each delivery.
When making entries in the book the essential information from the driver's report should be transferred, including the order number, which is always useful for purposes of reference. That is comparatively easy in the case of the first form, whereon the entry will be simple and straightforward. With the second one, however, there may be so many small details as to make this rather a trouble, and in that case the best plan would be to make a note of only the order numbers. In a business of the kind which makes the second type of way bill necessary there will be no point in entering the mileage, which may have no connection with the amount of work done or of deliveries effected. The only statement of mileage necessary will already have been made in the first book, as
part of the record of operating costs. S.T.R.