When a Trucking Dispatch Spreadsheet Stops Working

Why carriers start on a spreadsheet

Almost every small carrier dispatches from a spreadsheet at some point, usually Google Sheets or Excel with one row per load and columns for the customer, pickup, delivery, driver and rate. It is free, everyone already knows how to use it, and it can be shaped to fit the way your office works.

For a few trucks and a single dispatcher, that is often the right tool. The trouble starts quietly, as the fleet grows and more people touch the sheet.

Seven signs the spreadsheet has run out of road

1. Tenders are retyped. Someone copies each broker email into the sheet, and a typo in a PO number turns into a short-paid invoice weeks later.
2. A load has more than two stops. Multi-stop trips do not fit one row, so the sheet grows hidden columns, colour codes and notes that only one person understands.
3. Two people edit at once. A driver gets double-booked because the change someone made five minutes ago was not on the other screen.
4. Stop times live somewhere else. Arrival and departure times are in text messages and call logs, so nobody can say how long the truck waited.
5. Detention gets billed late or not at all. By the time billing sees the load, the free-time terms, the times and the notice are in three places. See why most detention goes unpaid.
6. PODs are chased through text threads. The invoice waits because the signed delivery receipt is on a driver’s phone.
7. The sheet depends on one person. When the dispatcher who built it is sick or on holiday, the office slows down.

If you stay on a spreadsheet, set it up well

Plenty of carriers keep a sheet for another year, and that is fine. A few rules make it far more reliable:

• One row per stop, not per load, with the load number repeated, so multi-stop trips fit.
• Separate columns for scheduled time, arrival time and departure time at each stop.
• A column for the free time and detention rate from the rate confirmation.
• Data validation on driver and customer names, so “ABC Logistics” and “ABC Logistic” do not become two customers.
• Edit history turned on (Google Sheets keeps it by default), and one person who owns the layout.

Moving off the spreadsheet without stopping the trucks

The risk in switching is a bad week where loads fall between two systems. Three things keep it small:

• Import what you already have. Customers and drivers can usually come across from a CSV export of the sheet in one sitting.
• Start with new loads only. Let loads already in progress finish in the sheet, and put every new tender into the new system from a set day.
• Run side by side for a few weeks. A trial that runs beside the sheet on real freight shows whether the software saves time before you commit.

For what to look for in the replacement, see trucking dispatch software for small Canadian companies and TMS for small trucking companies.