What is ExTranSol?

If you're in the transport industry, (first off... I'm sorry... I truly am) then you know all the challenges that you face on a daily basis. I'm not going to sit here and list them all, some can be more challenging than others, and its not about who has the biggest one, we all have them. What I want to do with ExTranSol, is try and make one portion of those challenges completely disappear!

Let me talk to you about a world in the not so distant past... where computers were hailed as the savior of the planet. We'll be able to reduce paper usage to virtually nothing they said, it'll be fun! they said. Well... that was over 30 years ago and we still have systems that rely on a driver collecting a hand written signature on a piece of paper for their proof of delivery. How many "jonno"'s have received a delivery? Or how many of these bad boys -> have you seen, and still wondering who it belongs to?

ExTranSol is truly paperless. No. Sorry, thats a lie, ExTranSol can't get rid of consignors wanting you to carry around their paperwork, but for your own systems, it is truly paperless.

How does it work?

I love answering my own questions, it means I already have the answers. It works online. It also works offline, under very specific circumstances, but its cloud based technology that you can use on a computer, a tablet, a smart phone, and I think if you're really adventurous it could work on certain smart watches.

The workflow is controlled by an Admin Dashboard, where you enter bookings, on the computer, from emails, or phone calls. (Please tell me you're not still receiving faxes? I didn't take that into account when I said it was paperless). You allocate those bookings to drivers, who access their scheduled jobs on their smart devices, tablets or phones, with all the information they need to complete the job. They go from A to B, hopefully the consignor and the consignee don't want any paperwork transported, and they receive the proof of delivery on the device. Sign-on-glass is the terminology for electronic collection of signatures and they are every bit as valid as the old scribble on a peice of paper. I'm a stickler for the black and white of the matter, and I've got a link to the ETA - the Electronic Transactions Act 1999 which dicusses the legitimacy of electronic signatures in Part 2 - Division 2.10.

After we collect the POD, electronically, the driver can choose to take photo's and upload them, along with any photo's of documentation required. This is instantaneously received (unless they are offline) and can be either held in the database for processing, or sent directly to the customer. Then the driver checks his/her schedule and off they go to their next paperless transaction, I mean delivery.

Whats Next?

You're probably thinking to yourself, "Thats amazing, how on earth have I ever lived without this system, oh my gosh that's brilliant" etc etc. But WAIT! there's more...

The base product will allow you to book jobs, complete jobs, and issue to customers, but it will also allow for importing those jobs into your accounting software of choice so there's no waiting on paperwork, there's no double handling of information and most importantly there's no paperwork! "There's no paperwork!?" I hear you say; "but how do I know what to invoice?" How do you know what you're not currently invoicing?

Benefit 1: No job will go unpaid.

I meant to put paperless as the first benefit but we'll get to that. The way the system is designed, every electronic consignment that has time spent on it, has to be invoiced, unless you explicitly tell it to not be invoice, which would be effectively cancelling the job. Without a check and balance, it would be extremly difficult and usually arduous to ensure ever consignment is received and every job is accounted for. I say, let the computer do what the computer is great for: keeping track of vast amounts of information. Your system, will hold all the details, it will reproduce any detail you want, on demand, instantaneously. You just need to tell it to produce a list of jobs for invoicing and then add it into your accounting software and you know with 100% confidence that you're invoicing for everything you want to invoice for.

Benefit 2: Its fast. Like, so much faster.

If you're currently manually entering in data to complete your invoices, I can guarantee that I can have my entire weeks worth of invoices ready to email to my customers before you've even finished entering in your first. We took a job that used to take 8+ hours for a customer base of 20-30 customers in the week, and turned it into minutes.And thats just the invoicing side of it. Do me a favour, put a cost on how many hours it currently takes to complete the invoicing tasks for the week. Now put a cost on it being minutes. Do you have overdues that need chasing up but never have time? I just found you some time!

Benefit 3: Did I mention PAPERLESS??

I'm going to try and keep this part short. You don't have to print anything out. You don't have to try and get paperwork to your drivers. You don't have to try and get paperwork back from your drivers. You don't have to worry about the state of the paperwork, everyone has that one guy that uses paperwork for a bib while eating ribs, amiright?? You don't have to process any paperwork. You don't have to transfer information from paperwork into your system. You don't have to file your own* paperwork. *You may have to file cosignor and consignee paperwork. You don't have to worry about someone elses handwriting. You don't have to worry about losing paperwork in Jims cupoboard because it should be in Tony's cupboard but Jan needed to scan it in and email it to John. Everyone has instant access to all of the same information and it is reproducible so it can never be lost. I will say this though, you can tamper with the consignments, but everyone can see the records of who did what so, why even bother? Look, there's going to be more instances of why paperless is amazing, but I'll leave it there for now.

Benefit 4: Unrivalled access to information.

Do you have customers wanting to know what that place was where you took the thing that time? I've got a great memory for these things, which meant I was an exceptional operations manager *Toot Toot*, but even I struggled at times to recall an address or a contact etc. Until I built out system. Customer A calls up, I want another delivery to that place you want to last month. Me: typing into the system search for customers name to get a list of deliveries "Sure Mr Customer, that was the one to Blahsville right? on the Umpteenth of Month." Perfection. The system just works. You can search by almost any detail you can think of, addresses, contact names, consignment details, purchase orders, reference numbers and the list goes on.

Benefit 5: You can take it anywhere.

This is kind of similar to the fourth benefit, in that you have access to that information wherever you go. You can go for an early mark and a sneaky 9 holes down at the local course and still manage your bookings, allocations, and consignments. Everything that you had access to in the office, is with you on the golf course *ahem* I mean in the business meeting. It sounds simple, me saying it in my head, but just being down in the depot away from your computer, and say your computer is like too many steps away, or up a flight of stairs, you don't have to run, you can simply start whatever you want to do on your phone, take your time back to the office, and complete the task there. The downside of that is, even if you can get a holiday, and you're on a cruise ship heading to Vanuatu, you can technically still be working. I'm sorry :(.

Benefit 6: Insert your own list here.

By now you've got a pretty good idea of whats going on and I'm sure you've already imagined a whole world of scenarios where having an electronic system would benefit your work practices and improve your workflow, and reduce your operating costs and increase your productivity.

How do I get me one of those?

Contact me. Send me an email, give me a phone call, let me know you'd like to be paperless and we'll work out a soluton that suits.

I've developed electronic timesheets, so you can process pays with all the above mentioned benefits at work for payroll. I've developed the customer management portal for customers to log in and make their own bookings. You can get a maintenance and COR module that tracks maintenance issues, the drivers can register pre-start checks and have access to accident reports.

The options for add ons are there, we just need to work out what you want, what you need, and how to make that fit in with your current business goals.