Hans Sørensen runs his business from the cab of his truck with CustomOffice

27 March 2023 | CustomOffice ApS

• IT and communications

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Hans Sørensen, a truck driver based in Outrup, Western Jutland, loves nothing more than driving his crane and completing jobs for his customers. Now, he runs his business's administrative functions from the cab of his truck and coffee table with four trucks and three employees.

CustomOffice minimizes the staff function in a smaller trucking company, allowing Hans Sørensen to spend more time doing what he loves most - profitable work for his customers.

Hans Sørensen handles most of it himself, with a few hours of help each week from his full-time, off-site working wife Karina Sørensen for billing and payroll.

It sounds simple, but when you add a customer portfolio of several hundred customers annually, administration of the company's core activity with 3,000 license plates - both own and rented through multiple leases - and more containers, the complexity increases. Expressed in up to fifty invoices per week, with the largest customer accounting for a quarter of the activity and the rest much smaller.

Can it be managed when the truck driver himself prefers to be the driver in the fourth truck and thus also provide billable services?

Yes, it can, says Hans Sørensen.

Without him and his wife having to spend many evenings and weekends on administration instead of enjoying life together with their two teenage daughters.

"A few years ago, I came across CustomOffice's digital administration, time tracking, and invoicing system, which is otherwise known mostly from machine stations," says Hans Sørensen.

"And then I contacted CustomOffice, and together we quickly adapted a system to my business. A business where I can keep driving one of the crane trucks myself and at the same time be the one who receives orders and can lead and allocate work during the day. That is, without hiring an expensive office worker to receive orders and plan the work of our four drivers."

Personal customer service

"Firstly, the order intake is now systematized according to the customers' terms. That is, the customer can call and tell me what they want. For example, when it comes to delivering and laying out license plates, I have a kind of framework in my head, so I can get information about location, quantity, time, contact for delivery or pickup, billing address, and so on with a few quick questions. My phone system records the call and what we agree to while I'm working with the crane or driving on the road.

"Later in the evening, or when I have a free moment, I can easily enter the task and assign it to the driver who is best suited to solve the task. Maybe I'll just enter it for now and wait to assign the vehicle and driver until we're closer to the task. It's very simple and fast and at the same time provides precise information to the driver assigned to the task. Time, address, GPS route there, number of license plates, and other information right on the employee's phone," explains Hans Sørensen.

While the task is being completed, the driver enters reading, start of driving, unloading, and completion when they finish the task. From there, the CustomOffice app collects all necessary data for both accurate invoicing to the customer and a payroll report for payroll.

Saves lots of time

Apart from providing daily oversight of where the trucks are and which tasks are in progress, CustomOffice also gives Hans Sørensen an overview of where the 3,000 license plates and a few containers are located, which ones are in use, and which ones are located in warehouses around the country.

"Especially with the license plates, we have never had them all in one place or had them here at home at the same time. The system gives me a fantastic overview, and I can print driving reports for each task. It's all digitized, but if there are a few customers who want it on paper, physical waybills or something else, it can always be done," says Hans Sørensen.

"This is really time-saving, and we can keep up without spending entire weekends catching up. Now, I'm on top of things, and invoicing doesn't pile up but is typically completed within a week after the end of a task."

As if they were small pieces of interlayer paper, driver Brian Dammark at Hans Sørensen Transport in Outrup lays ton-heavy license plates onto the loading platform. Layer by layer and two at a time. While this is happening, he has pressed "loading" on his CustomOffice app on his phone.

Maintaining conviviality

One might imagine that employees and customers feel reduced to mechanical and digital yes-men who just need to press an app and never talk to each other or the customers.

"That's not the case. You can hear when I take an order on the phone, and it can happen as it always has with a living person on the other end of the line. Now, we're in West Jutland, and my customers have to get used to my Zealand accent," says Hans Sørensen, who moved from his hometown of Sengeløse on Zealand to Outrup in West Jutland in 2007 and employed his first driver in the business in 2015.

"My employees are really happy not to have to jot things down in their wallets and fill out daily sheets. For them, it has also become much easier and more precise."

Practical arrangements

A good example is this morning when two trucks with drivers Brian Dammark and Lasse Ulriksen are laying out license plates for a solar project near Hemmet.

"When I look at the system, it should really be Lasse who drives out with the first load, but I can see they've switched it around, so it's Brian who is now loading plates here at home."

"That's an example where they know much better than I do and can agree between themselves. CustomOffice can easily handle this, and both the management of the license plate inventory, invoicing, and payroll reports are generated correctly. There must also be room for professionalism and creativity in the task solutions, and that's where it is emphasized," says Hans Sørensen.