Fleetowner 4125 7 Truck Photoa
Fleetowner 4125 7 Truck Photoa
Fleetowner 4125 7 Truck Photoa
Fleetowner 4125 7 Truck Photoa
Fleetowner 4125 7 Truck Photoa

Orderly growth

May 13, 2014

Company: Good Excavating & Hauling LLC, Warsaw, IN

Operation: Small 48-state dry van, refrigerated and tank truckload carrier, as well as local dump and oversize load services
 

Problem:

As its name belies, Good Excavating and Hauling was founded by John and Denise Good in 1991 to offer excavating and other construction-related services in Northern Indiana.  When daughter Brenna Goshert joined the company in 2007, she convinced her parents to add a single over-the-road tractor to smooth out some of the seasonality of the business and bring in extra income.

Proving that good customer service wins no matter what the business, the Good’s truckload operation grew in both size and service offerings.  While the company still has a successful excavating operation, it now also has eight tractors, 12 trailers and a small number of leased operators hauling dry freight, refrigerated goods, animal feed and even tanker loads.  Operational staff also grew from the original three family members in 2007 to six full-time office employees.
Most of Good’s truckload business comes from a dozen regular customers, with new loads generated by word of mouth, according to Goshert.

“Transportation is a great business to be in and there is certainly work available for us to take on, especially in the Northern Indiana area,” she says.

Solution:

But with that growth, the fleet discovered that it had outgrown its paper-based accounting and dispatching system.    

Making sure records were accurate was requiring hours of manual labor, hours they couldn’t spare.

“We get really busy, so I knew that we needed a solution to help us keep our business organized but still growing,” says Goshert.  “We needed a solution that could keep us on top of all our numbers.  We need to know every penny of every dollar that comes in and out of our business.”

When Goshert heard that another local trucking operation—Tom Farms—was using a web-based subscription system called Prophesy OnDemand, she and her father investigated. 

After a phone and online demonstration, they signed on, believing they’d found a solution that could grow with them.  The live demonstration that followed quickly displayed the benefits the system could bring to the organization.

“We didn’t hesitate at all when it came time to subscribe,” she says.

One of the keys to successfully migrating to a digital management system was training.  The first session helped Goshert set up seamless integration with Intuit’s QuickBooks, automating billing, payroll and other accounting chores.  A second class, this one conducted remotely over the phone and Internet, showed her how to set up drivers and leased carriers in the new dispatch and management system.  Soon after that, the company added Prophesy’s IFTA fuel tax reporting module to automate that as well.

“Prophesy OnDemand has saved us an incredible amount of time in our day-to-day operations and Prophesy TaxTally has helped us get payroll done quickly, and correctly, every time,” says Goshert.
As for the future, excavating services will continue to remain part of the company’s business as well as its name, but Good also plans on adding at least one truck a year—growing slowly and steadily.

“The customers and the work are there,” says Goshert. “We’re a company that’s lucky enough to know how to manage operating costs while choosing jobs that make us the most successful.  We look forward to continuing this for years to come.”


 

About the Author

Jim Mele

Nationally recognized journalist, author and editor, Jim Mele joined Fleet Owner in 1986 with over a dozen years’ experience covering transportation as a newspaper reporter and magazine staff writer. Fleet Owner Magazine has won over 45 national editorial awards since his appointment as editor-in-chief in 1999.

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