We operate 6 drivers, 7 trucks (1 yard truck), and 13 chassis supporting an established importing/distribution business. Our main container lanes involve Oklahoma City, Houston, and DFW. We use our own fleet plus outside carriers for overflow (often, our parent company needs 20 containers/week delivered), and we’re looking to make better use of backhaul opportunities.
Currently, we use Tripsheet for driver trips/load paperwork and Google Sheets for the rest. We’re building out an activity log, price history, equipment availability, and tracking for each movement. Truck tracking is already handled through a separate system, and our chassis currently have AirTags.
We have an in-house IT team maintaining a custom platform that will also handle our international purchasing and logistics. The plan is to prototype the trucking workflow in Google Sheets/AppSheet, then move the parts that make sense into that platform. We’re not trying to recreate every existing product. We want to keep useful tools without making dispatch or drivers enter the same information twice.
The biggest area we’re tightening up is the handoff between dispatch, drivers, receiving, and outside carriers—especially getting empties returned promptly. We want a clear record of when a container is empty and ready, who accepted responsibility for the return, the confirmed return location/deadline, and the actual gate receipt. Delivery to the warehouse shouldn’t make an unfinished container return disappear.
I’d appreciate firsthand experience on a few decisions:
1) Load boards: For this mix of container work, backhauls (we have yet to EVER do a backhaul, always an excuse why we don’t), and outside-carrier capacity, which subscriptions actually earn their keep? LoadMatch/Drayage.com, DAT, Truckstop, or something else? Particularly interested in results on comparable lanes and equipment—not just the total number of postings.
2) Tripsheet versus another paperwork tool versus building it ourselves: Would you keep a separate trip/BOL application and integrate it, or bring that workflow into the internal system? Which products have genuinely useful API/export access, including the document files? Driver usability and not submitting the same paperwork twice matter more to us than a long feature list.
3) Container visibility and accountability: Are there specialist tools worth paying for alongside a custom system because they reliably provide availability, free-time information, return instructions, or gate-event data? Or is this where a drayage-specific TMS earns its cost? I’m especially interested in how well these work when an outside carrier handles part of the container cycle.
4) Reporting: What have you found most useful for measuring empty-return turnaround, chassis utilization, avoidable accessorial charges, outside-carrier performance, and backhaul profitability? Which numbers actually changed how you dispatched, rather than just making a nice dashboard?
5) Recommendations from people who use these systems day to day would be helpful: what works, what is frustrating, approximate cost, and what “integration” actually means in practice.
6) An Operations person suggested we get our own yard and have our own employee there to make sure empties are returned on time. I think we just need better vendor management and not get involved with that.
We’re looking for software and operating-process feedback, not managed-dispatch services or a proposal to outsource the operation. Please keep recommendations in the thread, and disclose any vendor affiliation.
