General information for carriers. This article is not legal, tax, accounting, or regulatory advice.
You do not need a finance department to know if the week worked. Track loaded miles, empty miles, gross pay, and what has actually been collected. Do it the same day each week, before the next week’s freight is already accepted out of habit. Four numbers will not explain everything. They will stop you from arguing with a feeling. A week can feel busy and still be thin. A week can feel slow and still be the one that funded the truck payment. The review is how you tell those apart without waiting for a quarterly surprise.
Gross per mile on loaded miles will flatter you. It ignores the deadhead you drove to make the loaded miles possible. Gross per all miles, including the empty ones, is closer to the truth of what the truck earned while it was burning fuel and hours. If that number is sliding, the lanes or the negotiation need a look, even if every individual load “paid fine.” Write the empty miles next to the reason: reposition for a better market, a failed pickup, a personal choice, a bad plan. The reason matters because you can change a plan. You cannot change last Thursday.
Then look at cash, not just bookings. A week can look strong on paper and still be tight if last month’s invoices are open. Booked revenue and collected revenue are different businesses. List what was billed, what landed, and what is still aging past the terms you thought you had. If the same broker is always the open item, that is not a paperwork quirk. That is a customer. Decide whether the rate they pay is worth the wait, and whether your follow-up is actually happening on a cadence or only when the account feels short.
Use the review to price the week you are about to run, not to scold the week you already ran. If empty miles were high because every load was chosen for the outbound rate alone, the next week needs a return planned before the first yes. If dwell ate a day, the next week avoids that facility or prices the wait. If the collected column is the weak one, the next week’s work is the open invoices, not another load that will sit in the same pile. A review that does not change a decision is a diary. Make it change one decision.
Keep the record dumb on purpose. A notes app, a single page, or a simple sheet is enough. Columns for the date, the load number, loaded miles, empty miles, the rate, accessorials you expect, and whether the invoice is paid. Fancy tools fail when the person who understands them is also the person driving. The review should take less than half an hour. If it takes longer, you are collecting trivia. The point is the pattern: which lanes pay after the return, which brokers pay on time, which facilities steal the day.
Bring those four numbers to anyone who helps you dispatch, including a back office. The conversation gets specific. “We deadheaded 18 percent and two invoices from the same broker are past 30 days” is a plan. “It was a weird week” is not. Do the review when you are not tired enough to lie to yourself, and do it even on the good weeks so the baseline is real. Over a month, the page will tell you what to chase and what to stop accepting. The habit matters more than the spreadsheet. The truck will tell you the same story later, in the account balance, if you skip it.