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Content Process Automation: The Key to Unlocking Efficiency in the Trucking Industry

  • Category: Blog
  • content and process automation
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From the moment a load is picked up to the final mile of delivery, trucking companies are inundated with documents. Bills of lading, driver logs, maintenance records, and compliance paperwork can quickly pile up, creating a mountain of administrative work.

What if there was a way to eliminate the burden? What if you could harness the power of technology to streamline your document management, automate the most tedious tasks, and keep your operations running smoothly around the clock?

Enter content process automation—an innovative solution transforming how trucking companies handle their paperwork.

By digitizing documents, automating workflows, and providing real-time visibility, content process automation solutions like DocStar are helping trucking companies pave the way to greater efficiency and profitability.

Trucking Companies Face an Uphill Battle

The trucking industry is fiercely competitive, with razor-thin margins. In a business where every mile counts, companies are constantly looking for ways to optimize operations and improve their bottom line.

One area that often gets overlooked in this quest for efficiency is document management. Yet, the impact of misplaced bills of lading, manual invoice processing, and cumbersome filing can be significant. These inefficiencies lead to delayed shipments, lost revenue, and frustrated employees.

The High Cost of Paper Trails

Let’s take a closer look at some of the specific document-related pain points trucking companies face:

  •  Bills of Lading: When a bill of lading goes missing, it can bring a shipment to a standstill. Locating documents while drivers wait around idle wastes time, leading to delayed deliveries and unhappy customers.
  • Invoice Matching: Accounting departments often struggle to match invoices with the correct loads, leading to delayed payments and strained relationships with shippers and carriers.
  • Driver Logs: Maintaining accurate driver logs is critical for complying with hours-of-service regulations. However, collecting, filing, and auditing these logs can be time-consuming and prone to errors.
  • Maintenance Records: Keeping track of maintenance records for an entire fleet is no easy task. When these records are misplaced, it can lead to breakdowns and costly repairs.
  • Auditing: When it’s time for an audit, the scramble begins to locate all the necessary documents. The ensuing search diverts resources from more productive tasks and can put your compliance at risk.

DocStar: Your Fast Lane to Streamlined Trucking Operations

DocStar is a content process automation solution designed to transform document management and workflow for trucking companies.

By offering a smart, unified repository for all your documents, DocStar facilitates seamless collaboration and automation throughout your operation. Here’s how DocStar tackles the common challenges faced by the trucking industry:

  1. Centralized Document Portal: DocStar offers a secure, dedicated portal where all stakeholders—dispatchers, drivers, accounting staff, and auditors—can easily access the required documents, whenever and wherever they need them. Stringent security measures and access controls ensure that users can only view documents relevant to their roles.
  2. Swift Document Access: With DocStar, your documents are centralized, making retrieval quick and easy. Rather than wasting time searching for misplaced bills of lading or driver logs, you can access them with just a few clicks from your web browser on any device.
  3. Intelligent Automated Filing: Leveraging the power of people-centric AI and machine learning, DocStar recognizes various document types, extracts crucial data, and automatically routes them into process automation workflows. DocStar automates filing, minimizes manual data entry, and ensures precision from bills of lading and invoices to maintenance records and compliance documents.
  4.  Versatile Data Capture: DocStar offers multiple methods to input documents into the system, including automatic data extraction from network-based scanners, shared folders, and email attachments. Using intelligent data capture (IDC) and optical character recognition (OCR) technology, it captures essential information like load numbers, driver names, vehicle details, and more.
  5. Automated Daily Reporting: DocStar can automate and deliver reports to your inbox daily. Fleet managers and dispatchers can receive evening email summaries detailing the day’s activities—the number of bills of lading processed, loads delivered, and those still in transit.
  6. Effortless Integration: DocStar seamlessly integrates with your transportation management system (TMS) and other back-office software through APIs, automatically gathering field information. This streamlines your workflows and eliminates switching between multiple portals.

 

People-Centric AI: Empowering Your Team

DocStar is powered by people-centric AI, a technology that enhances the capabilities of your staff. Intelligent algorithms automatically recognize, classify, and extract data from your trucking documents, from bills of lading to driver logs. This data is then fed into automated workflows, streamlining your processes.

This is crucial: The goal of people-centric AI is not to replace your team—but to empower them. By automating routine tasks, DocStar allows your staff to focus on complex, customer-focused work that requires personality and human judgment.

The Benefits of Better Document Management

Implementing a content process automation solution like DocStar can bring a wealth of benefits to your trucking operation:

  1. Effortless Regulatory Compliance: By centralizing your critical documents, such as driver logs and maintenance records, you can always comply with DOT (Department of Transportation) regulations set by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and avoid costly penalties.
  2. Painless Audits: DocStar takes the stress out of audits. Instead of searching for physical documents, you can quickly compile all the necessary files into a dedicated portal. Auditors can then securely access everything they need digitally, reducing audit time from days to minutes.
  3. Accelerated Billing and Payments: Having all your load-related documents readily available allows you to bill your customers faster and more accurately. No more delays due to misplaced bills of lading or proof of delivery documents.
  4. Boosted Efficiency and Profitability: DocStar automates many repetitive tasks, allowing your team to focus on more strategic, revenue-generating activities. This boosts overall productivity and, ultimately, profitability. One of our customers, Coast Counties Peterbilt (more on them later), reduced its data entry workload by 90% after implementing DocStar.
  5. Elevated Customer Service: DocStar allows you to easily include customer-specific information in your daily reports, helping to personalize your service and build stronger client relationships.
  6. User-Friendly Interface: One of DocStar’s standout features is its simple, easy-to-use interface. New employees can be trained to use it with minimal hassle, keeping your onboarding processes swift.
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Real-World Results: Coast Counties Peterbilt's DocStar Journey

One trucking company that has seen massive benefits from implementing DocStar is Coast Counties Peterbilt.

Before DocStar, their AP department was drowning in paper, manually processing over 2,500 invoices per month across seven locations.

The results of implementing DocStar speak for themselves. Coast Counties Peterbilt saw a 193% ROI, processed 75% more invoices with the same staff, and could reduce their AP team from five and a half to three. They’ve also seen an 80% reduction in paper usage and a 90% reduction in filing and retrieval time.


“Our administrative staff is no longer chasing invoices,” notes Mike Sorensen, General Manager at Coast Counties Peterbilt. “Now, they are supporting leadership in more meaningful ways which translates to both higher value to the company and a clearer growth path for employees.”

Read the Full Story >

Is DocStar Right for Your Trucking Company?

If you’re tired of the daily document deluge and ready to take control of your paperwork and streamline your operations, DocStar might just be the solution you’ve been looking for.

With its robust automation capabilities, user-friendly interface, and nearly two decades of proven success, DocStar is helping trucking companies across the nation focus on what matters most—keeping those wheels turning, delivering essential goods, and keeping our country moving forward.

The road to success starts here. Contact us today to schedule a demo with one of our trucking industry experts.

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