This weekend we’ll be deploying a new version of Dump Truck Dispatcher. There may be a few periods where the application won’t be available for a few minutes.
Since we plan to deploy outside of normal business hours, you may not experience any unavailability.
This release is mainly focused on upgrading the frameworks to the latest versions provided by Microsoft for performance and security improvement.
We removed the ability to set custom colors because this was causing some conflicts with the default styles.
Several new components were added to the dashboard. With this addition, you’ll see the status of your trucks, licenses, and driver DOT requirements.
We also added a component to show your revenue per truck. This component takes into account the actual number of active trucks you had on each day.
The revenue graph and other calculations in the system were updated to take into account overridden totals.
Our next major release will include fuel surcharge logic. I’m looking for some feedback on the approach we are thinking of taking.
The current plan is to allow you to set a system-wide default for:
• Whether or not we should show fuel surcharge related information
• Base Fuel Cost
• Fuel change increment
• % increase
You will also be able to set these values on a customer basis in the event you have to have a different calculation for a customer.
You will be able to specify the “Base Fuel Cost” on every quote. The value on the quote will default to the systemwide setting for the “Base Fuel Cost”.
When you create an invoice, we’ll ask for the fuel cost you want to use for the invoice period. On calculating the fuel cost, we’ll use (Current Fuel Cost – Base Fuel Cost)*(% Increase)/(Fuel Change Increment). If we have the
following values:
• Base Fuel Cost = $4.00
• Current fuel cost = $6.00
• Fuel change increment = $.10
• % increase = 1%
This works out to an increase of ($6 - $4)*1%/.1 = 20%
When we calculate the fuel surcharge, we’ll multiply what we calculated for the % by the freight revenue.
The fuel surcharge will not be included in the calculation of driver pay.
Now we get to the part where we need some help.
When we add the fuel surcharge to the invoice, should the fuel surcharge be included in the line item for the associated ticket, or should it be a separate line item that calculates the surcharge for the entire invoice as a single line item?
Should we show the fuel surcharge on the graph of “Revenue” shown on the dashboard?
Would you want the cost of fuel to come from https://www.eia.gov/ or would you want it based on your actual
fuel costs?
Instead of capturing the fuel surcharge in the invoice process, would it make more sense to add a control to the “Tickets by driver” screen based on the actual cost you paid for fuel on that day?
What do we do if the current fuel cost drops below the base fuel cost?
Is there anything else we need to consider related to fuel surcharge?
Please respond to this email with your thoughts. If you don’t respond, I’ll assume you are willing to settle for whatever we come up with.
