Best 4 Trucking Accounting Software Programs

The best accounting software for trucking businesses should make it easy to manage loads, dispatches, orders, and expenses. It must also provide the ability to run detailed reports for billing customers, paying drivers, and filing International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA) reports. You should even be able to keep accurate and detailed information on mileage and trips through the platform―whether you’re an owner-operator or are running a small trucking business. Here are the four best trucking accounting software:

• QuickBooks Online with TruckingOffice integration: Best overall trucking and accounting software combined (4.63 out of 5)
• Tailwind TMS: Best invoicing and bill payment software with comprehensive trucking management features (3.46 out of 5)
• Rigbooks: Most affordable trucking management software for tracking revenue and expenses for loads (3.08 out of 5)
• Q7: Best standalone double-entry bookkeeping system with trucking features (no rating)

Comparison of Best Trucking Accounting Software

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QuickBooks Online With Trucking Office: Best Overall Trucking Management & Accounting Solution Combined

While QuickBooks Online isn’t a specialized trucking accounting application, it has powerful accounting features for trucking businesses, like income and expense tracking, bank reconciliation, and invoicing, making it our best small business accounting software. It also has an outstanding mobile app that can be used to send invoices and scan receipts while on the road.

QuickBooks has no trucking-specific features, but when you add on TruckingOffice, it becomes a powerful trucking management system (TMS) and accounting software combined. TruckingOffice is cloud-based trucking management and accounting software that helps truckers accomplish various tasks such as dispatching, invoicing, expense tracking, and fleet maintenance.

Combined Standout Features

• Income and expense tracking: If you only need basic tracking of your trucking business’ income and expenses, then QuickBooks alone should be enough. However, if you want to generate truck-specific reports like scales, tolls, and maintenance, you can connect it with TruckingOffice for even deeper income and expense tracking.
• Bank reconciliation: Unlike the other trucking accounting software on the list, QuickBooks Online allows you to connect your banks and reconcile your bank accounts.
• Payroll: Integrate with QuickBooks Payroll to pay drivers and contractors, track workloads across multiple worksites, and monitor contractor payments.
• Accounting: TruckingOffice can create and send invoices to customers, pay and track bills, and charge customers based on a variety of fees, including flat, per mile, per ton, or per weight. However, we recommend integrating it with QuickBooks Online to track assets and liabilities and produce a wide range of business reports.
• Dispatching: You can use TruckingOffice to create and assign trips, including the driver, accessory driver, and truck. Pro users also have the option to track less than truckload (LTL) hauls.
• Fleet maintenance: TruckingOffice allows you to set up a maintenance plan by mileage or calendar and track the work done on each truck.
• IFTA tax report: TruckingOffice generates IFTA reports for tax filing. You can select which trucks to include, and the report breaks the miles and gallons down by state.

Expert Opinion

If you’re a fleet manager or an owner-operator, we recommend integrating QuickBooks Online with TruckingOffice to activate truck-specific accounting features like load tracking, dispatching, fuel mileage tracking, and fleet maintenance. TruckingOffice offers an extensive range of trucking-specific features for trucking companies, freight brokers, and carriers. We particularly recommend it for trucking companies with more than a few trucks. The Pro plan, in particular, accommodates more than eight trucks, which is significantly more affordable than other similar software.

Tailwind TMS: Best Invoicing & Billing Software With Comprehensive Trucking Management Features

On top of its accounting features, Tailwind TMS offers robust trucking management functionalities, such as the ability to manage customers, track carrier details, and generate orders for customers. While it’s not a complete bookkeeping solution, it’s great for invoicing and bill payment. It has comprehensive accounts payable (A/P) and accounts receivable (A/R) features that let you track bills and payments from different personnel involved in your operations, such as vendors, employees, carriers, and customers.

Standout Features

• Carrier management: Tailwind TMS helps you easily manage and track dispatch details, such as the number of loads available and dispatched shipments.
• Order management: This feature lets you create orders for customers, set up basic freight charges or fuel surcharges, and track commission sales, carrier partner pay, and company driver pay by the mile or by the hour.
• Self-service portals: Included in the Enterprise and Unlimited plans, you can set up a self-service portal for your customers and carriers. The Customer portal gives your customers access to information about their accounts, shipments, and invoices.
• Dispatch and shipment tracking management: Track and manage shipper and shipment details easily, such as appointment times and pick-up and delivery windows.

Expert Opinion

Tailwind TMS offers a huge array of tools to help you manage your freight brokerage company. There isn’t a bank reconciliation feature to ensure that your bank account balances are accurate, but it syncs with QuickBooks Online Plus, which we recommend highly.

You might consider upgrading to the Enterprise plan to offer customer and carrier self-service portals. Customers can log in to view their account information, shipments, and invoices, whereas carriers can access available loads, shipments you have dispatched with them, and amounts you owe them.

Rigbooks: Most Affordable Trucking Management Software for Tracking Revenue & Expenses for Loads

Rigbooks is a cloud-based trucking management system ideal for trucking businesses with up to five trucks, and it lets you track business expenses, fuel mileage, trips, and orders. It’s an affordable option for small trucking companies needing to track cost per mile and understand which of their loads are the most profitable.

Standout Features

• Expense tracking: Rigbooks tracks fixed and variable costs. You can add loads and trips and attach revenue and expenses to better understand the profitability of your loads.
• Order tracking: You can monitor loads based on status, and each status has a separate tab for easy tracking.
• Invoicing: Rigbooks lets you create an invoice from existing trip records, including instant billing, partial payments, and private notes.
• Fuel purchase recording: Record your fuel purchases for each truck to help you track oil and gasoline costs and keep detailed records of truck mileage for tax reimbursement.

Expert Opinion

If you’re hauling different types of loads and want to understand which of them are the most profitable, Rigbooks is the most affordable option. For as low as $19 per month, you can track cost per mile, profit per mile, and average miles traveled per trip to stay on top of your revenue and expenses. It even pulls in your mileage automatically, whether it’s from your electronic logging device (ELD), IFTA mileage records, or trip and load records.

Q7: Best Standalone Bookkeeping Software With Trucking-specific Features

Q7 is a trucking management system that combines fleet management, dispatch operations, and accounting features in a single platform. Even without integration with online accounting software, you can perform bookkeeping tasks, such as paying bills, sending invoices, and reconciling bank accounts.

Standout Features

• A/P: Q7 allows you to pay vendor bills, create purchase orders, track vendor invoices, and set up recurring expenses, such as loan payments.
• A/R: You can create, send, and track customer invoices and payments. Invoices are tied to a dispatch to ensure that loads are only invoiced when complete.
• Banking: You can write and void checks, create deposits and transfer funds, and reconcile bank accounts.
• Financial scoreboard: The Financial Scoreboard provides a complete view of your financial data, and you can create a customized report based on your needs.

Expert Opinion

Q7 is a full double-entry accounting system that will work best when there’s someone dedicated to utilizing the software’s extensive features. In addition to standard accounting features like A/R, A/P, bank reconciliations, and payroll, it has modules for dispatch, freight billing, and pay settlement. You can track fuel and miles by truck through integrations with trucking mileage programs like Rand McNally and ProMiles to generate fuel purchase, state mileage, and IFTA tax reports.

The platform also has a powerful fleet maintenance program that will track your fixed assets and help you schedule routine maintenance, whether based on months or miles driven. If you have a fleet of trucks and at least one person that will be dedicated to learning the software, then Q7 will be worth the investment.

How We Evaluated Trucking Accounting Software

We ranked trucking accounting software based on pricing, ease of use, and how it performed across the general accounting and trucking-specific features we look for. To ensure the accuracy and integrity of our list, we evaluated each accounting application using an internal rubric scoring system with five categories, each with a calculated weighted score.

Bottom Line

Overall, there’s no single accounting or trucking management software that can cover all the various needs of truck drivers and fleet managers. While each of the four best trucking accounting software has a wide range of features, you can create a more useful package by integrating your existing software with other applications. For instance, if you need powerful accounting software with comprehensive trucking-specific features, you can integrate your QuickBooks Online account with TruckingOffice.