Your own van or a carrier? Comparing delivery costs honestly
What a delivery with your own vehicle really costs, when the carrier is cheaper, and how to check freight invoices for overcharges.
“We’ll drive it ourselves, the van’s just sitting there anyway.” You hear this in many businesses, and often it is not true. The van is sitting there, but it needs fuel, wears down its tyres, and the person at the wheel has hours that cost money too. You can work out whether your own trip or the carrier is cheaper once you add up all three parts.
What your own trip costs
For every delivery with your own vehicle, the Shipping & Logistics module of Blina Desk calculates three items:
- energy: kilometres times consumption times price, per litre or per kilowatt-hour;
- vehicle: kilometres times cost per kilometre for wear, tyres, maintenance and the share of the vehicle itself;
- driver: hours times the hourly rate. The hours come from the distance, an average speed and a stop time per drop.
The kilometres are road kilometres, optionally including the return trip; if the map service does not respond, the software uses the straight-line distance and says so. If a figure is missing, the consumption for example, the software does not guess, it tells you what is missing.
A suggestion with the reason in numbers
Under “To ship” your own trip and the carriers with their rates sit side by side. The cheapest option that arrives on time is suggested, with the reason in numbers: which offer, how many kilometres, how much is saved. If two options are close, it says “similar costs” and you decide. An option that would arrive after the promised date counts as too slow.
If a delivery fits on a delivery route that is going out anyway, only the detour counts.
Tours with several stops
In Daily trips you decide which shipments a vehicle takes on a given day. “Optimise the order” looks for the shortest possible order of stops (the exact shortest for up to eight stops) and shows how many kilometres it saves, from the old total to the new one. For the driver there is a loading list and a printable delivery sheet with a column for the recipient’s signature.
Checking freight invoices
If you work with carriers, you receive consolidated invoices with many lines. Blina Desk compares each line with what is owed under your rate. A line is only fine when it matches to the cent. Anything above appears under “Overbilled”; you can dispute the line, and a credit note from the carrier is matched to it.
How much profit is left after shipping
Shipping costs are included in the order costing: the costing shows the contribution margin after shipping. So you can see whether an order with free delivery still earns anything. The reports show costs per carrier, customer and vehicle, on-time performance, and where someone deviated from the suggestion and what that cost.
In short
Your own trip is not free just because the van is already there. Add up energy, vehicle and driver, compare it with the carrier’s rate, and every delivery is decided by numbers rather than habit. The Shipping & Logistics module page shows what this looks like, and you can try it free for 30 days.