It is hard to imagine that Barse Trucking, with its fleet of flatbeds servicing the Southeastern U.S. and much of the East Coast, once began as a two-person operation. Raymond Barse and his wife, Sharon, built this successful carrier company from the ground up in Riverview, Florida, armed only with a single truck and sheer determination.

Like many other new companies, Barse Trucking hit the ground running but did not immediately implement comprehensive trucking software or streamlined management systems. "We started with a low-end dispatching product designed for one truck, which was fine at the time," said Barse. "But it became apparent pretty quickly that this was not going to cut it if we were to grow at all, and even with only one truck the software was inefficient and not worth the money, in my opinion." Barse also used a separate application to compute mileage and routing reports, and would then have to hand write his trip sheets and transcribe any relevant information to and from his dispatching software.

In spite of these operational hardships the company began to take off, building a strong customer base in Florida and surrounding states. After a year in business, Barse hired his daughter, Rachel, adding a bit of computer savvy to the mix. Now with more potential growth and financial success in sight, Barse knew it was time to get serious and scale up his business. He began searching for a more efficient way to handle his growing workload.

After reviewing several other popular dispatching systems, Barse discovered Prophesy in February 2007. He was especially intrigued the company's building block approach to software, and with it, he would be able to configure his DispatchSeries software to suit the exact needs of his company. For Barse this was a clear advantage over other systems that are preconfigured and may include more or less than is needed.

After working closely with Prophesy account representative Quentin Eastman, Barse configured a Prophesy DispatchSeries suite that fully met his needs, including Prophesy Dispatch with an interface to his existing QuickBooks accounting software, Mileage & Routing for mileage reports, DriverTrax for driver management, LogPlus for driver log auditing, and TaxTally for his tax reporting. Here was all that Barse needed, in a single, powerful package.

After initial training at the University of Prophesy training center, the Barse team was able to begin dispatching loads and managing all other aspects of the business, without the hassle and stress of using mismatched third-party applications and manual methods. Now that his operation was sufficiently automated, Raymond Barse could turn his attention to upsizing his fleet and focus on his role as a business owner.

Now in its fifth year of business, Barse Trucking boasts a fleet of 12 flatbeds and a workforce of 13 employees. Barse is clearly seeing the benefits of automating his business with Prophesy, and he stresses the important part that technology plays now and in the future of the trucking industry. "We are much more efficient and productive with Prophesy's tools at our disposal, and this allows us to comfortably take steps to grow our company. In fact, a big selling point for us was the scalability of the software. It is great to know that with Prophesy our future growth and success will not be restricted whatsoever."

So what is on the horizon for Barse Trucking? The company intends to further increase its fleet and personnel, and also has plans to acquire a large client that will triple the company's revenue. "I can't say it enough: I owe it all to the software," said Barse, and added with a laugh, "When I talk to other companies still struggling because they're doing things the old-fashioned way, I say, 'Man, you've got to start using Prophesy.'"

For more information about Prophesy's Total Software Solution for Trucking, email moreinfo@mile.com or call (800) 776-6706.