Dahl & Sons Trucking & Brokerage in Center, ND, started out in 1995 when Keith Dahl, Sr., Managing Partner of Dahl & Sons Trucking, along with his three sons Brad, Dustin and Jason, started running 4 trucks across the United States, sharing the driving duties as well as the daily responsibilities of running the office. In 2006, they were joined by Keith Dahl Jr. who took over the day-to-day office operations.

Today the company runs 13 trucks and employs a team of 16. They have experienced significant growth in recent months as a result of new management tools which have enabled them to become more efficient.

Software, Take One...

But it wasn't always that way for Team Dahl... In 2005 Keith Jr. began a search for basic trucking software to help them keep things in line. The team settled upon a promising software package written by an ex-trucker. "We figured, who would know small trucking companies better than someone from the business," said Keith, "but we realized soon that the software was written for the way he ran his business, and unfortunately over time we realized that it just wasn't functional for the way we ran ours. Support with this company was severely lacking. I often offered suggestions that I felt would make it more flexible, but we learned that if your idea of how to run your business didn't match his philosophy, then the changes never got a second glance.

"It got to the point where we had to double check everything that was coming out of the system, there was no interface with the QuickBooks software which my accountant used, and so I was racking up significant fees for extra accounting work.

"The final straw came when I was having a major issue with my payroll. I sent an email to get some help from their support department, and I was told that folks were out of the office and it would take 4 days for them to provide a response. I ended up doing everything manually for 4 days to avoid a riot by my staff. That's when I decided that if I could do without their software for that long, I didn't really need it at all."

Finding the right software for the job...

Keith set out to find a more robust system that would not only handle his successful operation today, but provided flexibility and room to grow for tomorrow.

"Prophesy was the fit," said Keith. "The software met all our needs and then some, giving us room expand and grow." Not willing to be burned again though, Keith made an unusual request of the Prophesy Sales Team. "In addition to standard customer references, I asked for 3 references who had encountered significant challenges with the software…and I was surprised that the Prophesy folks readily handed them over. As I talked with these companies, I noted the glowing terms that they used for the support team at Prophesy, and how their issues had been completely resolved and that their treatment throughout had exceeded their expectations."

Keith was satisfied that this was a company who took care of their users. In November of 2007, Dahl & Sons implemented their new Prophesy Dispatch Series software with interface to QuickBooks Pro.

In short order, Keith and his team began to see significant changes in their workload. "Prophesy has absolutely enhanced productivity," said Keith. "I handle all of the billing and financials. Before, quarterly reports took days; they now take me just hours. Handling Payroll used to take me all day; now it's done in minutes. I've also cut my accounting costs to the bare minimum because the software integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks Pro. And IFTA reports now take minutes instead of days… I just click Print and I'm done, because all info is already calculated by the software."

Keith went on to say, "My dispatcher especially loves the New Assignment screen within Dispatch, it shows the closest truck to any given load. It saves us time and has reduced our empty miles significantly."

Keith Dahl had glowing reviews of his account reps at Prophesy. "At many software companies, there tends to be a turnover with staff, you don't always have that one person that you can talk to. But at Prophesy, I actually have two… Joan Wentworth and Jay Votzakis are the team who handle my account. I can fire off an email question to Joan and she usually has a response back to me within minutes. The service I've received from Prophesy has been consistently spectacular."

Dahl & Sons, Inc hauls primarily brick and steel pipe throughout the continental United States. They expect continued growth for their flatbed operation and have plans to add Prophesy Truck & Trailer tracking capabilities to their operation in the coming months.

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