TMS Delivery, Inc. was founded in 1983, initially as an expedited delivery service. Since then the company has grown to a full-service carrier offering truckload van, dedicated fleet, flatbed transportation, and several specialized services. Along with its in-house brokerage company, TMS Logistics, Inc., TMS Delivery serves a loyal customer base located mainly in eastern Texas, hauling a wide ranging payload including steel, building products, pipe, industrial machinery, and more to locations throughout the United States.

In recent years TMS used dispatching software that did the basic job of helping to dispatch vehicles but offered poor accounting capabilities. Because of this the company depended on outside accountants to handle their accounting needs. For some time, owner Darrell Nunn sought a way to successfully integrate his dispatch software with his accounting software, Intuit QuickBooks^®, but was unable due to limitations of their current dispatch program. Something had to change for the team at TMS to move forward.

Office Manager Tarisa Dudley carried out a thorough search for every software-based dispatch system she could find. After an exhaustive review of several potential solutions, a clear winner emerged. "Prophesy was the natural choice," said Dudley. "Because of their strong reputation, long history and staying power, and the fact that their team really knows the industry and specializes in trucking software, Prophesy outshined its competitors by far."

Dudley viewed a demonstration with Prophesy Senior Account Manager Jay Votzakis and was impressed to see that the software would not only surpass all the company's dispatching needs but would also fully integrate with their existing QuickBooks software to automate their accounting processes. Senior Account Manager Joan Wentworth, a 12-year Prophesy veteran, gave Dudley a thorough business evaluation and tailored a Prophesy software suite based on her company's specific functional needs and budget. TMS invested in Prophesy Dispatch with interface to QuickBooks, along with several other applications including DriverTrax for driver management, TaxTally for IFTA reporting, Mileage & Routing for mileage estimates and driving directions, the SQL database upgrade for extra speed and stability, and VisiFreight to make invoices and PODs available online for their customers.

Dudley installed the software without requiring assistance from outside consultants and got her office team up and running on its new Prophesy system. "After using the software, I could immediately see that Prophesy Dispatch is truly 'trucking software'. It is not some canned application that needs to be modified or used in a non-intended way to work for a trucking company; it is built specifically for trucking companies like ours. When I first opened the software and looked at the Dispatch Board, I thought, 'Wow, they have read my mind!'"

Prophesy's ability to track upcoming expiration and test dates has greatly improved the company's DOT compliance. "It tracks every expiration we'd need to worry about - medical cards, insurance, inspection, registration, and so many others," said Dudley. "We also have the option of preventing a driver from being assigned to a load if one of his expirations is coming up. Our old software didn't do any of this. Believe me; our DOT Compliance Officer is absolutely in love with it!"

The integration of TaxTally with Dispatch has increased the company's IFTA reporting productivity tenfold, according to Dudley. "With a few clicks, all of our fuel and mileage figures are automatically sent from Dispatch to TaxTally, and then straight onto a state-accepted IFTA form. Using this system our fuel tax reporting is always done on time, and there is no room for human error."

Dudley recently attended the University of Prophesy for instruction on the DispatchSeries software, and she was so impressed with the level of patience and attention shown by her instructor and account representatives that she was inspired to send us her gracious feedback. Her message was published on May 27 in Prophesy's blog, The Accelerator, and can be read here.

With its genuine commitment to great customer service and a sturdy foundation of Prophesy solutions, TMS is going strong in spite of a currently weak economy. The company remains a preferred local carrier with annual revenues in excess of $5 million and now employs a fleet of 30 trucks and a staff of 35 employees. Future plans include innovations such as moving to a paperless document storage system, a job well suited for Prophesy's Document Imaging add-on module.

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