Trucking accounting isn't complicated because the math is hard. It's complicated because the transactions happen across dozens of loads, multiple drivers, multiple states, and a stack of paper receipts that multiply every week. By the time you sit down to figure out where the money went, you're two months behind and digging through a glove box.
This article covers the core accounting categories every independent carrier and small fleet needs to manage, and how HaulerPro ties them together in one place. For a deeper look at invoicing brokers specifically, see the complete guide to broker invoicing for independent carriers.
Revenue Tracking: Know What You Actually Earned
The first layer of trucking accounting is load revenue. Linehaul rate, fuel surcharge, and any accessorials need to be recorded per load, not lumped together at the end of the month. When you mix them, you lose visibility into which lanes and which brokers are actually profitable.
HaulerPro builds revenue tracking into the dispatch record. When you dispatch a load, the linehaul amount and fuel surcharge go on that load. When the load delivers, one click generates an invoice. The proof of delivery auto-attaches, so you're not hunting for the POD before you can send the bill. Each load carries its own revenue line, which means your per-load and per-lane profitability is readable without a spreadsheet.
Once an invoice is ready, you can submit it to a factoring partner directly from HaulerPro. The POD is already attached, so the package goes out clean.
Expense Tracking: Revenue Minus Nothing Is Not Profit
Many carriers have a clear picture of what came in but a blurry picture of what went out. Fuel, tolls, lumper fees, scales, repairs, permits: these hit the road constantly and they're easy to lose track of.
HaulerPro lets you log expenses per load or per truck. Scan a fuel receipt from the phone and it attaches to the load record. Log a repair against the specific unit that needed it. When you pull up a load, you see revenue and expenses side by side, which is actual profit on that run, not a guess.
Expense categories (fuel, tolls, maintenance, and others) let you filter and sort when your accountant needs to see where the money went at tax time. This is the difference between closing the books in a few hours and spending a weekend reconstructing receipts.
IFTA Miles: The Accounting Task That Trips Up Most Carriers
IFTA is a fuel-tax agreement that lets you file one quarterly return instead of separate returns with every state you drove through. The way the math works: for each jurisdiction you drove in, you owe fuel tax based on miles driven there and your fleet's overall fuel efficiency, with a credit for any tax you already paid at the pump in that state. If you bought a lot of fuel in one state but did most of your miles in others, you'll owe those states. If you bought fuel where you drove, you may get a refund. The quarterly return reconciles all of it.
The hard part isn't the math. It's the record-keeping. You need accurate miles by state for every quarter, for every truck. Many carriers spend weekends sorting through logs and trying to reconstruct mileage they didn't capture as they ran.
HaulerPro captures per-jurisdiction miles automatically from each dispatched load's route, using OSRM routing with polygon intersection across the 48 contiguous states. Every time you dispatch a load, the miles are being sorted by state in the background. At the end of the quarter, the IFTA panel aggregates those miles and you export an ifta_miles.csv that your accountant uses as input to the return. HaulerPro works out miles by state from each load's route for the 48 contiguous states, and you or your accountant files the return. For common mistakes to avoid when pulling that data together, see the guide on common IFTA mistakes.
Fuel is handled separately: drivers scan fuel receipts from the phone and they're stored on the load and the expense record. The reconciliation of fuel purchases against per-jurisdiction miles happens at filing time, not inside the app.
Driver Settlements: Pay Your Drivers Without Losing Track
If you have drivers on payroll or owner-operators on percentage, driver settlements are a recurring accounting task that can get messy fast. Disputes over what was paid on which load, deductions that weren't documented, loads paid twice: these problems are expensive and they damage trust with drivers you need to keep.
HaulerPro generates driver settlement statements from the loads and time entries already in the system. Five pay bases are supported: percentage of load, flat per load, per mile, per day, and per hour. Time-based drivers can carry per-load overrides, so a driver on daily pay who gets a bonus on a specific run sees both lines on one statement.
Per-settlement deductions are supported too. Add a labeled deduction line for a fuel advance, escrow contribution, or insurance deduction, and the statement shows gross pay, total deductions, and net pay. If net pay is negative, it shows as the driver owing the company.
Double-pay protection means a load or date range already settled on one statement can't be pulled onto a later one. Each settlement is an immutable snapshot: the numbers are locked at generation time even if the underlying load gets edited later. Drivers see their own statements in the driver app, which cuts down on back-and-forth about what they were paid.
Fleet Maintenance Costs: The Expense You Can't Afford to Ignore
Deferred maintenance is a liability that shows up on your income statement eventually, either as a breakdown repair or as a truck you ran into the ground. Tracking maintenance costs per unit is basic accounting hygiene for any fleet.
HaulerPro's maintenance tracker keeps a service history per vehicle. Each record carries a service type, date, odometer reading, cost, and vendor. When you enter a service interval, the app computes the next-due date and next-due mileage and shows in-app reminders when service is coming due or overdue. A fleet-wide view shows what's due or overdue across all your trucks, so nothing slips through because the paperwork was on the wrong desk.
Maintenance costs logged here feed into your overall expense picture alongside fuel and road costs, giving you a more complete view of what it actually costs to run each unit.
Putting It Together: One Platform Instead of Four
Most independent carriers and small fleets don't need enterprise accounting software. They need dispatch, invoicing, IFTA mileage, driver settlements, and expenses in one place where the data from each step feeds the next. That's what HaulerPro is built to do, for reefer, dry van, flatbed, hotshot, box truck, and LTL operations from a single truck up through 15 or more.
Pricing starts at $59/month for 1 to 2 users, plus $29/month per added user. Every driver login counts as a user. The 14-day free trial requires no credit card.
For more on invoicing brokers correctly, including what goes on the invoice and how to handle short pays, read the broker invoicing guide for independent carriers.
Built for the Carriers Who Built Themselves.
Start your 14-day free trial, no credit card required. Get your accounting organized from the first load.