Monday morning. A customer calls about the quote he received last week. Your colleague made it, in Word, on his own laptop. The move itself is on the board in the canteen, and Friday's hours are still in a WhatsApp group. After ten minutes of searching, you call the customer back.
Sound familiar? Then, like most moving companies, you work with a collection of separate tools that has grown over the years. It works. Only you, or someone in the office, are the link between all those systems.
Is working with separate tools wrong?
No. Excel is not a disaster, and no software package covers everything. Separate tools also have real advantages: they are cheap one by one, your team already knows them and you can easily replace one without the rest grinding to a halt.
It only becomes a problem when every part of your process has its own list. Quotes in one file, the schedule on the board, storage in a spreadsheet, hours in a group chat and invoices in your accounting package. Those systems do not talk to each other. So someone does it for them: retyping, forwarding, calling back.
What does it cost you to be the link yourself?
More than you think, because it is so woven into daily work that you no longer see it. Just look at one ordinary move.
The request comes in and someone puts it on a list. Then comes the quote, and when the customer agrees, the move has to go into the schedule. The crew gets the details over WhatsApp. Afterwards a work order goes back to the office, the hours are retyped and the invoice is made. That is six moments where the same details are entered again, and six chances of a mistake.
Say that takes half an hour per move. With ten moves a week that is five hours, and almost 250 hours over a year. Six full working weeks of work that did not need to happen.
And then there are the things you cannot express in hours:
- Searching instead of finding. A customer calls, and nobody can quickly find where his quote is.
- Gaps between sales and planning. Your salesperson closes a job, but nobody puts it in the schedule. Or the crew turns up somewhere the customer knows nothing about.
- Mistakes you only see later. A wrong address on the work order, or an invoice without the extra hours.
- Steering on gut feeling. How many quotes are open, and which jobs really pay? If those figures sit in three systems, you do not look them up. How it can work differently is explained in run your moving company with data.
It is not about the big mistakes. It is the hundred small moments a week when you think: surely this can be done smarter.
What changes with one system?
You enter details once, and from then on they flow through. When the customer accepts the quote, the move is ready in the schedule. The crew sees the addresses, the inventory and the agreements in the app, and logs their hours there too. Those hours go on to the invoice, without anyone retyping them.
You notice the biggest difference not in one feature, but in the overview. You see at a glance which quotes are open, what is scheduled next week and how the month is going. Insights like that used to come only afterwards, when it was too late to adjust.
What are the downsides of one system?
To be fair, there are some.
- Switching takes time. You have to set up the software, move your data across and train your team. Expect a few weeks to a few months.
- You depend on one supplier. Check beforehand whether you can export your data, and whether the supplier keeps improving the software.
- Not every part is the very best. A package that does everything is rarely better in each part than the best standalone tool. Its strength is in how it fits together.
You do not have to replace your accounting, by the way. It stays with your accountant, and your moving software sends the invoices there through an integration. Which packages Bas connects to is listed under integrations.
| What to look at | Separate tools | One system |
|---|---|---|
| Entry costs | Low | Higher |
| Costs including hours and errors | Often higher than you think | Predictable |
| Retyping data | At every step | Enter it once |
| Overview and figures | Pull them together yourself | Always up to date |
| As you grow | Gets ever more complicated | Grows with you |
| Replacing one part | Easy | Within the package |
How do you start without turning everything upside down?
Start where it hurts most. For most moving companies that is the quotes or the schedule, because that is where most time goes and most things fall through the cracks. Expand step by step from there.
Recognise yourself in a few of these points? Then it is worth taking a serious look.
Signs your separate tools cost more than they deliver
- You retype customer details several times in different systems
- A customer has to repeat things because you cannot find them quickly internally
- You have no up-to-date overview of open quotes and scheduled jobs
- Mistakes regularly creep into work orders, the schedule or invoices
- Every part of your process has its own list
What else you lose on paper and in separate lists, such as moving boxes and hours, is covered in how many boxes do you lose per year?.
What should you look for when choosing?
Look beyond the feature list.
- Made for movers. General business software has to be adapted by you. Software for the moving industry already knows the process from survey to invoice.
- Integrations. With your accounting, your website and the platforms your requests come from.
- Works outside the office. Your crew is on the road. Software that does not work well on a phone is out of the running in this industry.
- Grows with you. What works now for three crews must also work for ten.
- Support when switching. How quickly are you productive, and who helps you set up? This is how switching to Bas works.
Shall we grab a coffee?
Let’s talk about how things can be done smarter in your business.
Online or on-site, you choose.
Bas, overview of integrations with accounting packages and other systems (integrations page and help centre).
