<article class="article"> <header class="article-header"> <div class="article-meta"> <span class="article-category">Business Operations</span> <span class="article-meta-dot">&bull;</span> <span class="article-read-time">8 min</span> </div> <h1 class="article-title">Planning software for moving companies: what you really need</h1> <p class="article-intro">Your planning lives in Excel. Looks great. But can your sales rep see it too? Do you know how many m3 still fit in your box truck on Thursday? And which of your temp workers are actually available? This is what planning software for a moving company really needs to do.</p> </header> <img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/671a8a32ce21bb65df4b3506/69e0ee9cb8b136a2205eb683_69e0ee993cca48a300faf5a2_planning-variant-1-tablet-truck.jpeg" alt="Two movers reviewing the planning on a tablet in front of a Mercedes box truck at a Dutch business park." class="article-hero" width="1200" height="675"> <div class="article-content"> <p class="lead-text">A customer calls. Wants to move on Thursday in two weeks. Nice job, 40 m3. But your sales rep doesn't know whether there is room. He calls the planner. Who is on another call. So he says: "I'll get back to you." The customer calls your competitor.</p> <p>This is what we hear every week from moving companies with five crews or more. The planning sits in Excel, on a whiteboard, or in a combination of both with WhatsApp on top. The planner knows what the day looks like. Nobody else does. And the moment the planner is on a call, on holiday or off sick, nobody knows anymore.</p> <h2>The real problem: you cannot see where capacity sits</h2> <p>Most moving companies do have a planning. That is not the problem. The problem is that nobody except the planner knows what still fits on a given day.</p> <p>A sales rep who doesn't know whether there is room cannot sell. They have to call first, wait, call back. Meanwhile the customer is gone. A planner who doesn't see that 15 m3 still fits on Thursday next to that 25 m3 job leaves a gap that costs money. A 45 m3 box truck driving with a 20 m3 job while the other box truck is full and has to turn down a job. That is not a planning mistake. That is an information problem.</p> <p>And it goes further. You have two employees on zero-hours contracts who happen to be available this week, but that is recorded nowhere. Not in the planning, not in any overview. Only in the planner's head. A small care move comes in at 10 m3, about three hours of work. You have the people, you have the vehicle. But nobody sees that it is possible. So it gets declined or pushed to next week.</p> <div class="highlight-box"> <p>"The difference between a full day and a day with gaps is not the number of enquiries. It is whether you can see where those enquiries still fit."</p> </div> <h2>What should planning software for a moving company be able to do?</h2> <p>Not all planning software is suited to the moving industry. Most of it is built for appointments: one person, one time slot, done. A move is a combination of people, trucks, equipment and skills that all need to be at the same place at the same time. A 30 m3 move is 24 man-hours, so 8 hours with three people. That is not an appointment. That is capacity planning. This is what it needs to do at a minimum.</p> <h3>1. Sales and planning in one system</h3> <p>If your sales rep has to call to ask whether there is room, you lose customers. Full stop. Your sales team needs to look at the same planning as the planner. Not a copy, not an export, but the same screen. Does the sales rep see that Thursday still has 20 m3 of space in team 2? Then they can immediately do a <a href="/en/oplossing/verkoop">quote</a> and lock in the job. No round of calls. No "I'll get back to you."</p> <h3>2. Vehicle load in m3 visible at a glance</h3> <p>Every job has a volume in m3. Every vehicle has a maximum capacity. When you see those two side by side, you instantly know whether the job fits in the vehicle. A 35 m3 move does not fit in a 20 m3 box truck. Then you need a truck, or two trips. If you only discover that at the customer's home, you have a problem: you are standing there with the wrong vehicle and the customer can't take everything in one go. Planning software should show this at a glance: how many m3 is the job, which vehicle fits, and you avoid sending a truck for a job that fits perfectly in a box truck.</p> <h3>3. Plan by vehicle, driver, team or combination</h3> <p>One planner works from the vehicles ("which box truck is free on Thursday?"). Another works from the drivers ("who is available?"). And sometimes you plan from a fixed team with its own name, for example a box route that serves the same customers every week. Good planning software lets you freely choose which perspective you work from and mixes them without forcing you to redo everything.</p> <h3>4. See all available people, including zero-hours contracts</h3> <p>You have permanent employees, people on zero-hours contracts and sometimes agency workers or peer movers. They all need to be on the same screen with their available hours, skills and contract type. Not in a separate Excel file, not in the planner's head. If you have two employees on zero-hours contracts who are available this week but not deployed, you need to see that. That is pure revenue you are leaving on the table.</p> <h3>5. Match skills and certifications to the job</h3> <p>Not every mover is allowed to drive every vehicle. Heavy vehicle licence, code 95, experience with pianos, grand pianos or antiques, an international licence for trips abroad. Planning software needs to link skills to employees and warn automatically when the combination does not match. That is how you prevent damage and complaints before they happen.</p> <h3>6. The right vehicle for the right job</h3> <p>A 15 m3 move does not need a truck. It fits perfectly in a box truck. The other way round: a 35 m3 job does not fit in a box truck, you need a truck for that. And that trip into the Amsterdam city centre in 2026 is only allowed with a vehicle that fits inside the zero-emission zone. Planning software needs to know which vehicle type is suitable for which job: based on volume, emission class and urban access rules.</p> <h3>7. Leave, sickness and shortage signalling</h3> <p>Two drivers on holiday, one on study leave, and one with the flu. It sounds like a bad joke, but it is just May. Good planning software keeps track of your staff calendar and warns in time when leave or absence will create a shortage. Even better: it actively suggests hiring in extra people early via peer moving companies or staffing agencies, so you do not have to start panic-calling on the morning itself.</p> <h3>8. Travel time on a truck profile</h3> <p>Google Maps calculates travel time for a passenger car. A truck takes a different route: no low tunnels, no narrow residential streets, no bridges with too low an axle load, taking low-emission zones into account. Planning software that calculates travel distance based on a passenger car puts you on the wrong foot every week. Real moving planning calculates with the profile of your vehicle.</p> <h3>9. Integration with quote, execution and invoicing</h3> <p>A move starts with a <a href="/en/oplossing/verkoop">quote</a> and ends with an invoice. In between sits the planning, the <a href="/en/oplossing/uitvoering">execution</a>, the time tracking and the extra work. If those systems work separately, someone types everything three times. Good planning software is part of a platform where all steps interlock. Read also why <a href="/blog/erp-voor-verhuisbedrijven-losse-tools-vs-alles-in-een-software">separate tools versus an integrated platform</a> makes a big difference.</p> <h2>The difference: filling every day to capacity</h2> <p>The bottom line is simple. A moving company makes money when the vehicles run full and the crews are productive. Every day with a gap is missed revenue. Every box truck that runs half-empty is a missed opportunity.</p> <div class="info-cards"> <div class="info-card"> <div class="info-card-value">+15%</div> <div class="info-card-label">Higher utilization by making available capacity visible</div> </div> <div class="info-card"> <div class="info-card-value">-30%</div> <div class="info-card-label">Less time lost to planning and phone calls</div> </div> <div class="info-card"> <div class="info-card-value">-25%</div> <div class="info-card-label">Fewer empty trips and double bookings</div> </div> </div> <p>How does that translate to money? Say you have four crews currently productive 65% of the time. With better planning you reach 75 to 80%. Annually that means tens of thousands of euros in extra revenue per crew, without hiring anyone. And the planner themselves loses one or two hours less per day to puzzling, calling and correcting.</p> <p>On top of that, mistakes go down. No more box trucks turned away from a low-emission zone. No driver without code 95 on a job they formally are not allowed to drive. No more customers calling to ask where the movers are. Read more on how to underpin this in our blog about <a href="/blog/sturen-op-data---hoe-verhuisbedrijven-hun-prestaties-kunnen-verbeteren">data-driven working in the moving industry</a>.</p> <div class="highlight-box"> <p>"A planner who no longer has to puzzle can finally look ahead instead of putting out fires after the fact."</p> </div> <h2>What to look for when choosing?</h2> <p>The market is full of providers who say "also suitable for moving companies." That is different from "built for moving companies." This is the checklist we hand our customers.</p> <div class="checklist-box"> <h3>Checklist: planning software for your moving company</h3> <ul class="checklist"> <li>Can your sales team see the planning and immediately assess whether there is room?</li> <li>Can you see per vehicle how many m3 are planned and how much still fits?</li> <li>Can you plan by vehicle, driver, team or a combination?</li> <li>Are permanent staff, variable workers and agency workers on the same screen?</li> <li>Are skills and certifications linked to employees?</li> <li>Does the system match the right vehicle to the job (volume, emission zone)?</li> <li>Does the system warn when shortages arise from leave or sickness?</li> <li>Does the software calculate travel time on a truck profile?</li> <li>Does an accepted quote automatically land in the planning?</li> <li>Do worked hours flow through to the invoice?</li> </ul> </div> <p>Eight or more ticks? Then you are in good shape. Fewer than six? You will sooner or later run into the same problems you are trying to solve now.</p> <h2>Conclusion: it is not about the planning. It is about the overview.</h2> <p>The problem at most moving companies is not that they have no planning. The problem is that only the planner knows what the day looks like. The sales rep does not. The temp workers do not. The owner does not. And the moment the planner is unavailable, everything stops.</p> <p>Good planning software solves that by giving everyone who needs it the same information. How many m3 still fit in the vehicle. Who is available. Where the gap is. Where the opportunity is. That is not a luxury. That is the difference between a company that reacts and a company that looks ahead.</p> <p><a href="https://www.bas.software/en">Bas</a> has <a href="/en/oplossing/planning">planning</a> as part of a complete platform: connected to <a href="/en/oplossing/verkoop">sales</a>, <a href="/en/oplossing/uitvoering">execution</a> and invoicing. Not because separate tools cannot work, but because in this industry you get more out of a system that understands the whole process. Your sales team looks at the planning alongside the planner. Your planner sees the m3 per vehicle. Your temp workers are on the same screen as your permanent crew. Whether you are just starting with your second crew or heading for your tenth: <a href="/blog/digitalisering">digitalization</a> starts with planning that grows with your business.</p> <!-- CTA International --> <div class="cta-section"> <h2>Want to see how this works for your company?</h2> <p>We will show you how Bas handles planning, vehicle matching, skills and crew communication in one platform.</p> <a href="/en/contact" class="cta-button">Get in touch</a> </div> <div class="sources"> <strong>Sources:</strong> Erkende Verhuizers - industry figures 2025, CBS - moving movements Netherlands 2024-2025, own customer data Bas Software (n=50+ moving companies, 2024-2025). </div> </div> <script type="application/ld+json"> { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BlogPosting", "headline": "Planning software for moving companies: what you really need", "datePublished": "2026-04-16", "dateModified": "2026-04-16", "url": "https://www.bas.software/en/blog/planning-software-verhuisbedrijf", "inLanguage": "en-GB", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/671a8a32ce21bb65df4b3506/69e0ee9cb8b136a2205eb683_69e0ee993cca48a300faf5a2_planning-variant-1-tablet-truck.jpeg", "width": 1200, "height": 675 }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Casper Janssen", "jobTitle": "Director & Sales", "url": "https://www.bas.software/en/about" }, "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://www.bas.software/#organization", "name": "Bas Software B.V.", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/671a2b3d0c3830f284c6ac20/671a38cb4e140824f446da48_logo512.png" } } } </script> </article>