Materials & Hauling · Every load, receipt and dollar tracked

Hauling software: every load, receipt and dollar tracked

Andrew Drish, founder
Published October 22, 2026. Updated October 27, 2026

Hauling software replaces paper load tickets with a digital log of every load: the truck, the job, import or export, the material, the yards and the pit it came from. SmartCrew does that from the crew's phone. An AI reader reads ticket and receipt photos so nobody retypes them, and each load lands on the job it belongs to. It's built for dirtwork, trucking and aggregate contractors hauling dirt, rock and gravel. It's not a load board or a trucker settlement system.

What goes wrong with paper haul tickets?

They get lost, and a load you can't prove is a load you can't bill. Lost hauling tickets are one of the headaches that pushed us to build SmartCrew in the first place.

Tickets ride around in truck doors and shirt pockets. Some come back wet, some come back torn, and some don't come back. Somebody in the office types a stack of them on Friday night and makes a few mistakes doing it.

• Your count, the trucker's count and the pit's count don't match, and nobody can say which is right.
• Imports and exports get mixed up on the same job.
• Trucking cost hits the job weeks after the dirt moved, when the job is nearly done.
• A billing question turns into a long phone call because nobody has the time, truck and pit on each load.
• Fuel receipts end up in the visor, so fuel never makes it onto the job.

Every load, receipt and dollar tracked: that's the whole point of hauling software.

What should a digital haul ticket carry?

It should carry everything you'd need to settle a dispute or bill the load without calling anyone. These are the fields in SmartCrew's hauling log.

SmartCrew's hauling log records yards. If your customers and pits settle by the ton, bring a few tickets to the call and ask us how they fit before you decide.

How does SmartCrew track loads, step by step?

The load gets logged in the field, the photo does the typing, and the office sees it the same day.

1. Log the load on the phone

   The driver or foreman opens the hauling log, picks the date, truck and project, marks import or export, and adds the pit and any notes.

2. Or snap the ticket

   Take a photo of the paper ticket. The AI reader enters the data for you, and the person checks it instead of typing it.

3. Receipts and fuel the same way

   Fuel slips and material receipts go in as photos too, into the material and fuel logs.

4. The office sees every load

   The hauling log on the web lists each ticket with time, truck, project, import or export, material, yards and source pit.

5. The load lands on the job

   Loads and materials are tied to the project, so trucking and material show up against the job's budget.

The phone's reports menu (hauling log, receipts and more), and the materials screen with orders by project and vendor, unit cost, delivery date, billable and paid. (Demo account.)

What does the AI reader do with a ticket photo?

It reads the photo and fills in the fields, so nobody types tickets at the kitchen table on Friday night. Your guy snaps the ticket, looks over what the reader filled in, and saves it.

It works on receipts as well as haul tickets. That's how fuel and material receipts get onto the job instead of into the truck's visor. We do the heavy lifting: you take the picture.

What should dump truck management software track?

The truck and the ticket. A dump truck is a machine and a ticket book at the same time. Most hauling apps only see the ticket. In SmartCrew the truck has its own record, the same as your excavators and dozers.

• Hours and mileage, plus last and next service, on each truck's record.
• DOT inspections done on the driver's phone and logged on the truck. See the pre-trip inspection app page.
• Service requests from the driver go to the Shop Queue with urgency and status.
• Fuel logged against the truck and the job.
• The driver's hours from his clock-in, on the job he was hauling for.

That's what dump truck fleet management software should be for a contractor: loads, hours, inspections and repairs on one truck record. The equipment side is on our heavy equipment maintenance software page. Fleet Management is a Premium category, so availability varies by plan.

Does it work for gravel hauling and aggregate operations?

Yes. If you haul gravel and stone, the source pit and the material are the fields that matter most. SmartCrew is built for aggregate operations along with excavation, sitework and the rest of dirtwork, so the hauling log carries the pit on every load.

That lets you see what left which pit, in which truck, for which job, and how many yards. Deliveries and production get tracked in the same place. For an aggregate contractor that also runs iron and crews, it means one app for the pit, the trucks and the job, instead of a ticket book, a fleet spreadsheet and a time app.

To be plain about it: we built it around the contractor's loads, trucks and jobs. If your whole business is a quarry selling by the ton across a scale, ask us on the call whether it fits before you buy anything.

Why not track loads in a time tracking app or enterprise software?

Because one is too basic and the other is too much. Time tracking apps are built around the timecard, not the load. Enterprise software was too complicated, confusing and expensive for companies our size. Here's SmartCrew's materials and hauling list next to the apps people compare it with.

What do short loads cost on an export job?

More than you'd guess, and the yards column shows it. This is an example with made-up numbers, not a SmartCrew customer or a statistic. Say you bid hauling off 8,400 yards of spoil at 12 yards a load. That's 700 loads.

Example numbers only. $95 a load stands in for your own trucking cost.

The yards column tells you the trucks are leaving light. Halfway through the job you can fix the loading, not find out at the end. On paper, nobody adds up the yards until the job is closed. See how trucking rolls into the job on the construction job costing page.

A job page with revenue, expenses and profit, and budget against spent for labor, materials, equipment, other costs and change orders. (Demo data.)

What SmartCrew hauling isn't

It isn't a load board. It won't find you loads or find you trucks. It doesn't settle with owner-operators or brokers, and it doesn't run payroll for drivers. Your payroll stays where it is, with payroll-ready timecards from SmartCrew and our QuickBooks Online integration.

It isn't an ELD, and it doesn't log hours of service. It isn't telematics hardware either, so there's no GPS box on the truck. If most of your revenue is for-hire trucking with brokers, settlements and factoring, you want software built for that. If your trucks haul dirt, rock and gravel for your jobs and your customers' jobs, and you want the ticket, the truck and the job cost in one place, that's what we built.

What to ask any construction hauling software vendor

Ask how a load gets in, where it lands, and who has to type it. Here's the list.

• Can a driver log a load from the cab in under a minute?
• Can it read a photo of a paper ticket, and who checks what it read?
• Does every load carry the truck, project, material, yards and source pit?
• Does it handle imports and exports on the same job?
• Do loads reach the job's cost, or sit in a separate list?
• Can you total loads by truck, job or date for billing?
• Does the truck itself have a record, with inspections and service?
• What happens with no signal at the pit? Ask to see it.

Who is SmartCrew for, by crew size?

Dirtwork and heavy civil companies with about 5 to 100 employees. That's who we build for: small to midsized contractors. Small, for us, means a real crew. Not a one-man shop.

Questions people ask