How to decrease overhead with moving software 

Increasing the overall profitability of your moves can be a challenge due to the slim margins in this industry. Frequent math mistakes, which can lead to you undercharging clients, can also really eat into your profits.

The good news? Digital moving software helps reduce overhead by eliminating inefficiencies and math mistakes that come from relying on pen and paper or Excel. 

Read on to learn how.

5 Ways moving software reduces overhead

Here are five ways moving software helps you decrease overhead:

1. Eliminate manual input, double entry, and redundant work. When it comes to existing legacy and paper-based systems, there’s often double or triple data entry and many manual processes that could benefit from automation. 

These inefficiencies lead to unnecessary mistakes, wasted time that could be spent on higher-value work, and the need for some companies to add extra quality control checkpoints to preempt the inevitable errors.

Software eliminates double entry and paperwork thanks to digitization and reduces manual input through automation. The software can also be customized to match existing workflows. 

‍2. Save time and reduce administration costs. Using digital calendars, estimates, bills of lading, and inventory sheets, you can complete admin in minutes instead of hours. These systems will also help you send automated email and text move reminders to your crew and customers and keep all your company information accessible and searchable anytime and from anywhere. 

Saving a few seconds or minutes here and there per task might not seem like a lot, but all this can add up to a few hours a day and hundreds of hours over a year. Some Supermove customers have saved 2 to 3 hours daily. 

3. Improve efficiencies to reduce hiring costs. You can do more with fewer resources and eliminate the need for a large office staff. Think back to the extra quality control checkpoints some moving companies implement to prevent mistakes. Moving software ensures this isn’t necessary and that you don’t need extra staff to handle quality control.

4. Efficiently dispatch your crew to avoid costly overtime. Moving software can provide data that lets you quickly identify crew members nearing overtime hours.

5. Eliminate paper costs through digitization. Say goodbye to having to print multiple documents to distribute around the office, as the documents are available to everyone in one place. You also no longer have to spend money on ink to print the paper!

How Supermove reduces overhead

The below table maps key Supermove features against the ways moving software typically reduces overhead so you can understand precisely how Supermove does it.

1. Configurable intake forms to save time and reduce paper costs

Configurable intake or lead forms eliminate the need for paper, save time, and reduce double-entry. You can use these directly on your site to capture details, including:

• The name of the lead
• Their phone number
• An email address
• The dates of the move 
• Whether the customer is flexible on move dates 
• The route of the move

Take note: If you have your own custom lead form, you can use that, thanks to an API integration that Supermove provides.

2. Sophisticated billing system to simplify pricing and improve cash flow

A streamlined billing system saves you time in pricing moving jobs—which, as we know, can become incredibly complex in the moving industry. 

With Supermove, you can price these complicated moves instantly and easily with 100% accuracy. Use it to automatically calculate bill items like tariffs and the total bill using timesheets.

You just need to include the right data, and the system will automatically do the math, eliminating any errors that may arise from manual calculations. 

The billing system can also help with cash flow which can be a big problem for some accounts, like large commercial ones, where you may have to wait up to 90 days to get paid. Using paper systems, like invoicing by paper, only exacerbates this problem. Your accountant needs to process the paperwork, send it out, wait until payment is received, process it, and follow up on late payment if necessary. 

The billing system can help you accelerate and tighten this payment window, so your cash flow is more sustainable by allowing customers to sign off on the invoice and pay within the app thanks to a Stripe integration and accepting payments via the Crew App, which also allows your crew to collect tips.

3. Dispatch calendar for accurate scheduling and dispatching

A dispatch calendar saves you time when scheduling and dispatching your crews, eliminates redundancy and duplicate work, and improves overall dispatching efficiency to reduce overtime and hiring costs. 

You can manage everything from this board, assigning trucks to jobs and jobs to trucks that need them. The calendar gives you visibility into the availability of all your trucks and crews on specific dates, so you can schedule jobs accurately on days there’s bandwidth to avoid delays.

4. Crew schedule automation

You can also coordinate schedules based on availability, eliminating redundant work and saving you time. Use Supermove to send a link to each crew member to confirm their availability: the days they’re available, the days they’re not, and when they’re out of the office. 

The availability of your crew is then automatically mapped out on one screen for everyone to see. Dispatchers save time because they don’t have to spend hours working out schedules and calling people to check their availability. 

Redundancy is also eliminated, and customer service is improved. To understand this, consider this possible scenario that can arise without proper crew schedule automation:

You assign a mover to a move—let’s call him Andrew. But Andrew isn’t available on that day. Suddenly only one person shows up instead of two, and you’re scrambling at the last minute to find someone. The customer move ends up starting an hour later than anticipated, leading to an unhappy customer. These things snowball and have a knock-on effect on your entire schedule and operation.

5. Auto text and email reminders

Auto text reminders save you time and eliminate any manual and redundant work. Both the crew and the customer can receive these reminders:

• For the crew: You can set up a text reminder to remind your team about the upcoming job, detailing specific details and the time. The crew will receive multiple reminders if they don’t click on the link in the first reminder text.
• For the customer: You can create a text reminder that tells customers the crew is on the way and allows them to see where the van is by clicking the link in the text. This reassures the customer the crew is on the way and will be there shortly. It also means fewer calls to the office and saved time. You can also create automatic email reminders about the move that are sent to the customer 24 or 72 hours before.

6. Auto populating fields

Auto-populating fields eliminates redundant work and saves you time. One good example is the billing system in Supermove that automatically populates data to help you price proposals and projects for clients.

7. An all-in-one software 

Like many moving companies, you may run on segmented systems where you use multiple platforms to do your work. These may include spreadsheets in Excel to manage scheduling, an email marketing platform to send emails to customers, dispatch-specific software to manage your dispatching, and a separate moving company CRM to capture and manage leads.

Having multiple platforms often leads to constant switching between systems, wasted time, double entry, and the extra cost of subscribing to all these platforms. 

Supermove brings these features together in one place to avoid switching between apps, save you time, eliminate duplicate work, and improve efficiencies to reduce hiring costs.

8. Tablets that sync in real time

Some moving companies use tablets to record moving data on-site. With a table and the app, you can input moving data and sync it to the moving software with a click of a button. 

This saves you time as you don’t have to input data like you would on-site by using a notepad. You also don’t have to transfer that data over the computer, avoiding redundant work.

Plus, you save on paper costs as everyone can access the data from one central place without creating additional documents. This central access allows for greater visibility into moves for your entire crew, unlike paper-based systems where something is often written down on paper, filed away, and forgotten.

9. Paperless, digital documents

The ability to be totally paperless provides several benefits for your moving business:

+ No paper costs. Say goodbye to messy whiteboards, post-it notes, printing out paper bills, and printing and ink costs. Use Supermove to:

• Store all customer communication in one place
• Create digital estimates
• Get all documents e-signed, so you’re entirely paperless
• View all projects and job information in one central place 
• Empower your crew with a crew app, so they have complete visibility into the day’s jobs

+ Time savings in finding details about the moves. It’s not uncommon for moving companies to have a filing cabinet with folders for different months that list all their moves for that month. When people want to find the details about a specific move in that month, they look for the folder, find the particular customer or move, and then read that information. 

If this sounds like you, consider Supermove, which allows you to instantly figure out what moves happened on a specific day without having to sift through information and worrying about data getting lost. Simply use the handy search feature of the system.

+Protection against an audit. All your move records are in one central system, easy to access should the need arise. The documents are formatted correctly, and your business is compliant. 

‍+Reduced manual and redundant work. The software doesn’t require the same amount of manual and redundant work of transferring data over from a notepad. It also leads to fewer errors.

Reduce your overhead with moving software today!

Decreasing your overhead costs is an important way to boost profitability. Digital moving software can help you do this in a number of ways, from eliminating manual input and saving you time to improving efficiencies and eliminating paper costs. 

Of course, the key is to use the right moving software that offers features to achieve this. Supermove is one example, providing everything from configurable intake forms, a sophisticated billing system to help price moves, an intuitive dispatch calendar to crew schedule automation, a tablet solution that syncs data in real time, and the ability to digitize your entire moving operation.

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