Dispatcher Bookkeeping: Track Fees, Expenses and Profit in LaneTally (Video + Steps)

1. See the big picture first (0:00)

What does your own dispatch business earn, and what is left? In the demo, My finance shows fees earned of $290.40 this month so far, your own costs of $234.00, and $56.40 left before taxes. My business keeps the weekly fee invoices you send your carriers, the money you pay yourself or your staff, your own books, your profit and your business papers. After this video you know what each of the five pages shows, what each button does, and where the numbers come from. The free demo needs no sign-up and no card and uses fake data.

2. Where My business is, and My invoices (1:01)

In the left menu, the last group is Your business. It has two items: My business, with a small number for the papers that need attention, and Import and export, which has its own video.

My invoices shows what each carrier owes you. Every load adds your fee to the weekly invoice, and you get paid once a week. The gray Information only line says it is not tax, legal or financial advice. The page follows the carrier picker at the top.

• Earned this week: fees on loads delivered this week, with how much more comes when the loads on the road are delivered and when booked loads are picked up, and the day of the next weekly payment.
• Earlier weeks, not paid: fees from earlier weeks that are still unpaid.
• Paid so far: the weekly invoices that are paid, added to your books.

The search box finds an invoice by number, carrier, city or amount, for example a load number. The status buttons All, Ready to send, Sent, Draft and Paid show how many invoices each holds.

Under This week is the weekly invoice card for the carrier: the week, the pay day and a status tag. Its table has Load, Route, Status, Load rate, My fee and I get, for example 8 percent of $2,480.00 is $198.40. Load invoice opens the invoice of one load. Earlier weeks lists each earlier weekly invoice with the carrier, the loads, what you get and its status.

The rule: a load goes on the weekly invoice of the week it is delivered, Monday to Sunday, and its fee counts as earned on the day it is delivered. Home, My invoices and My finance all use this rule. Your fee on each load uses the percent agreed for that load.

3. Open and edit a weekly invoice (4:36)

Press Open invoice. The weekly invoice shows your company at the top left, and the invoice number, date, due date and terms at the top right. Bill to is the carrier with its MC number. Then the billing period, the loads with their route, delivery date, rate, fee percent and fee, the subtotal, the total due and the payment instructions. While some loads are not delivered yet, a yellow note says it is a draft; it can be sent once every load is delivered.

• Download invoice saves it as an HTML file you can open in any browser.
• Print or save as PDF prints it or saves it as a PDF.
• Edit this invoice opens a form with the invoice number, the due date, the lines (each with a description, an amount and Remove, plus Add a line), an optional note printed on the invoice, and Why you are changing it, which is kept in the history. After you save, the invoice stops following the load numbers; you can go back to them at any time.

The invoice of one load has the weekly number, a dash and the load number. Its note says the carrier pays the whole week at once. Email it to the carrier opens an email in your own email app, and Open the weekly invoice goes back. A paid week shows a Paid line and a balance due of $0.00; Mark as not paid takes the payment out of your books again.

Pick another carrier to see its own weekly invoice and earlier weeks. All carriers together shows one card with a block for each carrier and the week's total. Each carrier still gets its own weekly invoice from you.

4. My pay: pay yourself or staff, and the tax set-aside (8:17)

My pay is the money you take out of your business, and pay for anyone you hire. Every payment is added to My books, and only you see this page. Three boxes show Left in the books (everything in minus everything paid out, owner draws too), Tax set-aside with its percent, and Available to take after the set-aside. LaneTally only applies the percent you choose; it is information, not tax advice. Type a new percent and press Save percent to change it.

Press Pay myself or staff. The form shows what is available now, then Paid to, the type (Owner draw, Salary or Staff pay), the date, the amount and an optional note. Pay and add to books saves it: it appears in the Payments table, the three boxes move, and Edit changes or deletes it. In My books the payment is an entry, and an owner draw says it is not an expense.

5. My books: entries, records check, year packet and accountant zip (10:40)

My books holds only your dispatch business: the fees you earn and your own costs. Carrier money is not here; carrier books are under Carrier books.

The For my accountant card makes your year in one packet from your records. Nothing is sent to anyone: you download it and share it yourself. Pick the year, and read Money in, Expenses counted and Net profit, marked Estimate. A line explains why this estimate can differ from the profit on My finance, for example because meals count 50%. The packet is a summary of your records, not an official tax form, and not tax, legal or financial advice: your accountant prepares and files the real forms.

• Check my records first opens a window on a cash basis. Part 1 lists things to check before you send it: red Fix tags for something missing, yellow Check tags to look at, such as expenses of $75 or more without a receipt or months with no bank statement, and blue Note tags for information. Part 2, the AI review, is Ready on launch day. Part 3 is the summary for the year, line by line, ending with the total expenses and the net profit as an estimate. In Part 4 you tick the box and press Confirm review, so the PDF says who reviewed it and when.
• Year packet PDF: every page says it is information only, not an official tax form, do not file this page.
• Everything for my accountant: a zip with a read-first note, the packet as a PDF, and spreadsheet files such as income by month, every expense and a general ledger for QuickBooks. Nothing is sent to anyone.

The arrows and the month name choose the month, with Money in, Money out and Left over before taxes. Entries lists the lines, newest first, and every change keeps who made it and when; this month or All months. Money in is green and money out has a minus sign.

Press Add an entry. Letting AI fill the form from what you type is Ready on launch day, and so is reading a receipt photo with AI; you can still attach the photo or scan, and it is saved with the entry. Fill in the date, money in or money out, what it was, the category and the amount, then Add entry. The month numbers change. Edit opens the entry again; after Save changes, the Changes list says who changed what, when, and from what to what. Delete entry asks first, because it cannot be undone.

6. The Bookkeeper card (16:58)

The Bookkeeper card is where bank statement lines show, and you approve each one before anything posts. The big box is where a bank statement goes: a PDF, a CSV file or a photo. Reading a statement with AI and a live link to the bank are both Ready on launch day, so the lines in the demo are examples. Each line shows the text from the bank, a note, a percent with a suggested category (green when it is high, yellow when lower), the amount and Approve. If the line is already in the books, approving it matches the two so nothing is added twice. Otherwise it is added to the books, marked bank. To bring in a bank or QuickBooks file as entries, use Import and export.

7. My finance: fees, costs and profit (18:13)

My finance shows your dispatch business only: the fees you earn, your own costs and your profit, by Weekly, Monthly or Yearly. A fee counts as earned when its load is delivered, the same rule as Home and My invoices, and your costs come from My books. My books counts a fee when it is paid, so a fee earned at the end of a period can be in My books in the next one.

• Fees earned, compared with the same days last year, and how much more comes when the loads on the road are delivered.
• My costs, from My books.
• My profit: fees earned minus my costs, before taxes. Owner draws are not costs.
• Owed to me: fees on delivered loads that are not paid yet, with a link to My invoices.

The card Ask AI about these numbers is Ready on launch day. The chart Fees earned and my costs has one pair of bars per period, and Show as a table lists the same numbers. What each carrier brings you shows one bar per carrier with its fees and how the fee is made.

8. My documents: papers, renewals and invoice numbers (21:08)

My documents holds your own business papers and everything that has to be renewed to keep your company in good standing. A yellow note says which papers need attention, for example a business license with 24 days left: that is the number in the menu.

• My business: the legal name, type, EIN (only the last 4 digits on screen), date formed and address, the Pay to line printed on your invoices, and the invoice logo. Edit changes them. Do not type full bank account numbers in the Pay to line.
• My invoice numbers: the next weekly invoice number and the last one used, one running number for all your carriers, never used twice. Change sets the letters in front and the next number, which can only go up.
• Track more renewals: buttons to add a paper to track, such as a registered agent, errors and omissions insurance, or a website and domain name. Fill in the date it expires, how many days before to warn you (30 by default), an optional file up to 15 MB and a note. Reading the file with AI is Ready on launch day.
• Documents and renewals: each paper with its file, the day it was added, when it expires and a tag with the days left, with Download, Edit and Download all. In the demo the files are examples.

By default you get a warning 30 days before anything here expires: on this page, in Needs your attention on Home, and as a number next to My documents in the menu. Email and text reminders are Ready on launch day.

9. My business on the phone (25:00)

On a phone, My business is under More, in the same group as Import and export. The five tabs sit in one row you can slide sideways. The boxes sit two by two, the weekly invoice shows each load as its own block, and Open invoice fits the phone. On My pay the boxes stack, My books has the same three accountant buttons, My finance shows the newest six months in the chart, and in My documents each paper is a block with its days-left tag.

10. Wrap-up and the free demo (26:24)

That is the whole My business section. LaneTally is dispatch and accounting software, now in beta. It gives you information only: it is not tax, legal or financial advice, so check with your accountant. You can open the same screens yourself in the free demo: no sign-up, no card, fake data.