Lorry running costs, parts and fuel. What each truck costs you per 1,000 miles.

Ask a haulier what their oldest tractor unit costs to keep on the road and you usually get a shrug and a figure from the accountant’s year end. That figure hides the gearbox, the six drive tyres and the three weeks it stood in the yard waiting for a turbo. HGVault puts each of those against the miles the unit ran, so the conversation about replacing it starts from numbers.

Parts, from the phone to the invoice

A technician asks for a part on the phone: what it is, the part number and how many, or just a photo of the label. The office sees it on the Parts page straight away and marks it ordered, with the supplier, the order reference, when it is expected and the cost if it is known. Fitted, it goes on the job card and counts in that vehicle’s running costs.

A catalogue nobody types in

The catalogue is your fleet’s own list of part numbers, built from the parts you fit. Each has what it is, its type and brand, whether it is counted each or in litres or kilograms, the usual supplier and the price last paid. A number fitted for the first time starts an entry, and capitals, spaces, dashes and slashes never make a second one. As the technician types, the catalogue offers the numbers you already use.

Supplier invoices

Each supplier invoice is kept once: the supplier, the invoice number, the date, the total before VAT and the file as a PDF or a photo. On its page the office ticks the parts it covers, on any vehicle, and their costs can be taken from the invoice. When someone asks to see the invoice for the brake chambers on a particular trailer, it is a click away.

Stock

Service kits, brake pads, wiper blades and a barrel of AdBlue on the shelf are kept in the catalogue as stock, with how many are there, the average cost, what they are worth and a reorder level if you want one. A part at or under its reorder level is marked low. Parts bought for one job and fitted the same day never touch the stock.

Fuel and AdBlue

Drivers log every fill from the tag: the mileage, the litres, whether the tank was brimmed, the price and where. Two photos are asked for by default, the pump display or slip and the odometer, and where photo reading is switched on the figures that can be read clearly are filled in for the driver to confirm. Economy shows in mpg between full fills. AdBlue top-ups go in the same way, with litres per 1,000 miles and AdBlue as a share of diesel against your fleet’s own figure, and vehicles well off it are flagged.

Fuel card statements

Bring in fuel card statements as CSV or Excel from any provider, and a new provider’s columns are asked once. Lines are matched to the drivers’ fills and the pump photo readings, and only differences beyond your tolerances are raised, after a first month that previews and raises nothing. Only the last four digits of a card are kept. Personal fills are authorised by a named manager and reported for recharging.

Whole-life cost

Whole-life cost shows what each vehicle has cost since it joined the fleet: labour and parts on job cards, contractors’ invoices, tyres at their cost when fitted, the annual test and tachograph calibration fees, fuel and AdBlue, and a lease if there is one. Each cost is counted once. Nobody is asked for anything new, as it is worked out from the records already kept.

For each make and model there is a curve of maintenance cost per 1,000 miles in bands of lifetime mileage, or of age, with days off the road and breakdowns per 10,000 miles in the same bands, and a plain sentence where the figures support one. Like is compared with like, so a tractor unit is never set against a van. Give a maintenance cost per mile you count as too much and each vehicle is set against it: over it now, or when it will cross it on its own trend, what another 100,000 miles would cost, and what it would sell for.

Brands and part life

How long each brand of a part lasts on your vehicles and what it costs to run: median life, price each, cost per 1,000 miles and how many failed early, compared on the same kind of vehicle and position. Nothing shows for a brand until at least 6 parts on 3 vehicles stand behind it, so one lucky set of pads does not decide your buying.

Profit by vehicle

If you take bookings in your own booking system, link it and it can see which lorries are free and what stands each one down. Each booking, for a customer such as a retailer or a main contractor, is set against that lorry’s costs, so profit by vehicle comes out as a report.

All amounts are before VAT. A read-only login sees the whole-life cost page with no amounts on it, only the shape of the curve.