Home / What HGVault replaces
Walkaround pads, the wall planner and the parts spreadsheet. One record instead.
Most goods operators run compliance across a pile of things that never talk to each other. HGVault puts walkarounds, PMIs, defects, trailers, drivers, parts, stock and fuel into one record, for one monthly price.
Nobody sits down and designs a compliance system. It piles up. The walkaround pads live in the door pockets and come back creased, or don’t come back at all. The PMI dates go on a wall planner in the transport office, with a spreadsheet for the trailers because they never fitted on the board. Licence checks happen when someone remembers. The workshop tracks its parts on another spreadsheet, and the fuel card statement gets a glance before it goes in the file.
Each of those can work well enough by itself. The trouble starts when an examiner picks out a defect a driver wrote up three weeks ago and asks to see the repair, the parts and the sign-off. Now the answer is in a cab, a filing cabinet and somebody’s laptop.
Why one record matters
In HGVault, the defect a driver reports on their phone at five in the morning is a workshop job by the time the fitters clock on. The parts fitted go on that job with their cost, the sign-off closes it, and the office’s check sits against it. Nothing is copied from one place to another, so nothing goes missing in between.
And because it is all one record, HGVault can check it the way an examiner would. Every night it runs your records against the questions DVSA asks at a maintenance investigation, keeps a running OCRS, and holds the evidence together for the day a traffic commissioner asks to see it.
Trailers stop being the loose end
Trailers are usually the first thing a paper system loses track of. They swap between units, spend a week at a customer’s yard, and their PMIs drift. In HGVault each trailer has its own tag, check list, inspections and annual test, and its own place in the count against your licence.
What it costs
£175 a month plus VAT covers the first 10 vehicles, and each vehicle after that costs less. Two trailers count as one vehicle, and every feature is included. Work out your price.
It won’t always be the smallest line on the bank statement. A small fleet still on paper, with the odd licence check, may well spend less. What HGVault saves is the hours spent keeping separate systems in step, and the gaps an examiner finds where they don’t meet.
See it on a sample fleet
Follow one defect from the driver’s phone to the signed-off job on a read-only sample fleet. No call to book.
What you are probably using now.
Each kind of tool a goods operator tends to collect, and where it sits in HGVault.
The tools
What they usually look like
The tool
How it usually works
In HGVault
Paper walkaround pads, or a separate walkaround app
Pads go missing or come back blank. Apps tend to stop at the walkaround and charge by the vehicle.
Included. Drivers scan a QR tag on the lorry or trailer with any phone. Nothing to install, and it works with no signal. Walkaround checks
Wall planner or maintenance spreadsheet
Dates kept by hand, often with the trailers on a different sheet.
Included. A forward planner for every lorry and trailer, and PMI sheets on a tablet that are checked before they can be signed. Safety inspections
Driver licence checking service
Usually charged per check, sometimes with a yearly fee as well.
Included, under fair use. HGVault asks each driver for a GOV.UK check code when a check is due and has it ready for the office. Drivers and licence checks
Goods licence and VOL list
Checked against the fleet by hand, if anyone has the time.
Included. Lorries and trailers counted against what the licence authorises, with the VOL list compared both ways. Fleet office and goods licence
Workshop parts and stock
A garage system, or another spreadsheet.
Included. Parts fitted, suppliers, invoices, stock and the year-end stocktake. Costs, parts and fuel
Fuel card statement checks
A quick look before it gets filed.
Included. Each statement line is matched to the driver’s fill and the pump photo. Costs, parts and fuel
Driver CPC hours and D4 dates
A spreadsheet, or an extra on something else.
Included, on each driver’s record beside the licence and tacho card.
Tachograph analysis
A specialist service, usually charged per driver.
Not included. Keep the service you use. HGVault holds calibration dates and driver card expiry.
Vehicle tracking and telematics
A separate system with its own contract.
Not included, and HGVault isn’t one. It can take mileage readings from the reports your tracking system already makes.
We haven’t listed other suppliers’ prices here, because they vary from one supplier to the next and change often. Check the current figure with anyone you are comparing.
Questions
Do we have to move everything over at once?
No. Start with walkarounds and PMIs, then bring in drivers, trailers, parts and fuel when you are ready. Anything you aren’t using can be switched off in Settings, and its records are kept.
Can we keep our tachograph analysis and our tracking?
Yes. HGVault keeps tachograph calibration dates and driver card expiry dates, but it doesn’t download or analyse tachograph data, and it isn’t a tracking system. Keep the services you already use for both.
Our PMIs are done by a contractor. Can their sheets come in too?
Yes. Record the contractor’s report against the vehicle, with any gaps raised as questions for them, or give the garage a private upload link so its reports arrive by themselves.
Can we look before we pay anything?
Yes. The Severn Vale Haulage walkthrough is open straight away, with no call to book, and every plan starts with a free trial.
See it on a working sample fleet.
Severn Vale Haulage is a made-up haulier with tractor units, rigids, a van and four trailers, and months of records behind them. Look round it yourself, read only, with nothing to install. A guided tour takes you through each part.