Free tool · Trucking
Trucking profit and loss template with a cash flow forecast
Type your revenue, the margin after drivers, fuel and tolls, overhead, cash and how long shippers and brokers take to pay. Get a 12-month trucking profit and loss, a balance sheet, a cash-flow statement, a 13-week cash flow forecast and an Excel file with formulas. No signup, no email.
Computed by this tool for Crosshaul Freight Lines, our example carrier. Type your numbers below to get yours.
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1Your industry: Logistics Change
2Your numbers
Prefilled with the figures of Crosshaul Freight Lines, the example trucking company in our sample report. Replace each number with yours. Reset to the example
How it is calculated
- Twelve months, starting on the 1st of next month, from the cash you have today. Sales run at the pace of the last 12 months; for SaaS they grow by your monthly rate, for hospitality they follow your seasonal swing with the peak in July.
- Profit and loss. Cost of sales = revenue × (100% − gross margin). Operating costs stay at the monthly figure you typed. Operating profit = gross profit − operating costs.
- Balance sheet. Receivables = a month’s sales × days customers take to pay ÷ 30. Supplier payables = a month’s cost of sales × days you take to pay ÷ 30. Stock = a month’s cost of sales × stock days ÷ 30. Retainage = the share held back on the last six months of bills. Equity grows by each month’s operating profit.
- Cash-flow statement. Operating profit, less the increase in receivables, retainage and stock, plus the increase in supplier payables. Cash at the end of each month is the balance-sheet cash.
- 13-week forecast. The first three months of the cash-flow statement, spread over weekdays: customer receipts and supplier payments evenly, operating costs 40% on the first weekday of the month and 30% each on the 15th and the last weekday (payroll). Week 13 ends on the last day of month three, on the same balance.
- Not in your inputs, so not in the report: loans, equipment purchases, depreciation, income tax and owner draws. Add them in the Excel file.
Every figure is whole dollars, rounded once, and every total adds up the rounded lines — so the balance sheet balances to the dollar, the cash flow ends on the balance-sheet cash and week 13 ends on month three’s cash. The page checks all three under the report.
What goes in a trucking profit and loss
Revenue is everything you bill for the loads you haul: linehaul, fuel surcharge and accessorial charges. The direct costs behind the gross margin are the ones that move with the miles — driver pay, fuel, tolls and purchased transportation. Type the margin that is left after them.
Operating costs are the rest of the running costs: dispatch, the office, insurance, software and permits. Many carriers read the result as an operating ratio — all operating expenses, direct costs included, divided by revenue — which is one minus the operating margin this template prints.
Not in the form: truck and trailer payments, depreciation and interest. The operating profit here is before them, so add them as rows of their own in the Excel file before you compare it with a lender’s figures.
Why carriers watch cash every week
Drivers and fuel are paid every week; shippers and brokers pay on their own terms after delivery. The longer they take, the more cash sits in receivables — the report says how much, and how much ten days sooner would free. The 13-week forecast shows the weeks in between. Some carriers sell invoices to a factoring company to be paid sooner; the template has no factoring line, so to see it, type fewer days customers take to pay and lower the margin by the factoring fee.
To work out the days from your own balances, use the DSO calculator; for the weekly method in full, read the 13-week cash flow forecast guide. The sample report for a logistics business shows the monthly report built from a carrier’s books.
Questions
Where do fuel and driver pay go?
In the cost of sales behind the gross margin, with tolls and purchased transportation: the costs that move with the loads you haul. Dispatch, the office, insurance and software go in operating costs a month.
Why does a profitable carrier run short of cash?
Shippers and brokers often pay weeks after delivery, while drivers and fuel are paid every week. The longer customers take to pay, the more cash sits in receivables: the template shows how much, and what ten days faster would free.
Does it include truck payments and depreciation?
No. Loans, equipment purchases and depreciation are not in the form, so the profit shown is before them. Add the truck payments and depreciation as rows of their own in the Excel file.
Is this my company's real financial report?
No. It is an estimate built from the numbers you type, with the rules listed under How it is calculated. Your real statements come from your books: connect your accounting system and Ataski's Financial Analyst builds them from your ledger every month.
Do you save the numbers I type?
No. There is no signup and no email field. The numbers are sent to our server only to build the page and the Excel file; they are not written to a database or a log, and they never appear in a web address. We count that a report was built and for which industry, never the figures.