Per-mile cost analysis, IFTA quarterly support, settlement-statement reconciliation, and per-truck P&L — for owner-operators and 2-10 truck fleets serious about knowing whether each lane actually pays.
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Owner-operator and small-fleet trucking has a single accounting metric that matters more than all others: cost per mile. Everything else — IFTA, 2290 HVUT, IRP, ELD logs, fuel cards, factoring fees, broker advances — feeds into or distorts that number. Get it wrong and you cannot tell whether a $2.85/mile haul is profitable or you are burning money to keep the wheels turning. The math is brutal: a typical owner-operator runs 100,000-130,000 miles a year, hits $0.40-$0.60/mile in fixed costs (truck payment, insurance, permits, accounting), $0.55-$0.75/mile in variable (fuel, maintenance, tires, tolls), and needs to clear $1.40+/mile gross just to stand still. ATBS gets the tax side right but their bookkeeping is settlement-tracking, not GAAP. RemoteBooksOnline runs a generic eCom-style workflow with an IFTA module bolted on. We reconcile every settlement statement (advance, deduction, factoring fee, ESCROW), categorize fuel by jurisdiction for IFTA, depreciate the truck and trailer separately with §179 / bonus elections tracked, and produce a per-truck monthly P&L plus a cost-per-mile dashboard that updates weekly. For 2+ trucks we layer in per-driver profitability.
These are the niche-specific issues a generic $200/mo bookkeeper either misses or charges extra for.
Settlement statements net out advances, factoring fees, fuel card deductions, ESCROW, and qualcomm charges — posting the net check destroys gross-revenue reporting and breaks your 1099 reconciliation
IFTA quarterly filing requires miles-by-jurisdiction and gallons-by-jurisdiction from fuel receipts; ELD pulls miles automatically but matching to gallons is manual and error-prone
Per-mile cost analysis requires fixed/variable separation most generalist bookkeepers do not do — without it you cannot price freight intelligently
Truck depreciation under §168 + §179 + bonus rules can save $20k+ in year 1 if elected correctly; getting the schedule wrong creates basis problems on resale
ATBS bundles bookkeeping inside a tax-and-IFTA service at ~$200/mo but books are minimal; RemoteBooksOnline lists $150/mo flat but the offering is generic eCom-grade with an IFTA mention bolted on. No national service provides true per-mile profitability tracking with CGMA oversight below $500/mo.
| Provider | Monthly | Focus | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tax + bookkeeping + IFTA bundled | |||
| Generic flat-rate bookkeeping with IFTA mention | |||
| Same as ATBS, white-labeled through DAT | |||
| Per-truck P&L, cost-per-mile dashboard, IFTA support, CGMA review |
3 questions. We reply within 1 business day with a specific scope of work and flat monthly rate for your situation.
Yes — that is the core of the workflow. Each weekly or biweekly settlement gets broken into gross linehaul revenue, fuel surcharge, accessorials (detention, layover, lumper), then deductions: advances, fuel card, factoring, ESCROW, qualcomm, insurance, plate, IFTA. Each line gets posted to its own GL account so your books show true gross revenue, not net settlement. This is essential when your 1099-NEC arrives in January showing gross — if you have been posting net, you cannot reconcile to it.
IFTA itself is a tax filing — we do not file it (your tax preparer or DAT/ATBS does). What we do is the bookkeeping that makes IFTA filing painless: every fuel purchase categorized by jurisdiction (from EFS/Comdata exports), every mile pulled from your ELD (Motive or Samsara) bucketed by state, and a quarterly IFTA pack ready to hand off. Most owner-operators waste 4-6 hours per quarter doing this manually; we eliminate that.
Yes, and you should. We set up each truck as a class in QuickBooks plus each driver as a sub-class. Settlement revenue, fuel, maintenance, tires, tolls — all tagged by truck. Driver pay (whether percentage, mileage, or salary) is allocated by driver. Monthly output is a per-truck P&L showing gross revenue, variable cost per mile, fixed cost allocation, and contribution margin. You will find out within 90 days whether truck #2 is actually paying for itself or whether the older Cascadia is eating you alive on maintenance.
Section 179 lets you expense up to $1.16M of qualifying equipment in year-of-purchase instead of depreciating over 3-7 years. For a new $180k truck, §179 plus 60% bonus depreciation (2026 rate, phasing down annually) typically lets you expense $150k+ in year 1. But: §179 cannot create a loss, so if your taxable income is only $80k you cap there. Bonus depreciation can create a loss but eats your basis. We model the election at year-end with your tax preparer based on your income, basis position, and forward earnings — there is no one-size-fits-all answer.