April Financials, Haulin Assets Catches COVID-19 | Episode 48

April was a tough month, the first time Haulin Assets lost money in a month. Luckily, the freight market seems to have hit bottom in April and things are picking up. The other good news is that we are still up $9,562.14 for the year.

What To Expect From Episode 48

There are a lot of reasons April was a bad month. It’s all tied to the coronavirus hitting the US in full force and wreaking havoc on everything. Rates were bad and freight was hard to find.

To compound the problem I hired a brand new driver, Mike, who is awesome. The timing really could not have been worse for hiring a person. When I extended the job offer, things were still going really well, so he put in his two weeks with the other company. By the time he was ready to start running with me, freight was really bad. I ended up paying Mike for almost two weeks while the truck sat because I wasn’t willing to run for rates that low.

Trucking companies taking ridiculously low rates is one of the reasons rates drop, and I won’t participate when rates are so low you can’t make a living. That’s bad for all of us. I stuck to my principles, and I didn’t want Mike to be the victim of that. Last thing I wanted was to hire the right person and then have him leave because I wasn’t taking loads.

So, he got paid while the truck sat, which wasn’t good for the bottom line. In the next few episodes I am going to talk about hiring a driver and will go into my hiring philosophy and the type of person I want working for me. Once you understand that, you will better understand why I was willing to pay him for a few weeks. I think it is a good decision in the long run.

Here are the numbers for the month. Craig and I go over them and talk in detail about how COVID-19 affected everything.

• Total miles ran – 6,644
• Deadhead miles – 714
• Total revenue – $8,285.50 (Lowest month ever)
• All-in rate-per-mile – $1.24 (This number is misleading because there were 1,430 miles for a load ran at the end of April that did not deliver until the 1st of May. So, all the miles show in April, but that revenue didn’t count until May. If you take those miles out to make it a truer representation, the number is $1.59 per mile.)
• Full days on the road – 11
• Partial days on the road – 2

In the end Haulin Assets realized a loss of $-6,010.76. That’s my first loss, and hopefully they are few and far between. Like I said in the beginning, the good news is that we are still up $9,562.14 for the year.

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