Remote scanning at truck stops and by a centralized service like TripPak allows carriers to produce an invoice the same or following day of delivering a load. In terms of cost, truck stop scanning may not seem like much — about 25 cents per document. But costs also might include extra time and mileage for drivers to stop and scan documents.

A faster method for capturing documents is in-cab scanning. This method has been talked about for several years, but making it a reliable and cost-effective solution always has been challenging. In addition to the cost of high-quality scanners, sending large file attachments through satellite and cellular networks also has been cost-prohibitive. Until now.

In August, Abenaqui Carriers began using an in-cab scanning system called DTScan that runs on the DriverTech DT4000 TruckPC, an onboard computer that uses an embedded Windows XP operating system. When a document is scanned by a driver, the images are sent to the office through a Wi-Fi network if one is available; otherwise, the TruckPC uses a cellular network.

Abenaqui Carriers — an 85-truck petroleum hauler based in North Hampton, N.H. — currently is testing the system on a handful of trucks with plans to expand the service across its fleet. "Our biggest complaint from drivers is not having scanners in each truck," says Paul Marston, chief executive officer. "The ones that don’t have scanners are going to trucks that do have them and scanning paperwork."

In the petroleum business, customers want to have delivery documents as quickly as possible, Marston says. At the price of $3.50 per gallon of fuel, a 10,000-gallon load is more than $35,000 of receivables for Abenaqui’s customers. By providing customers with signed delivery documents only minutes after delivering a load, Abenaqui's customers now are able to bill their own customers the same day the carrier delivers the fuel, he says.

Abenaqui Carriers uses DTScan software with an auto-billing workflow solution from EBE Technologies. Once documents are scanned in the truck, they go to the EBE Technologies server in Abenaqui’s office. "We’re adding a new piece that is an alert to us if any paperwork is not to the customer in 24 hours," Marston says.

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