Established in 1920, The Grimes Companies include an active for-hire fleet of 20 trucks hauling dry foodstuffs throughout the United States, as well as a brokerage operation. They operate locations in Jacksonville, Fla., and Belcamp, Md.
In 2006 the folks at Grimes found their trucking operation growing once again while also juggling the addition of their new brokerage operation. They identified the need for a complete dispatch management solution that could help them keep up with both, all at once. It also was important to the Grimes team that their new solution integrated with their existing WMS, as well as QuickBooks Pro Accounting.
After exploring many options and conducting a screening process, they selected the Prophesy DispatchSeries Software as the solution to manage the day-to-day processes of both operations. Their success continued, and in early 2008, Jessica Linton, Grimes Trucking office manager, found her team in need of a user-friendly document-imaging solution to keep all load paperwork associated with the proper invoices, and to track inspection reports required by the growing fleet.
Linton found the Prophesy Document Imaging interface to be the ideal solution for Grimes, as it integrated completely with the company’s existing Dispatch system, seamlessly sharing files for easy reference. “Prophesy DI is such a time-saver,” Linton says. “We use it for keeping the driver files up to date, for matching PODs — it’s great. In the past, when we closed financials each month, we would file away the back-up paperwork. And whenever we needed anything, we would have to pull the files from storage. Now, instead of pulling out boxes, we just point-and-click and pull up the documents we need right from the system.”
Combined with their Prophesy VisiFreight (Internet Shipment Tracking) option, the team at Grimes says it is able to invoice customers electronically, dramatically reducing turnaround time on payables. “We use the rendition billing feature of the system, which sends all forms through VisiFreight,” Linton says. “This makes our customers happy and our invoices more timely. I would definitely recommend this combination.”
Prophesy VisiFreight is designed to allow documentation to be uploaded automatically to a secure website from the Dispatch database, allowing customers to view documents, print them or save them to a local hard drive.
