1.   How to Setup a Block.

In The Logger's Edge Software there are two (2) alternative wizards for setting up s.

Type I. The One-Stop Setup. This wizard combines the setting up of s, contractor pay rates and customer revenue rates into one consolidated setup wizard. The primary virtue of the one-stop wizard is that all pay and revenue rates are setup in one place. In addition, pay and revenue rates are set up to cover one and only one s, thus making it easier to track down the rate that should apply to a specific load, activity or contractor. On the downside, the one-stop wizard creates more pay and revenue contracts because a contract can only cover one . One further drawback is that the one-stop wizard can only be used if you do NOT track equipment and activities on a load-by-load basis.

Type II. The Standard Setup. This wizard is limited to the setting up of s; contractor pay rates and customer revenue rates are then set up in their own respective wizards. The primary virtue of the standard wizard is that it allows you more flexibility in setting up pay and revenue rates. Pay and revenue rates can be set up to cover multiple s, thus allowing you to apply one rate or set of rates to numerous s at once. This wizard also has the benefit of reducing the number edits you have make if you have to update rates for a large number of s. The standard wizard must be used if you track equipment and activities on a load-by-load basis.

2.    How to Setup a Revenue Contract.

In Caribou's Logger's Edge Software, "Revenue Contracts" are used to determine the terms that you will receive payment from your customers.  Most of the time, these customers will be sawmills or pulp mills.  A Revenue Contract specifies the effective date, the rates and rate breaks, the basis of payment, and any other factors that are used to determine the revenue due to your company from the performance of your work.  This wizard takes you through all the steps through setting up a revenue contract from selecting the customer to specifying all the rate breaks.

3.    How to Setup a Payment Contract.

In Caribou's Logger's Edge Software, subcontractors are paid based the terms specified in their "Pay Contract".  A subcontractor's pay contract determines the rate of pay and the basis upon which a contractor will be paid.  Employees who are paid according to the load (count, weight, volume, percent of load revenue), are also paid according to a pay contract.  (Note that employees paid on an hourly basis, daily basis, etc. do not require payment contracts; their rates are set up under the menu item Setup | Workers | Employee Pay Rates menu item.)

4.    Construction Jobs.  Often times you will be engaged to perform work on non-logging jobs.  For example, you may have a road-building contract or a contract to grade and layout a subdivision.  The Logger's Edge  allows you to set up a job that is a construction project, prepare an estimate and budget for the job, and then track your time and materials in performing the job.  You can also prepare invoices for the customer for whom you are doing the work.

1.    How to handle Overloads.  In The Logger's Edge, you can track loads that exceed weight limitations.  You can dock the driver's or the truck owner's pay   You can also, adjust the revenue you receive from a mill if you are penalized for delivering loads that are over weight.

2.    Extended Overload Functionality.  In The Logger's Edge, you can track loads that exceed weight limitations and can dock the driver's or the truck owner's pay.  The basic functionality in The Logger's Edge calculates the amount of the deduction by multiplying the overload weight by the applicable rate to the load.  Thus, if the weight over is 1.500/tonnes and the rate is $10/tonne, the deduction would be $15.00.  The extended overload functionality allows you to set a different rate (i.e. the trucking rate could be $10/tonne, but you want to deduct at a rate of $15/tonne). Alternatively, you can set up a step schedule that sets a flat deduction amount for overloads exceeding certain weight thresholds.

3.    Pay Like Trucking (Fuel Adjustments).  The Logger's Edge provides the ability to pay activities or phases like trucking, when the phase itself is not trucking.  There are certain phases -- fuel adjustments in particular -- where you want to pay the trucking contractor, but you want to split out the payments separately instead of using a blended trucking rate.  In The Logger's Edge you can pay contractors for phases other than trucking based on the owner of the truck on the load slip.

4.    Truck Costing.  The Logger's Edge allows you set up your own internal truck costing so that you can base trucking costs for your own trucks using two basic methods: (1) costing by load ticket, and (2) costing by time slip.  These two methods allow to cost your truck by load slip attributes, such as weight, volume, distance or tonne-hour or simply by hours.

5.    Truck Costing by Tonne-Hr.  In The Logger's Edge, you can set up standard costing rates for your company owned trucks.  The standard cost rates can be set on a tonne basis, an hourly basis, or on a distance basis (see above).  A special variant of these methods is to base cost on a 'Tonne-Hour' basis -- meaning the product of the tonnes hauled and the number of hours to complete a cycle from the block to the mill. This approach has the economic attraction of taking into account both the time used in hauling and the weight hauled.

6.    Truck Costing -- Mirror Subcontractor Pay.  The Logger's Edge allows you set up your own internal truck costing to mirror the pay rates that would otherwise be paid to subcontractors.  This option is in lieu of using standard costing methods listed above (items #4 & #5).  This approach allows you to answer two basic questions: (1)  What would my truck costs look like if my trucks were charged out at the same rates as my subcontractors? And  (2) what would my trucks 'earn' in revenue if they were paid like subcontractors?

7.    Truck Fuel Rebate.  Some provinces, such as BC and AB, provide fuel rebates for off-highway travel (and exempt from fuel tax).  There is a government form that beneficiaries of the rebates must complete to receive the rebates.  In The Logger's Edge, you can set up on and off highway distances for each block-destination combination and then use them to calculate the mileage traveled on and off highway for each of your loads hauled by your trucks or a subcontractor's trucks.

8.    Pay Trucking by Distance.  With v4.2.0 of The Logger's Edge you can now pay load slips based on distance traveled.  This functionality allows you to set up a pay contract based on mileage (or km) traveled in connection with a load slip, as long as the distance is entered on the load slip itself. The functionality also allows payment on distance-weight basis (i.e. ton-miles or tonne-kms).

9.    Pay Trucking by Minimum Distance.  With v4.5.0 of The Logger's Edge you can now pay load slips based on the minimum distance traveled.  This functionality allows you to set up a pay contract based on mileage (or km) traveled in connection with a load slip, as long as the distance is entered on the load slip itself.

10.   Truck Cycle Times.  The Logger's Edge to track truck cycle times.  By truck cycle time, we mean the round trip time it takes for a log truck to get a load of logs, deliver it to the mill and then return for another load.  Cycle times are important because it tells you how long it takes to deliver a load from a given block from which you can estimate how many loads a truck can deliver during any given day. 

11.  Light Loads.  There may be occasions where you want to pay a trucker for a minimum pay weight.  For example, in western Canada there is currently a large infestation of pine beetles that kill the trees.  When the deadwood is harvested, the wood is lighter so that even for a fully loaded log truck, the actual weight is often lighter than normal.  In this situation, you may want to top up a trucker's load so that he gets paid at least a base minimum amount.

12.  IFTA.  The IFTA -- International Fuel Tax Agreement -- is a compact between most states in the United States and most provinces in Canada that governs how motor fuel taxes are paid by truckers that haul across state or national boundaries.  The main purpose of the agreement is to allow trucking companies to file only one fuel tax return to their base state, instead of filing one return for each state/province in which they operate.  The single unified return reconciles all the different state motor fuel rates and allows companies to make one payment (or receive a credit) to settle their fuel tax liability.  This feature is available in Version 4.4.13 (release date May 2006).

1.   Decked Wood.  The Logger's Edge allows you to use your tree counts to estimate the amount of wood harvested and compare those estimates with the amount delivered to estimate the amount that you have harvested, but not yet delivered.  This functionality requires that you collect tree count data on your time slips.

2.   Cruise.  One common way for companies to track their production off a given block is to use a 'cruise' to estimate the volume of wood that will be ultimately harvested from the block.  In The Logger's Edge you can set cruise volumes by species, sort, product, grade, etc., and then track your actual delivered production against the cruise amounts.

3.   Depletion.  One common way to acquire wood is to pay a an upfront amount (or lump sum) for the timber on the certain block of land.  This is often the case when land and timber rights are privately owned and sold to timber buyers.  In this case, companies will usually record for the up front payment as an asset when the initial payment is made and then record a depletion expense pro rata with the loads as the wood is delivered.  The Logger's Edge has two alternative functions for treating the payment of lump sums and then accruing depletion on deliveries.

4.   Customer Advances.  The Logger's Edge allows logging contractors to record advances received from mills for volume harvested but not yet delivered.  This function allows you to record your estimated (scaled) volumes, the advances you receive, the volume you deliver and the advances subsequently recovered by a mill.  These data are all tracked on a block by block basis.

1.   Ad Hoc Invoices.  Invoices in The Logger's Edge are created when you run the invoices calculator for a set pay cycle.  An invoice is created for each customer for all the activity occurring in the selected pay period.  Often, however, you may want to send an invoice that is not tied to a specific pay period, but is for a user-definable date range.  An Ad Hoc invoice can be created that covers a user selected data range and cover all or only specific jobs (or contracts). 

2.   Ad Hoc Statements.  Vendor (and employee)  pay statements are created in The Logger's Edge  when you run the vendor or employee) calculator for a pay period.  There are times, however, when you may want to pay a vendor (or employee) based on a non-standard date range.  For example, you might want to pay a trucker for a set of tickets that are for a subset of a days within your normal pay cycle.  The Ad-Hoc statement functionality allows you to issue a statement based on whatever dates you wish.

3.    Miscellaneous Payments to Vendors.  The Logger's Edge has the capability to make miscellaneous payments to contractors (vendors) for any items that are not tied to production or hourly work.  These payments will be added to your vendor statements and will be tracked in the system so that they are included when you cost out a block.

4.   On Demand or Production Advances to Vendors.  The Logger's Edge allows you to issue ad hoc 'On Demand' advances to vendors and then collect them in a future period at your discretion.  Both the issuance and collection of the advance is handled manually and can be set for any date or amount that you choose.  A 'Production Advance' is a type of advance that is issued to a vendor and then collected in the future as loads are delivered (and the vendor is paid).  For example you might advance a contractor $50,000 and then collect it back at a rate of 25% of the pay he is otherwise due for loads he worked on.  (This functionality will be released in version 4.5)

5.   Mid-Month Advances to Vendors.  The Logger's Edge allows users to issue mid-month advances and collect them at the end of the month.  Often times, companies will pay vendors twice a month, but consider the first payment an 'advance' that will then be collected at the end of the month.  For example, a subcontractor might tentatively earn $10,000 from the 1st to the 15th, and be advanced 90% ($9,000).  At the end of the month, he would be paid a "true-up" amount that would be the difference between his final earnings and his advance.

6.   Holdbacks.  With Version 4.  2, The Logger's Edge now allows users to issue holdbacks and holdback releases on a vendor pay statement.  The holdback functionality allows users to “hold back” a certain amount of a vendor’s pay for a given pay period.

7.    Vendor Benefits.  Certain mills provide pay supplements to vendors that provide a benefit package to their employees.  The Logger's Edge allows you to set up benefit rates (either as a supplement or a deduction) that will generate miscellaneous entries on your vendor statements.

8.    Pay Loads on Customer Pay Periods. Often times, logging contractors pay their subcontractors on a pay schedule that basically matches the pay schedule by which they are paid by the mill(s) to which they deliver.  This approach tends to match up the cash flow from the mill to the sub contractor.  In The Logger's Edge,  You can set up different pay cycles for different mills (customers) and then pay your subcontractors on each mill's pay cycle.

8.    How to Pay an Employee on a Vendor Pay Period Schedule.  In The Logger's Edge Employee and contractor (vendor) pay statements are organized around pay period schedule types: an employee pay schedule or a vendor pay schedule.  Because many companies pay their employees on a different pay cycle than their contractors (i.e., vendors), The Logger's Edge allows users to set up employee pay periods that are separate from vendor pay periods.  As with all rules, there are exceptions.  If you need to pay an employee on your vendor cycle (instead of the employee cycle, The Logger's Edge let's you do that.  Of course, if you face the reverse circumstance and you want to pay a contractor on your employee cycle (e.g. if you have a equipment owner-operator)  you'll want to click on the link  How to Pay a Vendor on an Employee Pay Period Schedule.

10.    How to Make Ad Hoc Payments.  In certain circumstances you may need to pay contractors or employees for activities performed in prior periods.  For example, you may have to make retroactive payments to your truckers in order to account for the higher cost of fuel.  The Logger's Edge allows you to set up retroactive or (ad hoc) payment contracts that allow you to pay vendors or employees for loads or time performed in prior periods.  This module is available for an additional fee -- contact a Caribou representative if you are interested.

11.    How to Manage Posting of Pay.  "Posting" refers to the process by which a pay statement is tagged as being paid and the underlying loadslip or time detail records are locked down, thereby preventing edits.  The Logger's Edge offers the ability to lock down your data once you have "finalized" and issued a check for a statement.  This functionality ensures that the underlying time and loadslip data remain consistent with those used to actually generate your pay.  Invoice, Vendor, Employee and Ad-Hoc statements can all be posted.

12.    How to Pay Multiple Landowners.  The Logger's Edge allows you to pay multiple landowners on the same ticket for the same activity without generating multi-pay errors.   This is effected by first creating an entity (partnership) and then assigning splits to each partner (vendor) that must be paid. Contact us if you are interested in enabling this functionality.

13.    How to Print Checks.  The Logger's Edge allows you to print checks for vendors.  In The Logger's Edge you can set up a template that allows you to print your vendor pay onto your preprinted voucher checks.

14.    How to Pay Vendors (or Employees) using Step Rates.  The Logger's Edge allows you to pay vendors (or employees) based on a schedule of rates that apply within certain thresholds of distance traveled, loads hauled, etc. The functionality is particularly common in the United States where trucking rates tend to be based on mileage zones.

1.   Cull Deductions.  In many regions, mills will tend to 'cull' wood from loads that is deemed of below standard or inferior quality.  When a mill culls a load, it generally reduces the pay weight of the load and will not pay for the amount culled.  In The Logger's Edge you can use the 'Cull' indicator to allow you to enter the cull amounts on loads and then either pay or not pay for the amount culled.

2.    Pay Cull at a Different Rate.  In some cases a mill will pay for culled logs at a partial pay rate or will make a deduction for culled logs at a certain rate.  In The Logger's Edge you can set up revenue and/or revenue rates that pay for the cull weight at a different rate than the normal pay rate.  Note:  if the cull weight is not paid at all, see the prior topic that explains how to exclude the cull weight from the pay or revenue process entirely.

3.   Inverse Conversions.  Generally, in The Logger's Edge conversions are performed by taking the weight of the load and converting it into the volume of the load, e.g.  Kgs to M3.  In the case where loads are scaled, but not weighed, you may want to convert the scale volume into an estimate of the net weight.  That is you might want to convert M3 to Kg in order to keep track of your production on a weight basis.

4.   Split Loads.  Why should I split a load?  If you are delivering loads with different types of wood on them, you can track the different types by 'splitting the load'.  In order to save data entry time, The Logger's Edge has an automated function that will copy the load information into each split load slip so you create splits by only changing split-specific information, such as the species, grade, product, sort, and the weights and volume.

5.    Reconcile Mill Settlements.  Most users in the United States use The Logger's Edge to calculate expected receipts from the mills to which they deliver so that they can reconcile actual receipts with expected receipts on a ticket-by-ticket basis.  This process allows users to identify tickets for which they have been paid incorrectly, or for which they have not been paid at all.  The Logger's Edge has a nice Mill Settlement Reconciliation report that will highlight revenue discrepancies to the user, facilitating the reconciliation process. 

6.    Reconcile Mill Settlements (Advanced Functionality).  With version 4.5.5, we've added some nice capabilities to the mill settlement reconciliation process to make it easier & faster to keep track of which tickets are paid in full, as you are performing the reconciliation process.  See this document for more details!   

1.   Costing.  The Logger's Edge allows you to manage your equipment costing based on a standard equipment costing methodology.  Each company-owned equipment unit is assigned a per hour standard cost, and when combined with your employee time slips, is used to calculate the cost of operating your own equipment on a block-by-block basis

2.   Utilization.  The Logger's Edge allows users to track machine hours (through the use of time slips) and to distinguish between activities that are productive versus those that are non-productive.  These machine hours are used in the Equipment Utilization Report to show  utilization percentages for each piece of equipment.

3.   Reserved.

1.   Overtime.  The Logger's Edge allows you to pay employees for overtime.  You can establish overtime rules based on hours worked in a day (e.g. over 8 hours), hours worked in a week (e.g. over 40 hours), or hours worked in a month (e.g. over 191 hours) or combine a day standard with a week or month standard.  You can also classify types of time that qualify for overtime (e.g. travel time) or workers that qualify for overtime.

2.    Holidays.  The Logger's Edge allows you to pay employees for holidays.  You can pay employees for hours at their regular work for a certain number of 'Holiday' hours (where they do not work).  If an employee works on a Holiday, you can pay him or her at a premium rate that you define as a multiple of his or her base rate.  You can also determine whether the time worked on a Holiday should count for overtime calculations.

3.   Multiple Time Sheet Activities.  The Logger's Edge generally allows you to enter the hours on a time slip for only one activity at a time.  In version 4.4.4. we have added the ability to have multiple hour entries, like travel, maintenance, service, lunch, on a single time slip.  This functionality will prove useful to users that consistently have the same set of activities performed for every shift.

4.   Alternative Time Sheet Entry.  The Logger's Edge has two different time slip entry windows (as of version 4.4) that can be enabled, depending on user preferences.  The original time slip entry window provides a single window (form) for each time record to be recorded.  The Alternative Time Slip has a grid form that allows you to easily enter multiple activities on the same day for any given employee.

5.    Enter Time by Start/Stop Times.  In The Logger's Edge you can enter employee and machine time by the actual start and stop times for each activity.  For example, if John works from 7:00 AM to 9:15 AM doing Falling; he is Down from 9:15 AM to 9:30 AM; and then is Falling from 9:30 AM to 12:00 PM, you can enter his time by use of the actual times and have The Logger's Edge calculate the actual duration for each segment.

6.  Banked Time.  'Banked time' refers to pay for hourly work that is performed in one pay period, but paid in a future pay period.  For example, a guy might work a number of extra shifts in Fall so that he can take time off over the holidays and still be paid.  The Logger's Edge allows you defer payment for time earned in one period and select when to pay it in a future period.

7.    Remote Time Entry or Import Excel File.  The Logger's Edge has an import function that allows you to import time slips.  You may want to import time slips into your database if you have remote users of The Logger's Edge and you want to merge their time slips into your master database.  Alternatively, you might have a user that enter time slips in an MS Excel file and you want to import them into The Logger's Edge.

8.    Charge Out Time.  Some users perform hourly work that is to be charged out directly to the customer based on an hourly machine charge-out rate and/or an hourly employee charge-out rate.  Common examples include road-building jobs, firefighting work, or mechanic time spent working on a machine belonging to another company.

9.    Daily Work Orders.  Often times contractors that perform work for oil and natural gas companies must prepare work orders that specify the workers, machines, materials and supplies that were utilized, as well as their associated cost, on a daily basis.  These daily work orders must be issued to the customer and then approved for payment.  The Logger's Edge now has a module that allows you to prepare your daily work orders and then track them through the approval and billing process.     

1.    Loads.  The Logger's Edge allows you to define an load import format so that you can take standard load files (e.g., Excel files or tab delimited files) that a mill sends you and import them into The Logger's Edge.  If you deliver to multiple mills, you will likely need to define a format for each mill, since each mill is likely to provide you with the load data in different formats.

2.    Load Activities. For those users of The Logger's Edge that track their employees and/or equipment on load tickets there is a load import function that allows you to import your load activity data.  The Logger's Edge allows you to define an import format so that you can take standard files (e.g., Excel files or tab delimited files) and import them into The Logger's Edge.  Once you have entered or imported your loads you can also import your load activities, including the workers and equipment that performed each activity. 

3.    Load Revenue.  The Logger's Edge allows you take your mill settlements -- if they are available in a standard file format (e.g., Excel files or tab delimited files) and import them into The Logger's Edge.  Once you have entered or imported your loads you can import your load revenue and then compare your pro forma revenue with the amount actually paid to you bay the mill.

4.    Scaled Logs.  The Logger's Edge allows you to define a log scale import format so that you can take standard files (e.g., Excel files or tab delimited files) that a scaler (or scaling company) provides you and import them into The Logger's Edge.

5.    Miscellaneous Expenses.  The Logger's Edge has the capability to import miscellaneous expenses from an external file.  For example, you may have a workbook where you record your expenses and want to import them into The Logger's Edge.  This may be particularly useful where a vendor can provide invoice detail in an electronic format.

1.    User Defined Reports.  The 'User Defined Report Wizard' in The Logger's Edge. is a tool for you to create custom reports without programming.  This functionality allows you to create your own basic tabulations of your load slip, time slip and other data in your The Logger's Edge database.

2.    Configure Statements.  In The Logger's Edge you have control over many of the features of your vendor statements, payroll statements, and invoices.  For example, you can configure which load attributes (species, sort, truck number) appear on a statement and in which order.

3.    Access Data though Excel.  Yes, you can access your  Logger's Edge data directly from Microsoft Excel.  There is a little-used (and somewhat complex) function in Excel that allows you to set up a database ‘query’ and import data directly from an Access or SQL Server database.  A query is a set of instructions to the database that defines a set of records to retrieve. For example, a query might select all load tickets from a given tract or job delivered to a certain mill over a certain date range.  This query can be stored with the worksheet and be refreshed at any time, thereby allowing your worksheet data to remain consistent with your database data.  One safety feature with this query approach is that the data are ‘read-only’ meaning the spreadsheet user cannot alter the data, but he or she can always obtain the most recent data from the database.