Logger's Edge Features & Benefits CA

Let Caribou Software Give You the Edge

There comes a point in your logging business when spreadsheets and manual ticket tracking processes are no longer sufficient.

Read Our Just Say No to Spreadsheets Whitepaper Download Product Fact Sheet

Caribou provides a load ticket tracking and payment/reconciliation system very specifically designed for timber companies.

Many of our customers have historically used spreadsheets or manual ledger sheets, and they cannot imagine returning to their old methods of tracking tickets.

Imagine how much more effectively you could run your business if you could:

Key ticket information once, and have that information feed your landowner statement, your contractor statement, your revenue reconciliation report, and all you your block and crew production reports.
Automate the creation of contractor settlements and other types of delivery and costing reports.
Compare revenues earned from each block you've harvested against total costs incurred to harvest that block.
Generate reports such as Deliveries by Destination or Budgeted versus Actual M3/Hour, and Costs per M3 statistics by Block at the click of a button instead of spending countless hours compiling the information manually or in Excel.

Easy to Use

Filters to limit data to the information you care about
‘Excel-like' grids allow for review and editing of data. Cut/copy and paste across cells is supported
Active flags on all setup data tables allow you to hide old information from day-to-day view, while still preserving the information for historic reporting
Wizards help in setting up blocks and contract rates
Multi-row copy and paste makes rate changes easier to manage

Users find The Logger's Edge rich in functionality and convenient to use. Our personalized, one-on-one training sessions help you quickly learn the features of the system that are of most interest to you.

With a single point of entry, users only ever enter the data one time. And if you are licensed for multiple users, you can get the job done even faster!

Setup Wizard

Configurable Settings

Electronic File Cabinet

Quick and Easy Look-Ups for:

Load Tickets & Time Sheets
Blocks and Corresponding Rates
Equipment/Truck Information
Pay Statement Records

The software serves as an electronic file cabinet to help you improve your overall organization and efficiency. All your key block information and rates, your loads and time sheets, your contractors, your equipment, and all your pay statements are all accessible from one icon on your desktop. Easy access to all your information helps you work faster and smarter, and provide more accurate and timely answers to contractor, employee, and mill questions.

Active Blocks

Time Sheets

Load Tickets

Quick-and-easy search interface to look up load slip information by date, by destination, by block, by truck, etc
Flexible data structure allows you to track whatever load attributes (like species, grade, product) your business requires
Ability to pay based on a variety of methods such as M3, tonne-hour, percent of revenue, or percent of another activity
Configurable electronic load import capabilities
Integration with Suzie Logger handheld device for matching loadermen tickets to mill tickets

Load Ticket Grid

Load Ticket Entry

Load Ticket Expected Revenue

Optional: Load Harvesting Operators

Load Ticket Payment

Pay on a variety of methods, including per M3, per Tonne, per Tonne Hour, Percentage of Revenue, etc.
Pay minimum amounts or one-off amounts
Exclude Overweight tonnage from Payment or Pay at a Different Rate
Manage Top-Ups for Light Loads

The Logger's Edge lets you generate multiple payments for a single ticket to pay your subcontracted phase harvesters and your truckers. The system is flexible enough to handle almost any pay scenario you can come up with!!

Vendor Pay Statement - Cover Page

Vendor Pay Statement - Detail Page

Pay Rates

Trucking

Ability to pay based on hourly cycle times, tonne-hour, tonne, M3, etc
Track round trip cycle times
Ability to pay minimum amount for short loads
Ability to pay driver and/or truck owner separately
Track truck overloads
Extensive overload payment capping and fining capabilities

The Logger's Edge allows you to manage your own or subcontractor log trucks. For those who track overloads, you can set up overload weights by truck, by season, and then deduct truck pay for the amount of the overload. Need to know round-trip times? The Logger's Edge can track cycle times between your logging areas and the mills to which you are making deliveries.

Log Truck Setup

Block Setup Wizard - Distances (optional feature)

Revenue Reconciliation

Set up prices the mills pay you by block. Break out trucking from your logging phase if needed to facilitate reconciliation
Calculate expected revenue owing for this week's tickets before you ever receive a check from the mill
Custom reporting available to allow for grouping and subtotaling to match the layouts of the different mills to which you deliver to speed up the reconciliation

Revenue Rates

Expected Revenue / Received Status

Aged Ticket Report

Manage Conversion Factors

Convert different types of wood from weight to volume at different rates
Convert the same type of wood at different rates depending on the mill or block
Conversion factors have effective dates to handle rolling conversion factors
Even if you are paid based on the tonne, you can still generate costing reports that reflect costs per M3

Block Setup Wizard - Will Conversions be Used?

Block Setup Wizard - Conversion Factors (Optional)

Time Sheet Tracking

Enter daily time sheets and automate overtime calculations
Hours are entered by block, designating both the equipment unit and the employee
Designate certain hours as directly billable and set up hourly charge-out rates in the system to generate billing reports
Configurable time sheets let you capture other information such as stem counts, daily fuel usage, pick up allowances, living out allowances, etc
Distinguish between productive time, down time, and travel time
Time sheets can be entered by a remote user (e.g., at camp), and then exported from the remote machine, emailed, and imported into Logger's Edge

The Logger's Edge handles your time sheets and calculates gross payroll for employees or subcontractors for all phases related to timber harvesting.

Time Sheet Entry Form

Employee Setup Grid

Hourly Pay Report

Block Cost Report

Miscellaneous Expense Tracking

Enter fuel bills by equipment unit or truck
Enter major repair bills by equipment with a short description of the expense
Enter one-off bonuses or deductions for a vendor or an employee
Run Reports showing costs by equipment or truck
Import expenses from properly formatted Excel or .csv files
Integration with SAGE Simply Accounting allows for posting of expenses from Logger’s Edge with no re-keying necessary

The Logger's Edge allows you to enter miscellaneous expenses that are not related to load tickets or time sheets. These expenses can be tagged to a Block, a Vendor (or Employee), and even an Equipment or Truck Unit for rich business reporting.

Miscellaneous Expenses

Equipment Operating Cost Report

Reporting

Extensive set of standard reports for tracking costs and production by block
Analysis reports that provide details on settlements, harvesting costs, trucker performance, and costs by phase
Reports in worksheet format that can be easily transported into Microsoft Excel for additional analysis or charting
Value-added custom report-building services to provide you with information specific to your business practices
Auto-emailing capabilities for daily or weekly reports

Caribou offers an extensive suite of "standard reports", with different reports catered to different regions of the country and different business practices. Caribou also offers custom reporting services for users who have specific reporting requests that are outside the scope of our standard reports.

Here are just a few sample reports to give you an idea of the types of business information that can help inform your business decisions.

Deliveries By Block
Run this report weekly, monthly, or for the whole harvest season to see your production at a glance. This example is a summarized view, but detailed views are also available.
AnnualDeliveriesbyBlock.pdf

Block Hourly Equipment Summary
This report is a popular one across Canada that allows the owner to see, for any given block, all the hours spent phase by phase, multiplied by the cost per hour for each of the machines used on the block. It then uses actual deliveries to calculate M3 per hour and Costs per M3 by phase.
Block Hourly Equipment Summary.pdf

Block Logging versus Trucking Profits
This report is nice for showing the revenue and costs (using full found equipment cost rates) for the logging phase of the business separate from the revenue and costs for the trucking.
Job Summary Full Found-CA.pdf

Detailed Block Profitability Report
This report shows all revenue generated, by mill and by phase, as well as all actual labor costs, subcontractor costs, and "dry" equipment costs associated with the block. It provides a comprehensive picture of the margins generated on this block.
Detailed Block Profit Drill Down.pdf

Block Budgeting Report
This report is popular with our British Columbia users because it allows them to monitor their actual productivity and costs per phase against budgets or targets that the mills establish for them. It uses hours from the time sheets, coupled with M3/Hr ratios, to estimate the volumes harvested even before the wood reaches the mill.
BC Budgeting Report.pdf

Truck Cycle Time Report
If you capture both date and time stamps on your load tickets, the software will generate cycle time reports on a truck by truck basis. The example shown here is a summary version, but a load by load detailed version is also available.
Cycle Time Rpt.pdf

Truck Overloads
Generates a detailed report to identify overloaded trucks. Compare the percent of total loads that were overloaded on a truck by truck basis.
Truck Overloads.pdf

Trucker Settlement
Generate logger or trucker settlements each week that itemize out each ticket with the amount owing to the contractor. You can add miscellaneous line items to the statement for one-off additions or deductions to the contractor's payment that period.
Contract Trucker Statement.pdf

Equipment Costing

Equipment Cost Calculator

The Logger's Edge uses your time slips to track equipment utilization and the hours worked by each machine. You can set up standard costing rates (with or without the cost of the operator) and then calculate your costs by activity and by work area.

Equipment Units and Activities

Equipment Charge Out Rates

IFTA

Track your mileage by state/province
Track your fuel purchases by state/province
Download the tax rates each quarter
Run the report that makes all the fuel tax calculations required by state/provincial taxing authorities

The IFTA -- International Fuel Tax Agreement -- is a contract 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.

Truck Mileage

IFTA Report

Miscellaneous Expenses

IFTA State and Province Rates

BC Fuel Rebate Module

Set up on and off highway distances for every block-mill combination
Enter your fuel bills by truck unit number
Enter or import your load tickets each week
The software will take your load ticket information, the on and off highway distance information, and the miscellaneous expenses, and will auto-generate the form used by the BC Government for fuel rebate submissions

British Columbia offers a fuel rebate program for off highway trips made by logging companies. The software takes the headache out of this record-keeping and reporting process, saving you hundreds of dollars each year.