A busy year and nothing in the bank is how owner-operators lose money — the rates were a little low, the deadhead was never counted, and the IFTA filing was a quarterly panic. This workbook is for the business half of the truck: knowing what every mile really costs, pricing loads against it, and seeing — load by load — whether the haul actually made money.
One connected file, the whole operating picture. Build your true cost-per-mile once, keep fuel and miles straight for IFTA all quarter, and put every mile and your real cost against the rate. It turns a glovebox of receipts and a phone full of rate confirmations into the few numbers you can steer by.
What’s inside:
- ✦ A cost-per-mile calculator — enter a year of fixed costs (truck payment, insurance, plates, ELD) and per-mile variable costs (fuel from price and MPG, plus maintenance, tires, tolls), the miles you run, and the pay you want. It returns your break-even and your all-in cost-per-mile — the floor under every load. (Your pay is a cost you build in, not the leftovers.)
- ✦ A Fuel & IFTA log — the two numbers IFTA needs, miles by jurisdiction and gallons by jurisdiction, in one place all quarter. It works out your fleet MPG, the taxable and net gallons per state, and — at the current rate you enter — the tax due or credit. Filing becomes a five-minute read-off.
- ✦ A load log — one row per load. It applies your cost-per-mile to every mile, loaded and deadhead, so a great rate with long empty miles can’t fool you, and shows the revenue-per-mile, the cost, and the profit on each haul.
- ✦ A settlement log — track each settlement from gross pay through every deduction — fuel, insurance, ELD, escrow — to your real net, and catch the month a deduction quietly doubles.
- ✦ A dashboard — total miles, revenue, and net, plus your revenue-per-mile against your cost-per-mile. The spread is the cents you keep on every mile, and the number to grow.
- ✦ A Start Here guide + three more PDFs — building your cost-per-mile and pricing against it, how IFTA actually works, reading loads and settlements, the per-mile maintenance reserve, and a plain-language glossary — plus printable trip, fuel, and load sheets for the cab.
The working part really works: the workbook has six tabs of live formulas — type your numbers and your cost-per-mile, the IFTA totals, the per-load profit, your net pay, and the spread compute for you. Use the .xlsx in Excel or LibreOffice Calc, or open the included one-click link and click Make a copy for a ready-made native Google Sheets version in your Drive — no importing, nothing to rebuild.
Built for owner-operators on their own authority, leased drivers running under a carrier, hot-shot haulers, and small fleets — anyone who wants their numbers in a trucking spreadsheet they own.
Own it, don’t rent it. A one-time purchase you keep and reuse on every load — the structured workbook that sits between a blank spreadsheet and a rented monthly trucking app. No subscription, no per-load fee. And when one truck becomes a small fleet, it graduates to Ardent Seller — loads, costs, and settlements across the whole operation, with a free plan to start.
Try it free first: the Cost-per-Mile Calculator — enter your fixed costs, variable costs, and miles to get your cost-per-mile, free and ungated.
Evergreen — use it any year: the method and the math are timeless, and the logs use date columns you fill in yourself.
A business reference, not licensed advice. Every figure in the examples is illustrative; IFTA tax rates change every quarter, so you enter your current ones from your filing packet. This is not licensed tax, accounting, legal, or DOT-compliance advice — your operating authority, IFTA/IRP licensing, Form 2290, hours-of-service, and recordkeeping are yours to meet for your jurisdiction. Not affiliated with or endorsed by IFTA, the FMCSA, any carrier, broker, or marketplace.
