A customer audit request
A large customer asks for evidence that every driver who delivered for them last quarter had valid insurance and a checked licence. The office manager opens the driver spreadsheet. Some cells are highlighted red. Some drivers' insurance certificates are photos in a WhatsApp chat. Two drivers left months ago and their documents are somewhere in an email. One current driver's goods-in-transit policy expired six weeks ago and nobody noticed.
It takes days to put together an answer, and it is not a comfortable one.
Why documents lapse
Owner drivers renew their own policies, and when they do, they rarely think to send you the new certificate. Your office asks when they remember. The spreadsheet does not remind anyone. And there is nothing linking the document status to dispatch, so a driver with lapsed cover is given work like everyone else.
| Document | Common problem |
|---|---|
| Driving licence check | Done at onboarding, not repeated |
| Vehicle insurance | Renewed by the driver, new certificate never sent |
| Goods-in-transit and liability cover | Lapses quietly, levels not checked against customer needs |
| MOT and vehicle tax | Not tracked at all |
| Right to work | Checked once, expiry of visas not tracked |
| Customer-specific requirements | In the contract, not in the process |
What checks you need and how often is for you and your advisers to decide. The system's job is to make sure what you have decided actually happens.
What lapses cost
An uninsured loss is the obvious risk. Losing a customer who asks for evidence you cannot provide is the likelier one. And the office time spent chasing documents from drivers who are out on the road all day.
It also affects how you win work. Larger customers and tenders ask about your controls over drivers and subcontractors. A clear answer backed by records helps; a spreadsheet does not.
When a driver leaves, their documents often leave with the knowledge of where they were kept. A question about a delivery made eighteen months ago, from an insurer or a customer, then depends on finding an old email thread, which is not where anyone wants evidence to live.
The document tracker we build
- A driver profile per driver and vehicle, with the document types you require and their expiry dates.
- Upload from the driver's phone: photo of the certificate, expiry date read from the image and confirmed by the office.
- Reminders to the driver in advance of expiry by SMS, email or WhatsApp, repeating until the new document is uploaded.
- A status per driver: all current, expiring soon, lapsed. Shown to controllers in the dispatch view.
- A warning or block when a driver with a lapsed document is allocated work, according to rules you set.
- An audit report per customer or period listing each driver who did work and the status of their documents at the time.
Licence checks through the official online service can be logged with the check date and result, so the next check is scheduled.
What the office gets
No more spreadsheets with red cells. Drivers are reminded automatically and upload from their phones. Controllers see who is cleared before they allocate. And when a customer asks for evidence, the report is ready.
Signs your driver documents need this
- Driver documents are in a spreadsheet and a chat group.
- Renewed certificates are not always sent to you.
- Dispatch does not know whose documents have lapsed.
- Customer audit requests take days to answer.
- You found an expired policy after the fact.