Forty loads billed, the ganger thinks thirty-odd
You are digging out for foundations and a basement on a housing site. The haulier runs eight-wheelers all week. Your ganger waves them out and sometimes writes the registration on a scrap of paper. Tip tickets come back with the drivers, or with the invoice, or not at all. At the end of the month the invoice lists loads by day and wagon. Your contracts manager thinks the number is high, but has nothing to check it against.
Muck-away is one of the biggest bills on many groundworks jobs, and one of the least checked.
Why loads cannot be checked
The person who sees the load leave is operating a machine or running a gang. Recording loads is not their job, and paper does not survive a wet week. The haulier's records are better than yours, so their invoice becomes the only version of events. And loads charged to one job are sometimes from another, when the same wagons serve two of your sites.
- Loads leaving site are not recorded, or recorded on scraps.
- Tip tickets arrive late, get lost or never come back.
- Invoices are by wagon and day, not by ticket.
- The same haulier serves several of your sites.
- Muck-away quantities are not compared with the volume dug.
What unchecked muck-away costs
You pay for loads you cannot prove left your site. You cannot see whether wagons are running part-full or waiting at the tip. Muck-away costs land on the wrong job and distort your job costs. And when you need to charge a main contractor for extra muck-away from an obstruction or an instructed change, you have no load-by-load record to show them.
The load log we build
- Each wagon leaving site is logged on a phone by the banksman or ganger in a couple of taps: registration from a photo, time, material type, and area of the site.
- Where the site has a gate person or a camera at the exit, loads can be logged from there instead.
- Tip tickets, returned by the driver or emailed by the haulier, are photographed or read and matched to the logged load by registration and time.
- Loads without a tip ticket, and tickets without a logged load, are flagged.
- The haulier's invoice is read and checked load by load against the log. Mismatches go to your contracts manager with the evidence.
- Loads are costed to the job and, where you record it, to the activity or instruction that caused them, such as extra dig for a soft spot.
- Totals are compared with the volume dug from your measurements, so a big gap between the two is visible.
| Check | Before | With the load log |
|---|---|---|
| Loads left site | Haulier's word | Logged on the day |
| Loads reached the tip | Tickets if they came back | Ticket matched to each load |
| Invoice correct | Paid or queried by feel | Checked load by load |
| Right job charged | Best guess | Logged by site |
| Extra loads recoverable | No record | Linked to the instruction |
Paying for what actually left
Every load has a record from site and, ideally, a tip ticket. Invoices are checked before they are paid, and queries go back with dates, times and registrations. Job costs show the real muck-away for each job. Extra loads caused by instructed changes or obstructions have the load-by-load record your main contractor will want. And a haulier who knows each invoice is checked has a clear reason to get it right first time.
Is your muck-away billing like this?
- Loads leave site without being recorded.
- Tip tickets are missing for many loads.
- Haulier invoices are paid without load-by-load checks.
- The same haulier serves several of your sites.
- You cannot evidence extra muck-away to the main contractor.