Customer story · General & flatbed haulage 
From spreadsheets to faster invoicing.
Stears’ transport plan lived across Excel spreadsheets, and each driver received their work by daily text message. HaulierMagic’s phased implementation approach connected planning, driver communication, proof of delivery and invoicing without forcing a small office to change everything at once.
Industry General & flatbed haulage
Base Discovery Park, Sandwich, Kent
Fleet Access to 20+ 44-tonne HGVs operating in the UK
Live since June 2023
+70% Bigger average invoices
−34% Fewer invoices, more orders
+41% More POD documents captured
10/10 Would recommend HaulierMagic
About Stears
A Kent flatbed operator working across the UK and Europe.
Founded in 1971, Stears Haulage is a Kent-based flatbed operator working across the UK and Europe. From Discovery Park in Sandwich, the business runs mainly flatbed trailers carrying timber, steel, bricks and blocks, roof cladding, concrete, abnormal loads and project freight.
The pain
Planning in Excel, jobs by text, PODs arriving on paper.
Nothing here was broken enough to stop a truck. That was the problem. A modern flatbed operation was running on a back office where every step waited on someone remembering, chasing or re-keying. The cost of that landed on cash flow, not on the road.
- Planning in spreadsheets The transport plan sat across Excel files, and the office texted each driver their jobs every morning.
- PODs came back on paper Drivers handed signed delivery notes in at the end of the week, and the office sorted and matched them to jobs.
- Subcontractor notes took two weeks Subcontractors called at the yard only occasionally, so their signed notes arrived in a pile every fortnight.
- Invoicing ran a week behind An invoice could only be raised once the signed delivery note was back in the office, so a job done on Monday was often not billed until the following week.
We wouldn’t invoice week one’s work until the Monday of week two, because we had to collect the paperwork on the Friday or Saturday.
Why HaulierMagic
A TMS that could adapt to Stears, not the other way round.
Stears chose HaulierMagic early in the product’s life and treated that as an advantage: a young platform could be shaped around how Stears already operated, rather than forcing the business into a fixed, one-size process.
Setup was hands-on. Gary fed requirements directly into the configuration through daily implementation meetings, and came out the other side knowing the system in detail.
You being new meant you could adapt to the way we wanted to operate. The bigger companies were more rigid.
The implementation
Started with planning, then worked back towards invoicing.
Stears switched in stages, not all at once. Each stage went live only once the team was comfortable with the last, and for a small office covering both traffic and accounts, Gary sees that sequencing as the reason the change stuck.
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Planning and driver communication
Jobs planned in HaulierMagic and sent to drivers, in place of the spreadsheet and the text messages.
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Driver App and POD capture
Drivers went paperless. Proof of delivery is captured at the job instead of travelling back with the cab.
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Invoicing
Billing moved across last, once the paperwork was already arriving on time.
Running alongside — accounts moved from Sage to Xero.
The phased rollout was the best way to go. Start from the front end and work your way back to invoicing.
Subcontractors follow the same rule. Their PODs used to arrive once a fortnight; now the Driver App is a condition of working for Stears, and the POD is in the office when the job ends, most of the time.
The biggest impact
PODs arrive sooner, so invoicing starts earlier.
Gary identifies invoicing as the biggest impact HaulierMagic has had on Stears. Previously, work completed in week one was not invoiced until the Monday of week two because the office first had to collect the paperwork. Today, a delivery completed on Monday is normally invoiced on Tuesday or Wednesday.
The same change improves customer response. When a customer asks for a POD three or four hours after delivery, the office no longer has to contact the driver and wait for a photo by email. The team can open the job in HaulierMagic, retrieve the POD and send it directly to the customer.
For me, the biggest impact on our business is the invoicing side of things. It has 100% improved.
The numbers
The results, measured across four years.
More freight out of the yard, fewer invoices out of the office. Year after year, the change has held.
Figures taken from HaulierMagic.
The standout change is consolidation. Stears moves more orders than it did three years ago and raises fewer invoices to bill them, because several jobs for the same customer now go out on one invoice instead of one each. Less paperwork for the office, fewer documents for the customer.
The average invoice is bigger too. Gary is clear about the main reason: prices rose across the market, and Stears’ rates rose with them. HaulierMagic’s job was making sure those increases reached the invoice: fuel surcharges apply automatically, and the office time saved on paperwork now goes into a greater focus on customer service, and more control of additional costs that may previously have been missed.
The verdict
Would he recommend it?
Don’t be pushed too quickly. Take it slow, bit by bit, and when you’re happy, make the full switch.
10 /10 Would recommend HaulierMagic
Try it, and implement it at your own speed.
Since using HaulierMagic, planning has become much simpler, saving time and creating full visibility whilst allowing the drivers to go paperless using the mobile app. We are 100% happy with the system, the setup process was fantastic and the ongoing support we have with the team is spot on.
Gary Dale Fleet Manager, Stears Haulage Limited Trusted by UK haulage operators
Take the next step
Still planning jobs in spreadsheets?
HaulierMagic can help you move in stages: planning and driver communication first, then PODs and invoicing when your team is ready. See what a practical rollout could look like for your operation.
- No sales pitch
- 30 minutes
- We’ll ask about your business first
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