Windows 10 has been available since 2015, yet your scale houses are still running some antique ticketing software on Windows 7 machines (or worse, Windows Vista). Why?

We get it. There are plenty of reasons people don’t upgrade their systems, chief of which is that change is hard. Is upgrading worth the cost? What if Windows 10 doesn’t support your current ticketing software? (It probably doesn’t, because nothing supports your fifteen-year-old scale program anymore.)

Microsoft has moved beyond outdated, unreliable operating systems, and you should too.

If your business is still operating on older versions of Windows 7, Vista, or even Windows XP, now is the time to evaluate the high level of risk involved with using outdated systems. With Microsoft ending support for Windows 7 in less than 9 months, it is imperative that companies migrate away from this decade-old OS and switch to Windows 10 as soon as possible. Counter-intuitive as it sounds, running old programs on old operating systems is actually more expensive in the long run than upgrading. Windows 7 is far slower and less efficient than 10, it’s much more vulnerable to viruses and malware, and using it means more down-time and a slew of technical issues that require costly IT support to solve.

In 2019, the price of up-to-date hardware and software is often less than you would expect. An entire scale house can now be run in a secure, reliable Windows 10 environment with live data backups using little more than an inexpensive laptop and a cloud-based ticketing software. Fast-Weigh 10 is designed specifically for Windows 10 and takes advantage of automated software updates to keep your scale house operations as modern and efficient as possible. Paired with a cloud-capable accounting system, a modern ticketing and dispatching software will help your company cut costs, lower your risk of catastrophic data loss, and increase production and revenue.

Read more about Windows 10 ticketing systems

Over the next few weeks, we'll begin rolling out our Fast-Weigh 10 software update for May 2019. This is a big update across multiple apps and modules - our web portal update will be released over the next few days with a number of enhancements, new features, and more! The Fast-Weigh Ticketing desktop app and mobile apps will be updated over the next couple weeks.

Details below.

Here's what's new:

Fast-Weigh Web Portal

• NEW - Hauler Assignment - From the Haulers page, Haulers can now be assigned to one or more specific Customers. Once assigned, when one of the hauler's trucks has been entered on the Fast-Weigh Ticketing app, only those Customers will be visible for selection.
  
  Video Walkthrough:

• NEW - Proof of Delivery web module
  • Tickets created via our new Proof of Delivery mobile app can now be viewed, mapped, and managed via our new POD web module. Contact us today for more info on how to add this to your Fast-Weigh 10 subscription.

• Quotes
  • Added Order Delivery Info to the Quote setup screen
  • Added Unit Type to Quote Products
• Reports
  • NEW - Order Quantity Progress report has been added under the Orders reporting category 
• Spectrum Integration
  • Added support for Spectrum AR Multi-Line invoices (supports posting to multiple GL accounts)
• Other Updates:
  • Resolved an issue where awarded Quotes could not be copied or edited
  • Addressed performance issues with Hauler Pay Statements

Fast-Weigh Ticketing Desktop Application

• NEW - Updated color scheme and other aesthetic changes
  
  • We thought it was time to freshen up a bit. Let us know what you think!

• NEW - Hourly time calculator
  • If a product uses the Hours unit of measure, our desktop ticketing app can now calculate how many hours a truck has hauled on that order, based on first and last load times.
• Other Updates:
  • Fixed issue with tare weights on the Truck Screen when manually-keyed weights are disallowed

  • Fixed issue where, in the case of identical truck IDs, the hauler could only be selected by arrow keys. Clicking now works properly.

  •  Multiple updates to RFID/MagStripe support

  •  When editing a truck on the Add/Edit Truck screen, the app can now use saved tares from the web portal

  • Added support to handle IP camera security/authentication by allowing the user to add the camera's password under Devices

  • Resolved certain issues with operator signature screen

  • Haul Zone list on the ticketing screen now sorts properly and is searchable

  •  Updated Haul Zone UI on Add/Edit Order screen

  • Added RF Proximity Card enhancements for Kiosk Mode

  • Resolved issue with failure to sync on startup

  • Resolved certain rounding issues on ticket formats

  • In some rare environments, the system was creating duplicate ticket numbers. This has been corrected.

Mobile Ticketing App

• NEW - Hourly time calculator
  • If a product uses the Hours unit of measure, our mobile app can now calculate how many hours a truck has hauled on that order, based on first and last load times.
• Other Updates:
  • Added Haul Zone support
  • Added cash amount calculation to ticketing screen when ticketing for a Cash order
  • UDF fields now supported

NEW Trucker Proof of Delivery App

Try out our new in-cab Proof of Delivery app designed for truckers. Contact us today for more info on how to add this to your Fast-Weigh 10 subscription.

Enjoy!

Get Fast-Weigh 10
For more information on our cloud-based truck ticketing and dispatching platform, visit www.tacinsight.com, give us a call at 865-219-2980, or email us at support@tacinsight.com.

We are excited to announce the release of our Fast-Weigh 10 Dispatching platform. The dispatching suite integrates fully with your ticketing and hauling data so you can ticket, dispatch, and track trucks, all on a single platform. Keep truckers accountable with live GPS mapping, alert drivers with SMS text notifications, and manage your hauling operations with a modern web interface you can access from anywhere.

In the bulk material industry, scheduling and delivering product is becoming more challenging. Truck and driver shortages have a large impact on producers, haulers, and contractors who rely on those trucks to deliver materials in a timely manner. With Fast-Weigh 10 Dispatching, TAC Insight aims to make the material delivery process more efficient for our customers.

Overview

Dispatching Web Interface

• Hosted on the Fast-Weigh 10 Web Portal - accessible from any device
• Integrates with orders, tickets, and hauling data from all locations
• Map and automatically calculate haul distance and times
• Easily add and manage dispatches from the Dispatching Whiteboard
• Request fulfillment feature - request specific haulers and/or trucks for your dispatches
• Send live SMS text alerts to your drivers

Reporting

• Available on the Fast-Weigh 10 Web Portal
• Get an in-depth look at your dispatching activity related to brokers, trucks, and jobs
• Reports can be printed, downloaded, or exported to Excel

In-Cab Mobile App*

*Optional add-on

• In-app notifications
• GPS navigation to pickup and delivery locations
• Enables live truck mapping on the Dispatching web interface
• Allows multiple drivers to use the same in-cab mobile device
• Accommodates multiple ticket types
  • Create at pickup
  • Create at delivery
  • Receive at pickup
  • Receive at delivery
  • Load count only
  • Fast-Weigh POD - integrated with the Fast-Weigh Proof-of-Delivery app

Meeting Industry Demand in the Digital Age

The Fast-Weigh 10 Dispatching platform is designed to work for companies of all sizes. "We saw a need for material haulers, producers, and contractors who were looking for an integrated ticketing platform that included order and ticket management, combined with dispatching and truck communication," says Steve Rasmussen, partner at TAC Insight. "Several of our Fast-Weigh 10 customers came to us with a need to address the scheduling and delivery of materials and managing payments to hauling companies. The new Dispatching and Hauler Pay modules were designed specifically to address the need for a simple, cloud-based solution that could be easily integrated with a truck ticketing platform."

The bulk material industry is now looking for ways to evolve and bring data together between producers, contractors, and trucking companies and eliminate isolated silos of information. Developed by working closely with our customers, Fast-Weigh 10 solves that problem by enabling shared data across all parties.

Related Article: Now Available: New Hauler Pay Module for Fast-Weigh 10

Get Fast-Weigh 10

For more information on our cloud-based truck ticketing and dispatching platform, visit www.tacinsight.com, give us a call at 865-219-2980, or email us at support@tacinsight.com.

Overnight we'll be rolling out an exciting update for the Fast-Weigh 10 web portal. You don't have to do anything to trigger the update - just sit back, relax, and enjoy the fireworks.

Here's what's changed:

New Modules and Features

For information and pricing for these new releases, contact us today.

Scheduled Reports module

We're excited to announce our new Scheduled Reports module, featuring automated generation and delivery of reports to your customers, haulers, and internal staff.

• Schedule reports to be emailed to users at specific times - daily, weekly, or monthly.
• Reports can be sent to any valid email address, not just portal users.

Dispatching module

 We are now announcing availability of the Fast-Weigh 10 Dispatching platform. The dispatching suite integrates fully with your Fast-Weigh ticketing and hauling data so you can ticket, dispatch, and track trucks, all on a single platform.

• Integrates with all ticketing locations
• Send live SMS text alerts to your drivers
• Easily add and manage dispatches from the Dispatching Whiteboard

• In-cab mobile app for drivers
• In-app notifications
• Live GPS tracking and mapping

Proof-of-Delivery (POD) mobile app

Fast-Weigh 10 Proof-of-Delivery module now provides field to office validation of load deliveries. Capture timestamps and lat/lon of material deliveries via our POD mobile app. Analyze and query time in transit and map delivery pins on our new POD Query menu option.

Other Updates

• Order listing grid now sorts numeric by order number as the default
• Reporting has been consolidated into a single menu to include Reports, Scheduled Reports, and Analytics
• Expanded Analytics screen resolution to support wide displays
• Location setup now includes default ticket type to be used in dispatching

Enjoy!

Get Fast-Weigh 10
For more information on our cloud-based truck ticketing and dispatching platform, visit www.tacinsight.com, give us a call at 865-219-2980, or email us at support@tacinsight.com.

1.  Quarries and scale houses are, well, ...filthy.

Excavating and transporting raw materials is a dirty, dirty job. With the grimy conditions, remote locations, and spotty internet, we all know that pits and quarries are not the best places to keep your company's critical data. Despite the fact that power outages, PC crashes, and other catastrophic data failures are common in the industry, a shocking number of businesses still rely on archaic local databases to store their financial transactions. 

Thankfully, we live in the age of cloud computing, and with systems like Fast-Weigh 10, the aggregate industry is finally starting to catch up. Cloud-based platforms protect client information by providing real-time backups and foolproof operation contingency plans, all while your operators work from the scale house as normal. By storing and replicating all data in secure centers on both the east and west coast of the United States, we manage and protect your information constantly. This means that even if your Internet connection goes out, Fast-Weigh can keep operating locally and then upload once you're back online, providing total protection against any data loss.

2.  You can focus on producing and hauling material, not managing complex IT systems.

Your staff is knowledgeable about crushers, conveyors, and Caterpillars - not computers. Remove the burden of having to manage local IT resources and eliminate your expensive, complicated setup. Use a platform that simplifies your scale management system and offers a quick, easy setup with remote install options. That way, you can focus on selling product and getting trucks out the door, saving you both time and money.

3.  Work on your own terms, from anywhere.

Working remotely is all the rage these days. People expect to get their job done on their own terms, whenever and wherever they want. Don’t let your material ticketing software confine your sales data to the scale house, forcing you to have to call several people just to get an update on production or to make a quick change. Fast-Weigh 10 gives you an all-access pass, providing real-time information that you can manage from any device, whether its Windows, Mac, or mobile.

4.  Help your customers and partners grow.

We all know that your customers and partners are critical to your success. By providing transparent, real-time operations or sales data, you can keep your customers informed and help your partners become more efficient. With Fast-Weigh 10, you can create user logins for both customers and haulers, providing easy access to their latest ticketing, dispatching, and invoicing data. Our integrated email alert system allows users to stay on top of all hauling or material purchasing, which helps them run their business.

5.  Modernize.

Running isolated systems with disconnected in-house servers is yesterday’s world. An ever-increasing number of experts across all business sectors now recognize that cloud computing can simplify and modernize your operations in every aspect. By embracing the cloud now, you can create a flexible foundation for your organization's future.

Get Fast-Weigh 10
For more information on our cloud-based truck ticketing and dispatching platform, visit www.tacinsight.com, give us a call at 865-219-2980, or email us at support@tacinsight.com.

This weekend, we'll be rolling out an exciting update for the Fast-Weigh 10 web portal. You don't have to do anything to trigger the update - just sit back, relax, and enjoy the fireworks.

Here's what's changed:

We gave the menu bar a total makeover.

New year, new look. Along with our brand new company website, we decided to redesign our customer web portal as well.

Before:

After!

Along with adding a touch more color, we also consolidated a few of our menu items to give you a cleaner, more stylish work space.

• Options formerly under Administration and Devices can now be found under the new Settings icon.

• Your login information has been moved under the new User icon at the far right end of the menu.

NEW - Foundation® Accounting Integration

Fast-Weigh 10 now has complete integration for Foundation® job costing, hauler payables, and invoicing. Contact us today if you're interested in this integration.

Enjoy!

Get Fast-Weigh 10
For more information on our cloud-based truck ticketing and dispatching platform, visit www.tacinsight.com, give us a call at 865-219-2980, or email us at support@tacinsight.com.

by Steve Rasmussen 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked a new prospect to estimate their annual or daily material ticket volume and they can’t readily provide this information. These questions should be easy for companies to answer, whether you're at the office, at home, or even traveling with a mobile device.

The producer and heavy civil markets have often lagged behind when it comes to investing in modern software that enables them to make simple management decisions. A 2015 analysis conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute demonstrates how poorly the construction and bulk material industries stack up in information digitization investment (click chart below to enlarge).

Fortunately, with modern software technologies, companies don’t have to make large up-front investments to make a change. Cloud and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) solutions are offering producers, contractors, and haulers the ability to track material sales and job tracking without large capital outlays. These platforms eliminate much of the cost and challenges faced by companies that operate plants or manage fleets of trucks. Outsourcing information technology can save you time, money, and resources spent managing those systems yourself.

Yes, there is generally an annual or monthly cost associated with these cloud-based software solutions, but when you add up the cost of purchasing on-premise servers, database software, on-site consulting, individual PC software licenses, and backup and recovery plans, you will find that cloud-based platforms typically provide a better solution at lower cost. Companies not taking advantage of cloud solutions are often blind to the total costs incurred from their business software. SaaS vendors, on the other hand, tend to provide upfront, transparent pricing without any hidden costs.

Migrating to the cloud means information can be readily available from any device or location from a simple web browser or mobile device. This provides you immediate access to all information and prevents data from being isolated in the scale house or with your IT department.

Most material ticketing and tracking softwares were developed using technologies that precede the evolution of cloud-based development. These Microsoft Windows programs are not well-suited for the always-connected world of Internet computing and have very limited cloud capabilities due to the underlying design of their system architecture.

The good news is, our industry is hopefully changing! A younger, more Internet-savvy group of leaders is moving up the ranks and demanding better information to make decisions. Software companies are being forced to stay current or be left behind. The Fast-Weigh 10 bulk material management platform is a leader in this new world of web-based technology, with a team of developers that are ready to help companies of all sizes leverage the benefits of cloud computing.

On February 12, the National Stone, Sand, & Gravel Association is having its 2019 AGG1 Academy & Expo. 27% of all attendees are aggregate producers. 42% are contractors and hauling companies. And for most of those attendees, load ticketing, job tracking, and truck dispatching are at the center of their business operations. This is why AGG1 2019 is the perfect opportunity for you to come by booth #26139 and get a live demo of Fast-Weigh 10, the industry's leading cloud-based material management system. Our platform supports all aspects of sales and bulk material transportation — dispatch, load-out, ticketing, billing, & delivery.

We'll be on the exhibition floor February 12-14, glad to answer any questions you may have about our product. So if you're tired of your current business software and are comparing better solutions, come on out and let us walk you through all aspects of our innovative ticketing, job tracking, and dispatching systems.

See you in Indianapolis!

Related Article: Expanding Your Material Sales Intelligence with the Cloud

Get Fast-Weigh 10
For more information on our cloud-based scale ticketing and material management platform, visit www.tacinsight.com/fast-weigh, give us a call at 865-219-2980, or email us at support@tacinsight.com.

Over the weekend, we rolled out a new software update for the Fast-Weigh 10 web portal. This includes new features for the Reporting module that allows for emailing and searching of reports.

***This update may require clearing your browser cache and cookies for Reporting parameters to display properly. If using Google Chrome, follow these instructions. For other browsers, please follow individual browser instructions for clearing cache and cookies.

Later this week, we’ll be releasing an app performance update for our desktop ticketing application. See below for details.

Web Portal Updates

New Mapping Support for Upcoming Dispatching Module

• Added new mapping capability for delivery locations established at the Order Setup screen. This feature will be available for customers who subscribe to our upcoming Dispatching module.

• Reports

  • Added the ability to email reports directly from the Reporting module

  • Added the ability to search for text within reports

• Billing

  • New filter for Order Status (Active, Inactive, Closed, etc.) added to the New Billing screen

  • For Viewpoint Vista and Spectrum users, we have updated the Material Management export file to include Order UDFs and Hauler Type

• Other Updates

  • Completed export file for Hauler Pay module

  • On the Ticket Query, the Material Price column now shows the billed unit price (if tickets have already been billed)

  • Added a Truck Type column to the Trucks page

  • Order Description added to line items in the New Billing table

Desktop Scale Application Updates

• Performance Update

  • Redesigned grids and lists to improve response times

  • Overall application performance improvements in memory usage
    

• Other Updates

  • On the Ticketing Screen, clicking the gray plus symbols to search for Trucks, Customers, etc. now places your cursor in the Search box automatically

  • While in the Truck, Customer, Order, or Product fields, you can now use the F3 key to access your list without having to leave the keyboard.

  • Fixed an issue with bad truck records appearing in the local database and disabling the app from syncing

How to update your desktop ticketing app:

Next week, your Fast-Weigh 10 scale house application should prompt you to update when you open the app. If it doesn't prompt, go to Settings >> About and click "Check for updates."

You may also update directly from the Microsoft Store. Search the Microsoft Store for "Fast-Weigh Ticketing," or find our app at the direct link:  https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9pgbwrvnqgsv

You can also verify that your app is up to date by going to Downloads and Updates in the Microsoft Store as shown below:
 

Enjoy! 

Need support? We're happy to help.

Contact Our Support Team

TAC Insight is pleased to announce our new Hauler Pay module for Fast-Weigh 10. The Hauler Pay feature is designed to streamline your payments to material haulers and trucking companies.

Tracking and reconciling payment to hauling companies can be a challenge for material suppliers and contractors. By incorporating hauler payables directly into our Fast-Weigh 10 Material Management platform, we’ve simplified the process of generating trucker statements based on Fast-Weigh material tickets. Hauler Pay works directly with your existing Fast-Weigh 10 scale tickets, mobile tickets, and Proof-of-Delivery records to automatically generate accounts payable statements to independent haulers and trucking companies.

How Does it Work?
Similar in function to our Fast-Weigh Invoicing module, Hauler Pay allows users to generate payable statements from a simple web interface. Batches can be created based on a number of fine-tuned parameters including Region, Date Range, Hauler, Location and Order. For each statement generated, Fast-Weigh automatically assigns statement numbers to all vendor payable records. Statements can be printed or emailed directly to Haulers at an email address specified under their Hauler profile. Your Hauler Pay records can also be uploaded to your accounting system to reduce data entry and prevent accounting errors. 

Sample Hauler Pay Statement

The Fast-Weigh Hauler Pay is available immediately and can be added on to any existing or new customer subscription. 

Get Fast-Weigh 10
For more information on our cloud-based scale ticketing and material management platform, visit www.tacinsight.com/fast-weigh, give us a call at 865-219-2980, or email us at support@tacinsight.com.

Need Support? Let Us Know.
Contact our Customer Care team. We're here to help you solve any issue.