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Originally Posted by Nite Train
I have a couple of questions is it better to lease on to a company or get your authority ?? like money wise if you lease do you usually get paid weekly or ?? and when you have authority the broker usually does it net 30 right ?? just wondering i have been reading on here for a while and i am just curious..i am wanting to get a truck and put a driver in it to drive for me i do have a job and i want to keep it so i figured i could do this just to help out a little..i am planning it through before i spend any money i have about $ 10,000 in the bank now i know i probably need more though... if anybody has done this and has some advise i would appreciate it thanks
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Nitetrain, after obtaining my own authority and all the paperwork involved in getting set up with brokers, not to mention all the agencies involved ie. IRS, TXDot, USDot, IRP plates, State Comptroller, Business filings etc. etc. Setting up an office and load boards and the list goes on and on, which does not even include the time to check out purchase, register, and rig out equipment for the road.
When you go from a lease operator to a carrier, or as you call it, owner operator, you have ten times more administration and you have to get it right, or risk severe penalties.
I really don't believe I could have done it and held down a job. It took me three weeks around the clock to just going in Texas, and I came home to do more paperwork after I was out a week. My wife also was a tremendous help on the administration side. Some of this stuff just takes time, and one thing can be dependent on another, so there can be delays.
I know when I worked for Schneider, there was a guy that had quite a few trucks leased on to Schneider, and ironically, many of them were former Schneider drivers, so they already knew the program. I think he paid better, but I'm not sure about the benefits.
Lease operators get paid a weekly settlement, and in some cases if the fuel card is provided by the carrier, you would receive what was left after fuel, repairs, insurance. Out of that you would pay your truck payment and employee. Bear in mind you still have an "employee", which will still require workmans comp and all the regs that govern that.
Even if you become a lease operator, you still are in business, where as, if you owned your own truck that you drove, it would be somewhat simpler and you would not be responsible for a lot of stuff and that is why drivers do it. They either don't have the time, or the help to get their own authority, or are making enough money to avoid the hassle.
After going through what I've gone through, I would not run my own authority with just one truck. It is not much more work to run two or three more, the paperwork is already in place.
I would be most concerned about where I was going to get a driver, and could I endure the loss of a driver till I found another one. I have been in the position in business (multi locations), where my employees got the idea I was far enough disconnected from the business (like your outside job), that they used that against me to try to get more money refused to follow policies. I usually would have to go in and dismiss them and do the job myself till I could find a replacements.
If you really want to get your own authority, you really need some business experience, or the help of someone that has had some business experience.
jonboy
Trying to get started
