What can trucking companies automate?

Carriers and 3PLs can automate load intake from broker emails and load boards, driver dispatch notifications, check-in and ETA updates back to the broker, proof-of-delivery capture, POD-to-invoice creation in QuickBooks, factoring submissions, detention tracking, and recurring compliance reminders. The highest-value build for most small carriers is POD-to-invoice, because it is the step that directly controls how fast you get paid.

How much does trucking automation cost?

Every build is fixed-price and scoped in writing before work starts, with no monthly fees to Aplos AI and no hourly billing. Single automations such as POD-to-invoice or driver check-in start around $2,000-$5,000. Multi-tool builds connecting your TMS, ELD, accounting, and factoring company run $8,000-$25,000. You own what we build and it runs on your own accounts.

Can you automate if we do not have a TMS?

Yes. Plenty of small carriers run on email, spreadsheets, and a phone. We build against whatever is actually there, including parsing rate confirmations out of broker emails. A TMS makes the build cleaner and cheaper, but it is not a prerequisite.

Do you integrate with Samsara, Motive, or KeepTruckin?

Yes. ELD and telematics platforms are usually the source for location, HOS, and arrival times. Note that webhook delivery from these platforms can lag, so any build that depends on an arrival timestamp needs a reconciliation pass rather than trusting the first event it receives.

How long does a trucking automation build take?

A single automation is typically 1-2 weeks from signed scope. A multi-tool build connecting dispatch, ELD, accounting, and factoring is typically 2-3 weeks. Complex work can run up to 6 weeks. The biggest timeline variable is how much of your load intake arrives as unstructured email or PDF rather than through an API.

Is there a monthly fee to keep it running?

No. Aplos AI charges a one-time fixed fee to build it. It then runs on your own accounts with no ongoing fee payable to us. Underlying tools you choose, such as an SMS provider or OCR service, are paid directly to those vendors and typically run $20-150 per month.

Built for Carriers, Owner-Operators & 3PLs

The load delivered
Friday. The invoice
went out Tuesday.

Most small carriers are not slow at hauling freight. They are slow at the paperwork that follows it. POD sits on a phone over the weekend, the invoice goes out days late, and the factoring submission waits on somebody remembering. We automate that chain once, for a flat fee, running on your own accounts.

Book a Free Audit Call How It Works

The paperwork is what costs you

📷

"The POD is sitting on a driver's phone"

Load delivered Thursday. Photo of the signed BOL never made it off the phone. The invoice cannot go out, factoring cannot fund, and nobody notices until somebody runs an aging report.

📧

"Rate cons come in as email attachments"

Every broker sends a different PDF. Someone retypes the load number, the stops, the rate, and the detention terms into your system by hand, and a typo becomes a short-pay three weeks later.

⏰

"We never bill for detention"

The driver waited four hours. Nobody logged the arrival time, so there is no evidence, so the claim never gets filed. That is revenue you already earned and simply did not invoice.

Four automations that run the back office

📜 From $2,000

POD to Invoice

Driver uploads the signed BOL by text or app → document attached to the load → invoice created in QuickBooks and sent to the broker the same day. The single highest-value build in trucking, because it is the step that controls how fast you get paid.

📨 From $4,000

Rate Confirmation Intake

Broker rate con lands in your inbox → load number, stops, rate, and detention terms parsed out of the PDF → load created in your TMS or spreadsheet → dispatcher reviews rather than retypes.

🚗 From $2,000

Driver Check-In & ETA Updates

Arrival and departure pulled from Samsara, Motive, or a text from the driver → broker updated automatically → every timestamp logged, so a detention claim has evidence behind it instead of a memory.

💰 From $4,000

Factoring Submission

Invoice plus rate con plus signed POD bundled in the exact format your factoring company wants → submitted automatically → funding requests stop waiting on somebody assembling a PDF by hand.

Three steps. Flat price. You own it forever.

🔍

Free Audit Call

30 minutes. We map your current process, find where time is leaking, and tell you exactly what's automatable: on the call, no fluff.

⚡

We Build It

One fixed price, locked in writing. We connect your existing tools: no software swaps, no new subscriptions, no surprises at the end.

✅

You Own It

Full walkthrough, Loom video, written handoff doc. Your automation, your accounts. $0/month to keep it running.

Build notes: what actually breaks

The parts of a trucking automation that quietly fail when they get skipped. These are the details that decide whether the thing still works in week six.

The POD photo is the whole build, and it is the flakiest part. Drivers photograph paper BOLs in bad light, at an angle, folded. OCR that works on a clean scan fails on that constantly. The build has to accept a low-confidence read, flag it for a human, and still attach the image to the load rather than silently dropping it.

Detention starts at arrival, not at the appointment time. This is the single most common billing error we see. If the clock is keyed to the scheduled appointment, every load that arrives early loses free time it was entitled to. Key it to the actual geofence arrival and log both timestamps.

ELD webhooks lag, sometimes by hours. Samsara and Motive can deliver arrival events well after the fact. Anything that fires immediately on the first event will be wrong. Build a reconciliation pass that re-checks the trip record before anything invoices or bills detention.

Every factoring company wants a different bundle. One wants invoice, rate con, and POD as a single merged PDF. The next wants them as separate attachments with a specific filename convention. Get the actual submission spec in writing before scoping, because it changes the build.

Multi-stop loads break single-stop assumptions. A build that assumes one pickup and one delivery will mis-handle every multi-stop, partial, and LTL run. Model stops as a list from day one even if the carrier only runs single-stop today.

Idempotency key on every invoice write. Retries, redeploys, and a driver uploading the POD twice will all create duplicate invoices without a key on the load-and-invoice pair. Duplicate invoices to a broker are worse than a late one.

Drivers change phone numbers constantly. Any SMS workflow keyed to a phone number rather than a driver record will quietly start texting a stranger. Key to the driver, treat the number as a mutable attribute, and honor STOP replies.

Broker portals mostly have no API. DAT, Truckstop, and most broker portals will not give a small carrier programmatic access. Realistic builds parse email or use a human-in-the-loop step. Anyone promising a clean portal integration should be asked exactly how.

Comparing who should build it? Our provider-type comparison applies to freight as much as to the trades: answering services, TMS add-ons, retainer agencies, fixed-price builds, and DIY all cost very different amounts by year three.

The load deliveredFriday. The invoicewent out Tuesday.