Hunts Point trucking operations are different from long-haul freight. Routes are shorter, loads turn over faster, and the margins on each haul are tight. A company running 20 or 30 short loads a week can feel busy and still lose money if nobody is tracking what each load actually costs to move. Per-load job costing is how you figure that out.

Start with the revenue side. Each load has a rate, whether that comes from a broker, a direct shipper contract, or a spot market posting. Record that rate against a job number or load ID. Every cost that follows gets assigned to that same load.

Driver pay is usually the biggest direct cost. Whether you pay per mile, per hour, or a flat rate per load, that amount gets coded to the specific haul. If a driver handles two loads in a day, split their pay accordingly. Lumping all driver pay into one monthly expense tells you nothing about which loads are profitable.

Fuel tracking matters more on short hauls than people realize. A truck burning fuel sitting in traffic on the Cross Bronx or idling at the Hunts Point terminal eats into a margin that was already thin. Track fuel purchases and allocate them by load based on miles driven or hours on the road. Fuel cards that tie purchases to a truck make this easier.

Tolls are a real cost center for Bronx-based operators. Routes through the Whitestone, Throgs Neck, GW Bridge, or any MTA crossing add up quickly when you’re running multiple loads a day. Every toll needs to be recorded against the load that triggered it. EZ-Pass statements give you the detail you need, but someone has to actually assign those charges to the right haul.

Truck depreciation and insurance don’t change per load, but they still need to be allocated. Calculate a per-mile depreciation rate for each vehicle based on its purchase price, expected useful life, and estimated total mileage. Divide your monthly insurance cost by the number of loads or miles to get a per-load allocation. These numbers won’t be exact, but they give you a more honest picture of what each haul actually costs.

Brokerage fees or dispatcher commissions come off the top of revenue. If a broker takes 15% or 20% of the load rate, that’s a direct cost of that specific haul. Track it as such. Loads from direct shipper relationships with no broker cut will always look more profitable, and seeing that contrast in your numbers helps you prioritize those relationships.

Once all these costs are assigned, the math is straightforward. Revenue minus driver pay, fuel, tolls, depreciation, insurance, and brokerage fees equals your gross profit on that load. Do this consistently and you start seeing patterns. Maybe loads going to certain destinations always lose money because of tolls. Maybe a particular broker’s rates never cover your actual costs.

The tracking itself can happen in QuickBooks using jobs or projects if it’s set up for freight and logistics accounting. Each load gets created as a job, and all revenue and expenses post against it. Some operators use a TMS or even a well-structured spreadsheet, but the data eventually needs to flow into your accounting system so it ties to your actual financials.

The companies that do this well aren’t guessing about which loads to take and which to turn down. They know their breakeven cost per mile, they know which routes are profitable, and they can negotiate rates with real numbers behind them. If you’re running loads out of Hunts Point without this visibility, a provider offering small business bookkeeping in the Bronx who understands trucking cost structures can help you build the system from scratch and maintain it going forward.