Dump truck CFO services: per-truck profit and when the second truck pays

One truck, one profit file

We run a profit statement per truck, because a fleet average hides exactly the truck that is losing money. Each unit gets its revenue by job and rate type against the six costs that eat it: fuel, the driver, maintenance and tires, insurance and licensing, the financing payment, and a share of yard overhead. Rate type matters as much as the rate. Hourly work shifts site-delay risk to the contractor; per-load and per-tonne rates pay well on short cycles and quietly go underwater when the queue at the pit or the paver stretches — the same truck can be profitable Monday and subsidizing a job Tuesday. Where work comes through a dispatcher or aggregate broker, their percentage comes off the top and belongs in the rate math, as does whether the fuel surcharge you charge actually tracks the fuel you burn.

A season has to pay for a year

Construction hauling compresses most revenue into the paving and excavation season, while financing, insurance, and plates bill for twelve months — so the number that matters is break-even per working day: annual fixed costs divided by the days you can realistically bill. That number decides what rate you can accept, whether the truck parks or plows in winter, and how much cash the good months must leave behind. We maintain a rolling 13-week cash forecast around the seasonal curve, receivables from contractors on slow terms, HST filings, and the spring insurance and licensing cluster, so March does not arrive as a surprise.

Winter itself is a decision with numbers attached. Plowing and salting contracts keep the driver and some cash flow but add equipment, standby hours, and wear; parking the truck saves variable cost but leaves the payment and insurance running against zero revenue. We price both paths against the fixed stack each fall rather than defaulting to whatever last winter looked like. The per-load and per-hour data behind all of it comes from clean books — see our dump truck bookkeeping page for how we keep them.

The second truck: arithmetic, not ambition

Add a truck when three things are true at once: the first truck is fully booked through the season at rates that clear full cost, the incremental work is committed rather than hoped for, and a driver is actually available — because the real risk of truck two is an empty seat with a payment attached. Until all three hold, broker the overflow: passing spillover loads to another operator earns a thin margin with zero fixed cost, and it proves whether the extra demand is real before you finance it. A second truck doubles the fixed stack on day one and almost never doubles revenue in year one; the model has to survive that gap.

Financing the iron

The financing decision is a total-cost decision: a used truck trades a lower payment for a bigger repair reserve and more downtime risk, a new truck trades warranty coverage for a payment the winter still has to carry, and in both cases the loan term should not outlive the truck's reliable years. We compare loan and lease offers on cost per working day, keep balloon payments visible in the forecast instead of forgotten at the end, and hold back a repair float so one blown engine does not become a missed payment. On tax, heavy freight trucks generally sit in a fast CCA class, which front-loads deductions in the purchase year — that is a deferral, not extra profit, and we plan for the higher tax bills that follow so the refund year does not get spent twice. US equipment and parts sourcing questions live on our dump truck cross-border tax page. Fees are fixed, quoted after a discovery call.