Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-02-02
KEEP TRACK OF
COST OF TRUCKS
There Us Need of Standard
System For Recording
Operating Expense
by w. f. Mower
Manager of B. f. Goodrich Co. Local
Branch

/
Branch
Perhaps one Of the most urgent
needs of the motor truck industry
| to-day is for a standard system of
Keeping track of truck operating
COSTS a large number of truck oper-
ators are either not making or not
saving the money they should from
their trucks. Many of them are ac-
! tually losing money. Why is this?
Simply because truck owners have
been too busy delivering their goods
to ask themselves, first, what does
1t actually cost me? and second,
| what ought it to cost?'
with the necessity for wartime
economies the need for keeping
track of motor truck costs is more
urgent than ever. In the past many
cost systems have been devised and
distributed to motor truck owners,
and while these systems were gen.
orally compiled by experts and were
complete they We're not uniform and
different systems treated various
items of expense in different ways.
"A standard system setting down
n uniform method of figuring truck
costs would provide a common Ian
guage by which the experience of all
truck operators in the country could
be related and understood
1t would unlock a great store
house of information which is at
present closed to the truck owner.
ANY individual system, however,
well designed, cannot serve the mo-
tor truck industry adequately so
long as several other cost systems,
which also may be we'll designed,
are in existence. The difficulty comes
fro nalF Nf 60, s#xr a. Il
treatment of various items of e&-
pense. Truck owners who use sys-
TENS which have been compiled by
authorities on motor truck account
ing or by general expert account
ants, and which are generally COM
plete, show results which are not
subject to comparison because of
varying methods of computing iden-
teal items. There are, for instance,
at least four methods of figuring
depreciation.
Two truck operators, A and p,
use systems devised by competent
accountants. AS cost system pro-
vides that depreciation shall be fig
ured at twenty per cent. a year,
charging off the entire cost at the
end of five years, but BIS system de-
clares that depreciation must be
figured on a mileage basis, allotting
$4,000 miles as the expected life of
the truck. Both operators use cost
systems devised by experts yet the
difference in computing this one
item alone may amount to 500 or
5000 a year.
IF all or even the great major
ity of truck owners began to figure
depreciation according to the stand
ard formula an enormous gain
would be accomplished, for COM
mon denominator would be estab-
lished by which one truck could be
compared with n thousand trucks in
respect to this item.
A we'll conceived motor truck cost
system should reveal Number of
trips; customers or deliveries; total
loads in units; average load in units;
miles travelled; round trip distance;
unit--miles; miles per gallon of
gasoline; miles per gallon of oil;
standing time at plant in hours and
minutes; running time in hours and
minutes Gncluding stops); average
loading time pen trip; average speed
in miles per hour; estimated run
ming time per hour; estimated time
per customers stop Tin minutes);
cost per day Cat work); cost per
mile; cost per unit; cost per unit
mile.
Now suppose n standard system
were adopted and widely used
which would enable a great many
truck operators to compute these
items in the same way. The bene-