Introduction
At $4.7M in annual revenue, this North Texas logistics carrier looked healthy from the outside. Trucks were running, lanes were full, and drivers were getting paid. But leadership was operating without a clear financial picture.
Payroll was a weekly anxiety. Vendor payments were frequently late, which was damaging supplier relationships the business depended on. The budget was a static spreadsheet that hadn’t been updated in months. Monthly variance between plan and actuals regularly exceeded $120,000, and no one had a system for understanding why.
Revenue was healthy. What the business lacked was visibility into its own numbers, and with 28 employees depending on consistent payroll, that gap carried real risk.
The Situation
LTL carriers operate on thin margins with high fixed costs and unpredictable revenue cycles. Freight delays, fuel prices, driver availability, and slow payments from brokers and shippers make cash flow hard to predict without forward-looking financial controls.
When Stratovus came in, three problems were driving the instability:
Cash balances fluctuated week to week with no reliable forecast in place. Leadership couldn’t tell, with any confidence, whether there would be enough to cover payroll the following Friday. Decisions were being made reactively rather than from a plan.
Vendor payment cycles were running 39 days on average. Late payments were triggering supplier friction, cutting off access to priority service and favorable terms on parts and expedited repairs.
The budget hadn’t been updated in months, and the monthly variance of more than $120,000 went unexplained.
The Finance Reset: A 13-Week Cash Forecast and a Payroll Floor
The first job was replacing reactive cash management with a forecast the business could run on. Dan built a 13-week rolling cash forecast updated weekly, accounting for every inflow and outflow including payroll, fuel surcharges, broker payment cycles, and lane-specific costs.
Dan set a mandatory payroll cash threshold of $95,000, so payroll was covered before anything else was paid. Vendor payables were ranked by urgency and strategic importance, which let the business get ahead of payment cycles and start repairing supplier relationships.
A real-time dashboard was built showing cash on hand, accounts receivable aging, fuel efficiency by vehicle, revenue per lane, and budget-to-actual variances. Monthly leadership reviews were added to the calendar. For the first time, the owner had a current financial picture tied to the decisions he was making each week.
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Payroll cash cushion | Unpredictable | Minimum $95,000 maintained every payroll week |
| Vendor days outstanding | 39 days | 25 days |
| Forecast variance (plan vs. actuals) | Over $120,000/mo | Under $22,000/mo |
| Financial dashboard | None | Real-time, discussed monthly with leadership |
Stratovus CFO: From Controls to Strategy
With the controls in place, the carrier moved into Stratovus CFO for forward-looking planning and strategy.
Monthly leadership meetings became structured reviews of forecast-to-actual performance, lane profitability, driver cost per mile, and fuel efficiency benchmarks. The owner stopped wondering whether he could make payroll and started deciding on driver hiring, fuel contracts, and lane expansion.
Stratovus’s accounting partner maintained the books and supported the monthly close process. Each quarter, Dan assessed the carrier’s tax position with input from Stratovus’s tax partner and gave the owner recommendations on estimated payments and year-end planning to take to the carrier’s tax preparer.
The numbers showed which lanes were profitable after fuel and driver costs and identified two underperforming routes. The forecast showed the carrier could add drivers ahead of a volume increase, within a specific timing window. The tax position was no longer a year-end surprise.
| Decision | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Driver hiring plan | Approved with timing tied to cash forecast thresholds |
| Fuel contract evaluation | Fixed contract locked, reducing monthly fuel cost variance by $1,900 |
| Lane profitability | Two underperforming routes identified and repriced |
| Vendor relationships | Restored, with early payment discounts generating $8,700 in savings over six months |
| Tax position | Assessed quarterly, no year-end surprises |
Conclusion
This carrier had $4.7M in revenue, 28 employees, and unpredictable cash flow, and the cause was a financial leadership gap. Decisions came from last month’s bank statement.
With that leadership in place, payroll is covered every week, vendor payment cycles dropped from 39 to 25 days, and lane decisions rest on actual margin data. The owner can spend his time running the business.
“I’ve spent most of my career focused on operations, drivers, equipment, customers, and keeping freight moving. Finance was always something we looked at after the fact, and eventually that catches up with you. Working with Dan helped us get control of the business in a way that was practical and easy to use. He brought structure to the financial side without overcomplicating it, and that gave us a lot more confidence in the decisions we were making. He understood our business quickly, and that made a real difference.”
Owner, LTL Carrier