This is a guide to how the electronic, interactive cost tables work. There are four main steps involved in working out how much to charge and how much your trucks and your fleet costs.

Step 1- Getting started

After you have clicked on the Register button on the home page, you will be asked to put in an e-mail address, user name and password. This information allows us to store information on your fleet on the system so you can reuse it in future. The e-mail address also enables us to send you updated information on changes to costs such as VED rates, and to help us help you if you forget your password. You can give any name as a user name (as long as it is not already in use), and choose any password.

Once you have registered, you will see a notice saying "To create a new fleet click Here". Click where it says and you will go to a new page. This is the Quick Fleet Builder and enables you to get going quickly without having to give lots of information. Just put in the number of vehicles you have in each category of vehicle. Don't worry if your vehicles do not exactly match the categories here. Just select the nearest vehicle - it includes vans as well as trucks. If you have only one vehicle, just put in that vehicle, it works equally well for one truck or one thousand.

Quick Fleet Builder page

You also need to put in the fuel prices you are currently using.

When you have done these, press "Build Fleet". The system now automatically works out the costs for each vehicle in your fleet. To do so it uses the fuel costs you have given, plus the current costs used in the Motor Transport cost tables. This will give you average costs for vehicles of this type. Don't worry - in Step 2 you can change all of the MT figures for your own to get them exactly right.

Step 2 - Getting the figures right.

Once the system has worked out the figures it will take you to a screen showing all costs of your total fleet and how much you need in total to charge year to achieve a 5% profit margin. Using the side bar you can change the fuel costs for your fleet or change the overhead (establishment) costs (ie those costs not related to a particular vehicle. If you want to see details of individual vehicles you should click on "View my fleet".

My Fleet page

This takes you to the "My Fleet" page. On the right hand side of the screen (above) you will see details of all your vehicles. The details of each vehicle goes across the page. The chances are that our average figures will not match your figures. So go to a vehicle and go along the line and click on any figure and it will allow you to change it to exactly what you are paying. The system automatically saves any changes after you make them. You can also change our standard description of a vehicle with one that identifies your individual trucks - it could be a name or number. You can change the figures on each vehicle individually.

Note that on artics we also include a trailer. If you want the costs without a trailer, just set the trailer costs to zero. If you want just a trailer cost, set the truck costs to zero and just fill in the trailer costs.

There is also another, possibly easier way, to change your costs. For a particular vehicle press [View] in the first column of the truck information. This will take you to the cost table results page (below) for that particular truck.

Vehicle cost table results page

This shows you the total charge you should make per year and per mile for the vehicle based on the profit margin, annual mileage, and costs selected. It also gives a full breakdown of the vehicle's costs broken down by running costs and standing costs.

If you look at the left-hand column running vertically down the page, there is an easy way there to change the costs for that vehicle. You will see under "Edit" list of options. They are:

• Vehicle Name
• Vehicle Cost, Depreciation & Resale
• Trailer Cost, Depreciation & Resale
• Tyres
• MPG & Maintenance
• Wages, Insurance & Licences
• Usage & Profit Allowance

Just select the option you want to change and you can directly change the figures in the box (see example below)

Press update after making the changes to return to the updated cost tables results page.

Step 3 - Getting back to my fleet costs?

If you are on a cost tables results page for an individual vehicle just go to the left hand column and click View My Fleet. This takes you back to the My Fleet page where we started. Look at the left-hand navigation column. The second option from the top says View My Fleet Costs. Click on this.

This will bring you up a cost table covering all the vehicles in your fleet.

Step 4 - what if?

You might want to see what happens to your fleet costs if the fuel price rises (or maybe even falls). Just click on "Change fuel prices" in the navigation bar in the left hand column and change it. When you press update it will return you to the fleet costs showing the effect of the new price. You might want to change your overhead costs for your fleet. You can see the effect of that by clicking on Change Establishment Costs in the navigation column, changing the figure and pressing update. This updates the establishment costs, and divides them equally between all the vehicles on the fleet.

If you want to change the figures relating to individual vehicles you need to select View my fleet and then change the costs of individual vehicles. You could, for example, see the effect of writing them off over a shorter or longer period - to do this you have to change the depreciation period on each vehicle. See the results on the fleet by selecting View my fleet costs.

Finally

You don't have to confine yourself to one fleet! If you have a number of depots or vehicles working on different contracts, you can have a number of fleets. To create a new fleet, just press View My Other Fleets from the navigation bar in the left hand column, and from the User Options on the left hand column choose Quick Fleet Builder and take it from there. It will automatically give you a new number for this fleet. You can change it, however, to any name you wish. If you already have a new fleet you can select it from this page.