Case study: FreightVana

“The value we extract from RMIS is, quite frankly, a no-brainer.”

– Don Everhart, Chief Technology Officer, FreightVana

Industry veterans choose RMIS to simplify carrier onboarding and compliance.

When you’re the CTO of a hot, new freight brokerage founded by industry veterans, dedicated to reinvention, and chasing growth, you need to move fast — and carefully. Solving that challenge with technology is the daily reality for Don Everhart, the company’s CTO. FreightVana hit the ground running with an experienced but small team. Streamlining time-consuming tasks to focus on what moves the business is key to Everhart’s vision. That’s why he turned to RMIS for carrier onboarding and compliance assurance.

About FreightVana

FreightVana went live in 2021, founded by industry veterans including co-CEOs Shannon Breen and John Gamero. Everhart, Breen, and Gamero all hail from Knight-Swift. Together the team boasts more than 200 years of combined experience. Their mission: “to make logistics more sincere, less volatile, and better for everyone involved.” That’s no small goal. And technology is central to achieving it, Everhart says. Everhart was tasked with deploying a carrier onboarding solution that would help FreightVana streamline onboarding and compliance, and maximize resources. Having used “essentially every onboarding product” out there, Everhart’s decision to go with RMIS was an easy one.

As we looked at all the players, RMIS stood far away from the crowd.”

– Don Everhart

The challenges

FreightVana faces the same challenges all freight brokers face when hiring carriers to cover their loads. Manual onboarding is labor-intensive, tedious, and prone to human error in a fast-paced environment where speed, efficiency, and accuracy are critical to meeting high demand, keeping customers happy, and gaining a competitive edge. But diligence is crucial to limit risk. Every broker knows carrier-provided data can be inaccurate, outdated, or invalid. Carrier compliance status and safety updates can change even during a load’s lifecycle. And fraud is an ever-present threat. Addressing all these concerns while maintaining speed, efficiency, and accuracy is critical to a brokerage’s competitive viability and success. If a broker under pressure relaxes the high level of diligence required to ensure carrier compliance, the broker is exposed to the risk of liability in the event of a mishap. That’s a risk FreightVana won’t take, Everhart says. Nor should any broker business of any size.

“Insurance monitoring is such a people intensive process, and it requires so many heads to really stay ahead of it.”

The solution

To reduce risk and save time, FreightVana chose RMIS Carrier Onboarding solution for a host of reasons, primarily its best-in-class status when compared against other solutions.

Everhart learned early on that automating the process empowered the onboarding team to fast-track carrier hiring without cutting corners. How fast? Up to 80% faster than doing it manually. With automated access to onboard an expansive database of active carriers on file with RMIS in the U.S. and Canada, continuous carrier monitoring, a branded carrier registration site, and fast access to required documents, Everhart quickly gained confidence in the product, allowing him to focus on aspects of his job that need his ongoing attention.

“As a CTO, I have a lot of systems and a lot of day-to-day worries. But I don’t have to worry about our onboarding process or our carrier vetting process. I don’t have to worry if we’re running carriers with expired authority. I know RMIS is one of the few areas I don’t have to focus on right now.”

The results

Deploying RMIS has delivered peace of mind, and it’s made onboarding fast and effortless for FreightVana’s team so they can move more freight and realize more profit—a direct bottom-line impact. That’s no small achievement for a start-up like FreightVana, and it has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated by its founders. Here are some of the benefits FreightVana attributes to deploying RMIS:

Support and service

The willingness of Truckstop to listen to any RMIS concerns, complaints, and feature requests is one of the team’s favorite perks. “They think it through with us,” Everhart says. “And they visit us in person. They’re here to help you set up. The team was engaging across the org to make sure we had everyone on the same page and happy with what we were rolling out.” The RMIS team’s handling of rush requests is another stellar aspect, according to Everhart. He describes a 15- to 20-minute turnaround time, calling it “very fast.”

Fraud mitigation

To keep fraudulent players and documents out of its system, FreightVana can enjoy the same protection as a major brokerage with hundreds of employees. “We have a lot more confidence that—as a smaller shop who might not catch it—the RMIS system will catch it. In the case of a carrier blacklist or even a carrier that’s being examined, the system will catch it,” Everhart says.

Cash flow and profitability

With carrier onboarding taken care of, FreightVana founders and employees can focus on areas of the business that are critical to success: business development, growth, and profitability. For Everhart, that includes back-office automation, payments, invoicing, and collections. “With RMIS, I’ve got a process that’s stable, so I can focus on getting cash in the door faster. That provides a ton of value.” — Don Everhart

Operational efficiency

Any time money is saved and resources are maximized, operational efficiency is achieved. In the freight business, profit margins can be slim, so optimizing every business motion to increase those margins is a win. Being a startup founded by industry veterans from the ground up, FreightVana needed to be efficient out of the gate. Implementing RMIS carrier onboarding was an early win for the people in charge of operations at FreightVana. “My operations folks are very opinionated, and they are not shy about telling me that something is not working. I have not had a single complaint about RMIS.” — Don Everhart

Data availabilty

In a world powered by artificial intelligence and robust data collected from multiple sources, FreightVana’s team is thrilled with the high level of data access available at their fingertips when onboarding a carrier and checking that their documents are in order. Anything less puts them at risk. When it comes to data accessibility, plus the breadth and depth of the relevant data for compliance issues, RMIS beats the competition by miles. FreightVana utilizes this wealth of high-quality data to onboard carriers with ease, grow its network of trusted, compliant carriers, and extend superior customer service by assuring their cargo is in the very best hands in the business.