The two-truck calendar must earn enough haul-service fees to pay drivers, fleet costs and the collection gap. This fictional Memphis/Mid-South hauler sells truck-hours, with customer-owned material and direct customer disposal charges outside revenue. Its January 2027–December 2029 forecast remains loss-making despite later fee and workload growth.
Test the whole paid fleet against collected truck-hour fees. Neither material value nor dispatch coverage creates additional saleable truck capacity.
How many truck-hours are actually available?
Two trucks provide 320 available hours monthly. The base request is 192 before the opening ramp and seasonal weights; April sells 211.2. Aggregate, dirt, sand, debris and asphalt split the same hours once.
The price is for a selected haul service. Customer-owned material is not resold, and customers pay disposal charges directly. The table therefore contains no material margin, tipping-fee markup or automatic payment for unlimited waiting.
| Haul category | Sold truck-hours | Fee/truck-hour | Earned fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aggregate | 63.36 | $125.00 | $7,920.00 |
| Dirt and spoil | 52.8 | $125.00 | $6,600.00 |
| Sand | 31.68 | $125.00 | $3,960.00 |
| Jobsite debris | 31.68 | $140.00 | $4,435.20 |
| Asphalt | 31.68 | $135.00 | $4,276.80 |
Which costs belong outside direct purchases?
Direct purchases consume 34% of revenue. They cover the modeled fuel, repairs, tires and related purchases; salaried drivers are outside that percentage and counted once in payroll.
Two paid drivers each have a first-year monthly salary allowance of $5,000.00. Half-time owner dispatch is $2,500.00, before employer allowances. Dispatch supports the same trucks and does not replace a parked vehicle or add driving hours.
Does April hauling support the fleet?
April revenue is $27,192.00. Direct purchases are $9,245.28 and operating expenses are $20,468.84, leaving EBITDA of -$2,522.12. Busy seasonal work still fails to cover the selected paid structure.
Operating-year 2027 EBITDA is -$61,907.04, and net income is -$112,357.04. Depreciation lowers net income further. Owner compensation is already an operating cost, and neither measure is money promised for owner withdrawal.
How do delayed collections use the opening reserve?
The model collects on a 24-day delay and pays purchases without supplier credit. Only fuel/spares have a small physical holding allowance; external repairs and washing are not inventory.
Proposed owner equity is $440,000.00; startup uses are $255,000.00, leaving $185,000.00. Minimum forecast cash is $22,150.20. The investment remains unrecovered, funding is uncommitted, and refundable yard deposits and unquoted truck/site works are excluded.
Which hauling evidence should determine the rate?
For paid jobs, log loaded movement, empty movement, waiting, loading/unloading, travel and outages against the same trucks. Reconcile tickets, accepted billable hours and the actual payment date. A customer’s material bill does not measure the hauler’s earnings.
Obtain inspected truck, maintenance, yard and insurance quotes. Confirm the selected load/site boundary and assess extra scope before accepting it. Test a parked truck or slower collection while retaining driver and owner pay; another category label cannot replace missing capacity.
Make the next decision with your own evidence
Use accepted haul tickets, complete truck-hour logs and actual collections to test the rate before adding fleet commitments.
Explore published business plan examples ↗Claybank Hauling is a fictional prelaunch scenario prepared with AI assistance. Inputs are illustrative; forecast results come from the matching saved financial model. Funding is proposed. The diagrams explain the case and do not depict actual premises, established demand or promised earnings. Replace the assumptions with evidence before committing.
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