| Sector | Parcel delivery and logistics depots |
|---|---|
| Common problems | Manual per-stop pay calculation, commission disputes, attendance on paper, no per-driver performance view |
| Oxus built | DepotIQ, live delivery depot management software |
| Typical fix | Capture attendance, routes and stops as they happen; reconcile commission at consignment level |
| Starts with | A free operational audit |
| Area served | Ireland |
What the admin actually looks like
Ask anyone running a parcel depot where the time goes and you get the same answer: not the deliveries. The vans go out and come back. The administrative weight sits at the end of the period, when someone has to turn a fortnight of operational noise into figures that can be defended.
The specific problems recur across almost every depot Oxus has seen:
- Attendance recorded on paper. Who was in, on which day, on which route, captured in a way that has to be re-read and typed up later.
- Per-stop pay calculated by hand. Stops multiplied by rates, in a spreadsheet, with the rate that applied at the time held in somebody's memory of when it changed.
- Commission that does not reconcile. Your total and the client's total differ. Nobody can say why, because there is no way to compare at parcel level.
- Performance known anecdotally. Everyone knows which drivers are causing problems, but nobody has the per-driver figures needed to do something about it.
- Queries that require rebuilding the calculation. A driver disputes a figure from three weeks ago and the only way to answer is to redo the work.
Why it is worth automating
Depot admin has the exact profile that makes automation pay for itself. It is high volume, entirely rule-based, done under time pressure, and the errors are expensive: an overpayment is rarely recovered, an underpayment damages a driver relationship, and an unresolved commission gap is money written off.
It is also, critically, data that already exists. The depot is not missing information. It is capturing it in forms, on paper and in memory, that make it useless until somebody spends days converting it back into figures. The intervention is capturing it correctly at the moment it happens.
What Oxus does about it
Capture at the point of work
Attendance, routes and stops are recorded as they happen rather than reconstructed afterwards. Everything else depends on this.
Rates that are held against dates
Per-stop pay is calculated on dated rates, so a historic figure stays correct after the rate changes. This removes an entire class of dispute.
Reconciliation at consignment level
Commission is reconciled by consignment number, which means a discrepancy points at specific parcels instead of producing two totals and an argument.
Performance per driver
Compliance, Predict and Service failures tracked per driver, so a manager can have a specific conversation with a specific person while the events are recent.
The software we built for this
Oxus Technologies built and operates DepotIQ, delivery depot management software for multi-depot parcel operators. It is live and in daily use. DepotIQ is designed to be the head of the depot, controlling and tracking everything that runs through it, and it includes Marshal, which answers questions on the depot's own figures in plain English.
If DepotIQ fits your operation, that is usually the fastest route. If it does not, the same problems can be addressed through systems integration with what you already run, or a custom build.
Where to start
Start with a free operational audit. We will follow one period's reconciliation through your depot and tell you exactly which parts of it a computer should be doing.
Frequently asked questions
What is the biggest admin cost in a delivery depot?
Almost always the period-end reconciliation: working out what each driver is owed, checking commission against the client's figures and resolving the differences. In most depots this is done in a spreadsheet by one person, takes days, and cannot easily be checked by anyone else.
Why do commission figures never match?
Because both sides are comparing totals rather than individual consignments. Two totals that differ give you no way to find the cause. Reconciling at consignment-number level identifies the specific parcels responsible, which turns a dispute into a lookup. That is how DepotIQ handles it.
Our per-stop rates have changed several times. Does that matter?
Enormously, and it is one of the most common sources of quiet error. A pay calculation has to use the rate in force on the day the work was done, not today's rate. Systems that store a single current rate will silently produce wrong figures for every historic query and every recalculation.
Can you work across multiple depots?
Yes, and multi-depot operations are where the problem gets worst, because each depot develops its own way of recording things. A shared system is what makes depots comparable. DepotIQ was built for multi-depot parcel operators specifically.
We already use the client's system. Why would we need our own?
Because the client's system answers the client's questions. It will not tell you what a driver is owed under your rates, which of your drivers is accumulating service failures, or whether a depot is profitable. Those are your questions and they need your data.