Which part do you need?
| Part | Use it for | How you get it |
|---|---|---|
| Dispatch | Delivering your own sales orders | On wherever Sales is on |
| Fleet management | Running the vehicles your staff use | Switched on in Settings. The plan needs Fixed assets and Accounting |
| Freight and shipments | Carrying goods for customers, for a charge | On wherever Fleet is on |
| Lease and rentals | Hiring assets out to customers | Separate module. An asset can be in both and shares one cost history |
A delivery run
Stock leaves the warehouse when the delivery is confirmed, not when the truck departs. Delivery reports show performance by driver, route, vehicle and month, and why deliveries failed.
- Routes: set up the areas and days your vehicles cover, and put customers on them.
- Plan: tick confirmed orders and draft delivery notes, then choose the date, warehouse, route, vehicle and driver.
- Order the stops: put them in driving order by hand.
- Load: print the pick list and manifest, and mark as picked and loaded.
- Dispatch: the run appears on the driver's phone.
- Deliver: the driver gets directions and can call the customer. The receiver types their name and signs. A photo is optional, and the location is recorded where the phone allows.
- Part or failed deliveries: enter the quantities or choose a reason. A failed stop goes back to be planned again and nothing has left the warehouse.
Running the fleet
Vehicles come from your asset register, so cost, depreciation and disposal stay in Fixed assets and the fleet adds the operating profile. Hired and third-party vehicles can be added without an asset.
- Allocations and trips: request, approval, handover, acknowledgement and return. Double booking is refused, and the message names the clash.
- Drivers: staff from HR or contractors by name, with licence, expiry and authorised categories. An expired licence blocks allocation unless an approver records an exception.
- Fuel: each fill is checked. More than the tank holds, or a repeated receipt number, is refused. High consumption and possible duplicates are flagged. Your own tanks can be run as stock, with dips and reconciliation.
- Maintenance: schedules by km, hours or months, and work orders from request to release, with parts issued from stock and outside work linked.
- Tyres: each tyre by serial, with cost per km.
- Incidents and insurance: accidents, claims and recoveries, with the recovery posted as its own income.
- Compliance: licences, inspections and policies with expiry warnings. An expired mandatory document can block allocation.
What it costs you to run
Costs come from the ledger: anything coded to the vehicle, whether from Expenses, Purchasing, Inventory, Petty cash or journals. The report gives cost per km or hour, consumption against benchmark, utilisation, lifetime total cost of ownership, and replacement candidates.
Costs can be allocated to departments by kilometres, trips, days or fixed percentages. An exceptions page lists what needs a look, such as unexplained mileage, idle vehicles with costs, or costs posted without a vehicle code.
GPS trackers
Navigate does not supply trackers. It takes positions from your tracker provider through a feed with a key, or from a CSV export. You then see the last position, a day's route, and flags for speeding, use without a trip, and trips where GPS and odometer differ by more than 15%. Positions older than your retention period are deleted each night.
Freight for customers
Rate cards charge per kg, trip, km, piece or cubic metre, generally or per customer and lane. Each shipment gets a waybill and a public tracking link that hides the charge and the customer's account. Delivered shipments are billed on one invoice per customer.
Where Navigate may not fit
- No route optimisation. Stops are ordered by hand.
- No offline mode for drivers. Proof of delivery needs a connection.
- No trackers or hardware supplied. GPS needs your own provider.
- Live positions are as recent as your provider's feed. CSV import is not real time.
- Fleet is not on plans without Fixed assets and Accounting.
- Fleet is for your own vehicles. Billing customers for hire belongs to Lease and rentals or Freight.
Frequently asked questions
Does Navigate optimise delivery routes?
No. You put a run's stops in driving order by hand. Directions open in the phone's maps for each address.
Can drivers record deliveries offline?
No. Recording a delivery needs a connection. The offline screens are for customer visits and sales orders only.
Do I need Fleet to use Dispatch?
No. Dispatch comes with Sales. Fleet is for managing the vehicles themselves and needs Fixed assets and Accounting on your plan.
Which GPS trackers does it work with?
Any provider that can post positions to the feed address with its key, or export positions to CSV. Check this with your provider.