Most small shred companies run on a mix of tools: a calendar or whiteboard for the schedule, paper tickets in the truck, a Word template for certificates and QuickBooks for invoices. It works until it doesn't. A missed stop, a certificate that took a week, or an invoice that never went out is usually the moment an owner starts looking for software.
This guide walks through what matters when you compare options, written for companies running one to a handful of trucks.
Start with your day, not a feature list
Write down how one piece of work moves through your company today: a client calls or signs up, the work gets scheduled, a driver services the site, the client gets proof, and you get paid. Every hand-off in that chain where someone retypes information is a place software should help. Bring that list to every demo and ask the vendor to show you each step.
Must-haves for a shred company
- Recurring service plans: weekly, every two or four weeks, monthly (including 'second Tuesday' and month-end), and on call, with holidays and pauses handled for you
- One-time purges and new accounts quoted from the same price list you bill from
- A driver app that works with no signal, because basements, loading docks and rural roads are where your stops are
- Proof at the stop: arrive and depart times, container counts, photos and the client's signature
- Certificates of destruction created automatically from the driver's record, numbered, locked once issued and emailed to the right contact
- Off-site work handled properly: a pickup receipt at the stop and the certificate after plant destruction, with the chain of custody in between
- Pricing built for shredding: per container, per pound, per box or flat, with minimums, fuel surcharge and customer-specific prices
- Invoicing per job or monthly, card payments from the invoice email and a clean hand-off to your accounting software
- Roles, so drivers see their stops and gate codes but not your prices or invoices
Questions to ask in every demo
- 1Show me what a driver sees with the phone in airplane mode. What happens to the stop when signal comes back?
- 2Show me a certificate of destruction. Can anyone edit it after it's issued? How are corrections handled?
- 3How do I get my customers, sites and containers in? Can I upload the spreadsheet I already have?
- 4How does a site with its own billing address, or billed to a parent company, get invoiced?
- 5What does it cost with my number of trucks and users? What's extra: setup, training, payments, accounting sync?
- 6Can I export all my data whenever I want, including if I cancel?
- 7Who answers when something breaks on a Monday morning, and how fast?
Red flags
- The driver app needs signal to save a stop.
- Certificates are documents anyone in the office can edit after they're sent.
- Your words have to be translated: 'jobs' are 'work orders', 'sites' are 'properties' and there's nowhere to put a container type.
- Getting started requires a long, paid onboarding project before you can see your own data.
- Pricing is per user, so adding a helper or office person costs you every month.
- There's no clear way to get your data back out.
Try it with real work
Where Trakro fits
Trakro is built only for independent shred companies with one to a few trucks. It covers scheduling, routes, the offline driver app, certificates, invoicing and QuickBooks Online sync, and it's priced by truck, not by user. Every plan starts with a 30-day free trial with no card.
Let Trakro handle the paperwork.
Certificates, chain of custody and invoices, built from every stop.