On Friday, a convoy of dump trucks rolled from Abbotsford and Surrey up Highway 1 into Vancouver. The drivers weren't hauling anything — they were protesting. Diesel had hit $2.84 a litre in Vancouver that morning, and as one 23-year owner-operator, Raginder Bhandu, put it to reporters: "We work for free right now."
That line stuck with us, because it names a problem that has nothing to do with how hard anyone is working. Fuel is the single input an owner-operator has the least control over, and it moves fast — sometimes mid-week, sometimes mid-job. Most hauling and excavating outfits are still running on a rate that was agreed to before the tank got expensive again, with no clean way to true it up on the invoice that actually goes out.
The real problem isn't the price — it's the paperwork gap
If your ticket process is a photo, a text, or a stack of paper in the cab, there's no place to put "diesel jumped 30 cents since we quoted this job" that survives the trip from ticket to invoice. By the time someone gets around to billing, the surcharge conversation either never happens or turns into a separate, awkward ask after the fact — assuming anyone remembers to have it at all.
What Tragget actually does about it
This is a narrow, specific gap, so the fix is narrow and specific too: when you log a ticket in Tragget, you can add a line to that ticket — a fuel surcharge, a wait-time charge, whatever the job actually cost you — right there, before it ever becomes an invoice. It's tied to that load, it shows up as its own line item, and it goes out with the rest of the invoice the same day the job wraps. No separate email, no "sorry, one more thing" follow-up.
It doesn't set your fuel-surcharge rate for you, and it doesn't change what your customer agrees to pay — that conversation is still yours to have. What it removes is the paperwork tax on having that conversation at all.
You don't need to wait on us to try it
You can see this today, on your own account, without booking a call or coordinating with anyone you haul for: sign up, log one real ticket from a job you've already wrapped, name the customer, and approve it. You'll have a sendable invoice the same day — add a custom line to it and see exactly how a surcharge shows up before you ever send one to a real customer.
Diesel prices aren't going to stop moving. The least we can do is make sure your paperwork keeps up with them.