How to keep track of truck loads with your phone.
Count truck loads from the cab: one tap per load, a time on every tap, totals per truck and a shift total you can export to a load sheet.
To keep track of truck loads with your phone, make a counter for each truck in a folder for the shift, and tap a truck’s counter once every time it leaves loaded. Each tap is saved with its time, each counter holds that truck’s loads, and the folder adds them up to the shift total.
Tally marks on the cab window work until your count and the hauler’s disagree at the end of the week. Then the question is not only how many loads, but which truck and when. A count with a time on every load can answer that. A column of strokes cannot.
This guide uses Tally Counter, the app behind this blog, for one person counting on one phone: the excavator or loader operator, a site checker, or whoever signs the load sheet. You make each tap yourself. The phone does not detect trucks, weigh loads or read tickets.
What a load count needs to show
A load record answers four questions: which truck, which load, when, and how much. Florida DOT’s Daily Report of Truck-Measured Material (form 700-050-54) is a clear example. Each truck gets a row with its number and capacity, then a numbered box for every load with the time of dump written under it, then the total loads and volume.
A counter per truck keeps the same record. The counter’s name is the truck, each tap is its next load, and the history saves the time of every tap. Volume comes later, from loads and body capacity. Ticket numbers and material still come from the tickets.
One counter, or one per truck
| Setup | What you get | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| One counter called Loads | Consecutive load numbers for the site, each with a time | Many different trucks, or you only need the site total |
| A counter per truck | Loads per truck, a time on every load, the shift total as the sum | The same trucks cycle all day, or haulers are paid by load |
This guide uses a counter per truck. One excavator operator describes the same setup in a review of the app: “I load more than 200 trucks a shift. This app lets me list every truck and automatically records the time of every tap.”
A folder’s running sum is only meaningful when every counter in it counts the same thing. Keep only truck counters in the shift folder. A separate Total counter in the same folder would count every load twice. The traffic-count guide uses the same idea for vehicle categories.
Set up the shift folder
Create a folder for the job, such as North pit · day shift. Add a counter for each truck, named the way the truck is known on site: fleet number, plate or driver. In this example they are T-12, T-07, T-31 and T-05.
| Setting | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Step | 1 | One tap is one load |
| Initial value | 0 | A reset starts the next shift at zero |
| Goal | Off, or planned loads | Shows progress; set it to keep counting past it |
| Colour | One per hauler | Trucks from the same company group by eye |
| Note | Your counting rule | Anyone who picks up the phone knows when to tap |
Turn off values below the initial value, so a stray minus cannot take a truck below zero. If a truck arrives that is not on the list, add a counter for it in the same folder before its first load leaves.
Pick one moment to count
Decide what makes a load count and write it in each counter’s note. If you load the trucks, count when a loaded truck pulls away. If you receive them, count when it tips, as the Florida form does. Counting some trucks on arrival and others on departure is how two people end up with different totals.
Then choose how to tap:
- Folder list. With the shift folder open, every truck has its own plus and minus. Tap the truck that just left.
- Home Screen widgets. Add a small widget for each truck and set each one to a different counter. Once the phone is unlocked, a tap on a widget adds a load without opening the app.
- Apple Watch. Open the shift folder on the watch and tap the truck. Each tap keeps the time you made it, even when the phone receives it later. The Apple Watch guide covers setup and syncing.
- Volume buttons. They add and subtract on the counter that is open, while the app is on screen and the counter is unlocked. They do not work from a pocket or the Lock Screen, so they suit a single Loads counter better than four trucks.
In a loud cab, turn on vibration so you feel each count land. If the phone sits in a mount, keep the screen awake.
A missed load, or a tap you did not mean
If you tapped T-07 instead of T-12, subtract one from T-07 and add one to T-12. The history keeps both corrections with their times, so the record shows what happened instead of hiding it.
If a truck left without a tap, add it as soon as you notice and mark it on the load sheet. The time saved with that tap is when you added it, not when the truck left.
Lock the counters before the phone goes into a pocket or a door bin. A locked counter cannot be changed in the app until you unlock it.
Worked example: one shift, four trucks
This is a hypothetical ten-hour shift. Three trucks carry 10 cubic yards each, and one larger truck carries 14.
| Truck | Body capacity | Loads | Volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| T-12 | 10 yd³ | 14 | 140 yd³ |
| T-07 | 10 yd³ | 13 | 130 yd³ |
| T-31 | 10 yd³ | 12 | 120 yd³ |
| T-05 | 14 yd³ | 9 | 126 yd³ |
| Shift | 48 | 516 yd³ |
The folder shows 48 at the top. Volume is loads times body capacity, worked out in the spreadsheet. If your trucks are rated in cubic metres, the arithmetic is the same. Treat it as an estimate: a heaped, short or wet load changes the real figure. Where you are paid on weighbridge tickets or measured quantities, those govern, and the count is how you check that no ticket is missing.
The history also shows turnaround. T-12’s 14 loads in ten hours average one about every 43 minutes. If its history has a 90-minute gap at midday, that was lunch, a queue at the tip or a breakdown. The count tells you where to ask, not which one it was.
End of the shift: export the totals and the times
Export before you reset anything. Tally Counter has two CSV records for different jobs:
- Counter summary: one row per counter, with its title, folder, current value and the time of its last recorded action. These are your loads per truck. Filter the folder column to the shift and copy the values to the load sheet.
- Counter history: one file per truck, with a row for each action: date and time, action type, action value and resulting total. On a counting row, the resulting total is that truck’s load number for the shift. Do not add the total column down the file; those are running totals, not separate loads.
Keep the original files and do the volume sums in a copy. For the next shift, reset each truck’s counter to zero. The reset goes into the history with its time, and yesterday’s loads stay there; filter the history by date to find them.
Counting, folders, goals, history and CSV export are free. Premium adds things a site record sometimes needs: notes on history entries for ticket numbers, PDF export for the site diary, detailed statistics such as loads per day across a week, and copying or resetting a whole folder in one go.
When you need a haul-management system
A tally holds the loads you tap. It does not weigh a load, read a ticket, follow trucks by GPS or send an invoice. Tally Counter keeps counters on one device, so two checkers at two gates keep two records and add them afterwards; it does not combine a live total across phones.
If the job needs weighed loads, geofenced tip records or a dispatcher watching every truck, use a haul-management or telematics system built for that. The same applies to a stockpile you need to measure: the inventory guide covers counting what is in the yard, not what left it.
Common questions
How do I keep track of truck loads without a load sheet? Make a counter for each truck in a folder for the shift and tap it every time that truck leaves loaded. The folder adds up the shift, and each truck’s history records the time of every load. Export the totals to a sheet at the end.
How do I work out cubic yards from truck loads? Multiply each truck’s loads by its body capacity and add the results. In the example, 48 loads from four trucks came to 516 cubic yards. Treat it as an estimate; tickets or weighed quantities govern payment.
Can I count loads without unlocking my phone? Not from the Lock Screen. Once the phone is unlocked, a Home Screen widget adds a load without opening the app, and Apple Watch counts from your wrist. Volume buttons work only while the counter is open on screen.
Where do ticket numbers go? With Premium, you can add a note to a history entry, so a load can carry its ticket number. Without notes, keep the tickets in load order and match them to the times in the history.
Does this work for concrete or harvest loads? Yes. Use a counter per truck and a folder per day for concrete trucks leaving a batching plant, or for grain and silage loads at harvest. Counting works offline with no account, which helps on sites and fields without signal.
Try it on tomorrow’s first load
Set up the shift folder with tomorrow’s trucks, make a few practice taps and export the summary CSV. If the names, folder and totals read the way your load sheet does, reset the counters to zero and count the real shift the same way.
Truck loads are one of fifteen tally counter uses. Get Tally Counter for iPhone, Apple Watch or Android, or see the features first.
