TIRpark vs the spreadsheet
The real market leader in truck yard management is not a software company. It is a spreadsheet, a cash drawer and a phone full of payment-app screenshots. It is free, everyone knows how to use it, and it genuinely works, until the day it doesn't. This page is honest about both halves: when the spreadsheet is the right tool, and what actually breaks first as a yard grows.
The spreadsheet is fine when
- A handful of monthly tenants, no transients, no attendants
- The owner takes every payment personally
- Nothing ever needs proving to anyone else
- The yard is a sideline, not a business you are growing
It stops being fine when
- Transient trucks arrive at night and someone else logs them
- Cash passes through hands that are not the owner's
- A driver disputes how many nights they owe
- You need to know what is on the yard without driving there
- A second person, shift or site enters the picture
Side by side
| a spreadsheet | TIRpark | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | First month free, then one subscription per lot |
| Record of each truck | A row someone remembered to type | A timestamped photo; the plate reads itself |
| Who is on the yard now | Unknown; the sheet records events, not state | A live list, paired in/out |
| Proof in a dispute | Your memory against the driver's | Arrival photo, timestamp, running total |
| Cash accountability | One drawer, reconciled by trust | Every payment under an attendant PIN, per-shift totals |
| Debt tracking | Manual, breaks on the second sheet | Sticks to the plate, surfaces on re-entry |
| Offline | Excel yes; shared online sheets degrade | Fully offline, syncs later |
| Multi-user | Conflicting edits or one locked file | Each attendant on their own phone, one record |
| Setup | You already have it | Install the app, set rates, start |
In defense of the spreadsheet
For a yard with eight monthly tenants and an owner who takes every payment personally, a spreadsheet is not a compromise, it is the correct tool. The volume is low, the owner is the control system, and nothing needs proving to anyone. Software that adds steps to that operation is overhead, not progress. If that is your yard and it is staying that way, keep the sheet; the rest of this page is about what changes when the yard grows past it.
The spreadsheet's real weakness is not capability but architecture: it records what someone chose to type, after the fact, with no evidence attached. Every failure mode downstream comes from that one fact.
What breaks first
Disputes break first. A driver at the exit swears it was one night, the sheet says two, and the sheet has no photo, no timestamp a driver will accept, and no way to show when the row was written or edited. The argument is settled by whoever argues better, and the regulars learn that arguing works.
Cash breaks second, the moment anyone but the owner touches it. A shared drawer reconciled against a sheet that the same person fills in is not a control, and the classic end state is the owner cross-checking a spreadsheet against a stack of payment-app screenshots at midnight, finding a gap, and having no way to say whose shift it belongs to. State breaks third: a sheet of arrival rows cannot say what is standing on the yard right now, so the answer lives in someone's head, and that someone eventually goes home.
What actually changes with TIRpark
The unit of record changes. Instead of a typed row, each truck's stay starts with a photograph: plate read on the phone, time stamped, vehicle type set, attendant identified by PIN. Nights are counted on a sliding 24-hour window from that stamp, so the exit conversation is two people looking at the same photo and the same clock. Balances attach to the plate, so a truck that left owing is flagged when it returns, whichever attendant is on.
And the sheet's best quality, that it costs nothing and starts instantly, is mostly preserved: TIRpark installs on the Android phone already in your pocket, the first month is free without a card, and if your yard truly is eight quiet monthlies, you will find out within that month whether the photo record earns its keep. Most owners find out the first time a debtor rolls back in and the phone says so.
Spreadsheet capabilities described are those of typical Excel or Google Sheets setups; your own workbook may be more sophisticated. The comparison is with the common practice, not with any vendor.
Try the phone-first side of the table
TIRpark's first month is free, with no card and nothing to install, so the cheapest way to settle this comparison is one real shift on your own yard.
