Make Your Life Easier with These 5 RTA Tools

Running a fleet operation is hard. You have a staff to manage, vehicles to keep on the roads, and mandates to follow. Not to mention the mounds of paperwork to sort through.

To make your job easier, we recommend using the following tools in RTA. As trainers with decades (seriously, DECADES) of experience, we help fleet managers and employees find efficiencies in the software to make their operation run smoother. These five features are at the top of our list.

Paperless Shop

RTA’s Paperless Shop module gives technicians better control over their workflow, repair documentation and historical lookups.

It tracks labor to each specific job and allows technicians to instantly create a work order and clock onto it at the same time. It also lets more than one technician clock onto the same job.

Other benefits of the Paperless Shop module include the ease and ability to lookup previous vehicle histories –both parts used and jobs done — as well as provides one-click access to the vehicle master information. Pairing the module with barcoding equipment lets you quickly post parts out of inventory.

Warranty Claims

It’s crucial to track your warranty claims to make sure you are not losing money at your operation. In addition to tracking standard OEM and Parts Warranties in the RTA system, the Warranty Claim module will track your warranty recovery by:

Providing printable warranty documentation, including Purchase Order and Work Order information.
Offering a printable claim form (or using the claim form information to help fill out an online form).
Keeping track of the claim once it has been submitted, including how many days it has been in the pipeline.
Once a claim has been received (either monetarily or with replacement parts), then the claim can be used to apply credits to the appropriate vehicle and can be closed out.
Finally, besides keeping your warranties in the forefront so nothing is lost in the shuffle, the module will also compile some really nice reports that can show you the effectiveness of your warranty recovery program. These can include:

Total dollar amounts for submitted claims.
Average claim time from submission to recovery.
Total received monies/cost value.
Total denied monies/cost value.
Total outstanding monies/cost value.
Vendor return rate percent.

F1 Lookup Lists

The F1 Lookup Lists can be a powerful tool to help you quickly find the information you’re looking for in the system.

For those on a SQL database, the F1 Lookup List can:

Sort columns by ascending or descending order, and by multiple columns.
Move and rearrange the columns.
Remove columns.
Add columns from preselected data fields.
Create new columns and use equations to formulate the data in the column.
Filter columns.
Save the customized lookup list for future usage. You can have multiple saved lookup lists.
The lookup lists can be printed as a report.
The lookup lists can export as:
- Xlsx File
- Txt File
- CVS File
- Word Document
- PDF File

Replacement Projections and Reports

When running a fleet, you need to know when it’s time to replace your vehicles. In RTA, you can track vehicle replacement two different ways — Replacement by Year and Replacement by Score.

Replacement by Year is set up by the year of the vehicle and:

Year to be replaced
Projected life meter when it needs to be replaced
Projected resale value
Purchase price
Projected inflation rate %
Upfitting costs

The report can project out as far as 5 years and will let you know which vehicles are to be replaced each year, the cost to replace them, and how much you are projected to recoup from the resale of the vehicle.

Replacement by Score is designed after the APWA guidelines. It scores the vehicle on five categories:

Projected age “life expectancy”
Projected mileage “life expectancy”
Maintenance costs vs. purchase price
Service counts per year (WOs or WO Lines)
Vehicle condition

The vehicles can receive a score from 1 to 25+. The lower the score, the better condition the vehicle is in.

The Scoring report color-codes the vehicles based on their score:

1-6 (Blue): Excellent condition.
7-11 (Green): Good condition.
12-18 (Yellow): Consider replacement.
19-25+ (Red): Needs replacement.

Parts Catalog

Your staff needs to save as much time as possible when completing Work Orders. That includes determining which parts you need for the job. RTA makes it easy with the Parts Catalog button on the WO parts posting screen.

When selected, it will search and display a history of parts posted to the VMRS code based on your selection of:

Same Year, Make, and Model
Same Make and Model
Same VMRS Code

From the list you can check the boxes to the left of the part numbers, then select the “Post Parts” button, which will post the selected parts to the WO.

These are just a handful of features that can improve your workflow and make your life easier.

To learn more about the RTA system and how it can help your fleet operation become more efficient and successful, contact us to schedule a demo.

About the Author — Kevin Meek: Kevin began working for RTA in 1999. In his 20 years with RTA, he has worked as a Support Technician, RTA Trainer and has been a resident report writer for 18 of those years. He enjoys traveling and helping customers get the most out of their RTA software.

About the Author – Alan Jarman: Alan started working for his father, driving crawlers and farm tractors and irrigating citrus groves in south Phoenix. For 16 years, he drove and did mechanical work on commercial trucks. For the past 25 years, he has been part of the RTA team, providing technical support and training.

Make Your Life Easier with These 5 RTA Tools