FAST vs the spreadsheet
The spreadsheet is the real market leader in linehaul back offices — free, familiar, and infinitely flexible. It also has a failure curve: what works at 3 trucks quietly breaks somewhere before 10, and the breakage lands on pay week.
Competitor details from their public website as of August 31, 2026.
| FAST | Spreadsheets | |
|---|---|---|
| Settlement intake | Imports and parses itself weekly from MyBizAccount / Forward Air | Download PDF/CSV, re-key or paste, fix column drift — every week |
| Driver pay math | Rates configured once per driver; engine applies them to every parsed trip | Formula per cell; every new driver/rate/exception multiplies fragility |
| Error surface | Dedupe, zero-week handling, week-over-week anomaly visibility | One wrong cell reference pays someone wrong; you find out from the driver |
| Missing money | Missing trips / short-paid fuel flagged while the dispute window is open, then tracked through an adjustments pipeline to paid | Found quarterly, if ever — usually after the window closes |
| IVMR / MMR | Built from ELD odometers with gap detection; MMR in one click | A second spreadsheet, plus chasing odometer readings by text |
| Driver trust | Every driver sees a weekly pay breakdown on their phone | “Can you send me the spreadsheet?” — disputes by group text |
| Key-person risk | The system knows the pay rules; anyone can run the week | The person who built v14_FINAL_FINAL.xlsx is the only one who can run it |
| Cost | From $25/tractor/mo, no per-user fees | “Free” — plus the owner’s Saturday, every week, and every error that ships |
Where Spreadsheets is strong
- Genuinely free and infinitely flexible — no vendor, no onboarding, no subscription
- Fine at very small scale with a single, simple pay rate
- You already know how to use it
Where FAST is strong
- The pay week that took a day takes minutes — carriers report exactly this
- Errors get caught by the system before drivers catch them
- Compliance (IVMR/MMR/IFTA) builds from data captured once at the source
- The business survives the spreadsheet’s author going on vacation
// THE HONEST VERDICT
Keep the spreadsheet if your fleet is small, your pay plan is one rate, and your evenings are free. The moment you have driver-level rates, spot tiers, team splits, or IVMR deadlines, the spreadsheet’s real price is your weekend — and the errors drivers find before you do.
Frequently asked questions
When does a spreadsheet stop working for linehaul payroll?
The common breaking points: driver-level rate overrides, tiered spot rates, team splits, fuel-aware percentage pay, and any week the person who owns the spreadsheet is unavailable. Most fleets hit one of these between 5 and 10 trucks.
Can I keep my spreadsheet and use FAST?
You won’t need it for pay math, but you can export everything. Most carriers keep a spreadsheet for ad-hoc analysis and let FAST run the weekly loop.
What does switching involve?
Connect your settlement source, add drivers and their rates, and run your next pay week in FAST alongside your old sheet. Carriers describe setup as “straight forward” and “super easy”; there’s no setup fee and plans are month-to-month.
Decide with your own settlement.
Set up in minutes, priced per tractor, month-to-month — see your numbers in FAST.
Get startedCompetitor information is drawn from each company’s public website as of the date shown, and may have changed — verify current details with the vendor. All product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners. FAST and the companies mentioned are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Federal Express Corporation or FedEx Ground.