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Tarvas Invest runs up to 140 international loads a week with a 4-person office team

Tarvas Invest swapped Excel and a USB stick for Planlogi and left its 10-hour Monday invoicing marathons behind. Invoices now reach customers a week earlier, cash moves faster, and the freed up time is invested into growing the business.

Company profile

Sten Eric Nirgi Tarvas Invest Logistik
Tarvas Invest is a family business offering freight forwarding and transport services. It has been moving goods between Estonia and Finland for more than twenty years.

Today the company runs 28 trucks and close to 50 trailers, and 100-140 loads pass through its hands every week. From sawn timber to metal and large structures, in full and part loads, in both directions across the gulf.

All of that volume is handled by an office team of just four people. Until recently, the entire workflow ran on Excel, paper documents and a USB stick: invoices were done by hand once a week, and information moved between the office and drivers over phone calls and text messages. Today, Tarvas Invest's whole order, driver-communication and invoicing workflow runs through Planlogi.

"Thanks to Planlogi, we can do a lot of other things that move us forward, learn and grow the company."

In this case study we hear from Sten, who is responsible for export and business development at Tarvas Invest, about what the company's day-to-day looked like before Planlogi, what finally pushed them to look for a new solution and why they chose Planlogi, and how a four-person office team now manages up to 140 loads a week with it.
  • Company size
    4-person office team and 28 drivers
  • Fleet size
    28 trucks + 50 trailers
  • Service area
    Estonia ↔ Finland corridor + domestic transport across Estonia
  • Order volume
    100-140 loads a week
  • Customers
    Industrial companies
  • Services
    International full and part loads, trailer shipping
  • Accounting
    Standard Books (integrated with Planlogi)
Tarvas Invest international carrier

Before Planlogi: every Monday meant 10+ hours of invoicing

Before Planlogi, the entire workflow lived in one big Excel sheet and on the phone. Orders were planned in Excel, drivers were reached by call and text, and when a job was done the driver simply replied "OK." If the driver didn't call in, the office didn't know whether the load was delivered, and on a busy day, if someone forgot to call and check, an hour was already wasted.

Addresses were a headache of their own: when a customer location was somewhere Google Maps couldn't find, the driver wasted time and nerves hunting for the destination.

"I'll confidently say that before Planlogi it was twenty years of horror."

The paperwork (CMRs and delivery notes) only reached the office at the end of the week in one big stack, and until that stack had been worked through, not a single invoice could be raised.

That's how Monday had become invoicing day. The whole of the previous week's invoices were made by hand, one at a time, and it took the entire day, 10-12 hours a week in total. And because there was no shared system in the office, finished invoices were carried from one computer to another on a USB stick so they could be sent out to customers from there.

For the customer, that meant the invoice arrived a week after the trip at best and for Tarvas, it meant the money always moved with a week's delay.

"Someone pulled the invoices onto a USB stick and ran to the other end of the office so the other could send them out to customers. It's the 21st century and we're running around the office with a USB stick…"

The most painful mistakes: one extra zero, or an invoice to the wrong customer

Flipping through and preparing invoices by hand for hours, from morning to night, mistakes crept in. So it happened that an invoice went to the wrong customer; sometimes the wrong VAT and fuel-surcharge percentages ended up on an invoice; and occasionally an extra zero slipped into the invoice and a customer was billed ten times the amount.

"If you make invoices from morning to night, in the end you will obviously make mistakes. In the end it's the company's reputation and image that's at stake."

Now and then a trip could simply go un-invoiced. When orders live in Excel and the stack of paperwork lands in the office a week later, there's nowhere that shows a job is still waiting to be billed. Every forgotten invoice is money left on the table.

Tarvas Invest European haulier

Why did Tarvas Invest choose Planlogi?

Sten had spent years looking for a TMS software that would tie orders, drivers and accounting together in one place.

The bar was high: over the years Excel had been tuned so well that the whole company picture fit on a single sheet, and replacing it felt hard. The final push came from that very time and effort spent invoicing by hand, and the risk of errors that came with it.

"I've wanted a TMS software that could connect all these processes together for a long time."

Several logistics software providers were researched and considered. With one vendor, it came down to the fact that all the setup and implementation were left on the customer's own shoulders. "Install it yourself" isn't the answer someone who runs exports, not an IT department, wants to hear.

"The guys at Rooleks Transport praised Planlogi pretty highly, saying they're a very switched-on team, who gets involved and thinks along with you. It's not a case of 'here's the manual, figure it out yourself.'"

Tarvas Invest came to Planlogi through a recommendation from a partner transport company the team is in close contact with, who praised both the Planlogi software and the team.

Sten took the demo on his own, without saying anything to anyone in the office at first, tried it out and made the first configurations together with the Planlogi team. And once the decision was made, it moved fast: Tarvas Invest moved its entire transport management over to Planlogi. After years of hesitation, the switch and onboarding turned out to be the easiest part.

The features that tipped the scales toward Planlogi

The decision for Planlogi also came down to specific, everyday solutions from the feature set:
  • A simple driver app
    Drivers learn to use the Planlogi mobile app in a single phone call.
  • A location pin right on the job
    When a customer sits somewhere Google Maps can't find, Sten adds a precise pin to the job and the driver sees all the information in the app.
  • eCMR in a few clicks
    On trips with several unloading points, the office creates eCMR waybills automatically in Planlogi and prints them out. No manual paperwork.
  • Duplicating repeat orders
    For repeat trips, the order goes in as a copy with a new reference number in seconds.
  • Linking ferry legs
    A multi-leg trip (trailer to the port, another driver picking it up) is split logically between drivers.
  • Pre-configured customer data
    Planlogi's customer database stores and links all the necessary information to a specific company from start to finish. An invoice can no longer go out to the wrong customer.
  • Accounting software integration
    Invoicing and accounting are connected, and information flows smoothly between the two.
  • eCMR and route card attached to the invoice
    The customer gets the invoice by email with a PDF that automatically carries all the proof of the completed trip.
Tarvas Invest managing transportation with Planlogi TMS

How does Tarvas Invest manage its transport with Planlogi now?

Sten's mornings now start in Planlogi: the day's orders go in, the previous day's jobs are checked, and if a job is already done, the invoice goes straight out.

Orders are entered and assigned to trucks in advance. The driver always sees the next move in the app and doesn't have to wait for a call from the office, and the office no longer spends time chasing drivers by phone.

The multi-leg Finland-line trips also run logically in the system: one driver takes the trailer to the port, another picks it up on the other side, and both see exactly their own part.

Where every trip used to mean messages and calls back and forth, now, Sten says, they half-jokingly have to call the drivers themselves to ask how it's going. The eCMR reaches the office the moment the driver finishes the job and the system uploads it automatically. Not as a stack of paper at the end of the week as before.

"Drivers don't have to call to say the load is dropped or picked up, and they can already see their next trip directly in the Planlogi driver app. Sometimes I don't hear from them for a while and half-jokingly have to call them to ask if everything's alright."

Clarity has come to invoicing, too. Sten sees at a glance whether all jobs are entered, assigned to trucks and invoiced, and if something is still open, it's clearly in view until it's dealt with.

The rhythm of the work has changed as well: where a whole week's invoicing used to pile up into one intense marathon day, the same work now spreads out in small steps across the week, as it goes and calmly.

"The driver uploads the eCMR when the job is done, and we can invoice right away. Where we used to make invoices once a week, today we send invoices out at the end of every day. Cash flow is far more reasonable and faster."

Customers have noticed the change too. The invoice arrives the same day, as a clean PDF with the eCMR and route card, and customers have even praised how "modern the setup is." Small details that together create a professional impression, and on top of it all, the risk of the wrong invoice landing in the wrong customer's inbox is gone.

"The wrong invoice can't go out to a customer anymore, because everything is done with pre-configurations. The customer gets a clean invoice with all the little details. In the end, it's those small details that matter a lot."

With Planlogi, the Tarvas Invest workflow looks like this:
  • Sten enters the day's orders into Planlogi in the morning and assigns the jobs to trucks.
  • The driver sees all the information in the app (addresses, the location pin, references) and their next trips.
  • When the cargo is unloaded, the driver marks the job done and the eCMR is ready for invoicing.
  • The office invoices the same day, connected through Standard Books.
  • The customer gets the invoice as a PDF together with the eCMR and route card.
Tarvas Invest Planlogi carrier first TMS

Planlogi freed up 250 hours a year, which is now going into growing the business

Where every Monday's invoicing used to take 10-12 hours, Sten now conservatively estimates the same work at about 5 hours a week.

"Now we can do a lot of other things that move us forward, learn and grow the company."

Over a year that adds up to roughly 250 hours of working time freed up, which now goes into growing the business and training the team so they can take on even bigger challenges in future. Growing volume no longer means growing chaos in the office.

Planlogi's results in numbers
Invoicing time cut in half
From 10-12 hours a week conservatively to under 5 hours
Over 250 hours of working time freed up a year
From invoicing alone
Risk of invoices sent to the wrong customer near zero
he invoice goes out pre-configured to the right customer with the correct VAT and fuel surcharge
Up to 140 loads a week with a 4-person office team
Freed-up time goes into the company's growth, and handling extra volume no longer means chaos and stress

To sum it up...

Tarvas Invest's story shows what the right tool means for a small-team. A workflow that lived in Excel, on paper and on the phone for more than 20 years moved to Planlogi, and the change was significant within the first weeks.


The Monday 10-12-hour invoicing marathon has been replaced by rolling invoicing: the invoice goes out the same day the load is dropped, and money moves a week faster. Over a year, invoicing alone frees up more than 250 hours, which now goes into developing the business rather than shuffling numbers around. Drivers see their next trip in the app, and the phone no longer rings for every load.


And most importantly: a four-person office team confidently manages up to 140 international loads a week, and volume grows without having to hire anyone new into the office.


As Sten himself sums it up: Planlogi is a good, complete TMS solution that simply brings driver communication and accounting together, everything in one place.


If your transport company's workflow still lives in Excel, on paper and on the phone, book a demo and let's take a look at how your team could make its workflow many times faster and smoother.

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What is Planlogi?

Planlogi TMS dispatcher dashboard and driver mobile app
Planlogi is a cloud-based transport management system (TMS) built for small and mid-sized road freight operators across Europe. It replaces the fragmented mix of spreadsheets, paper waybills, WhatsApp threads, and disconnected accounting tools that most growing hauliers rely on, bringing dispatch, eCMR, a driver mobile app, track-and-trace, proof-of-delivery, and invoicing into one platform.

Unlike enterprise TMS suites built for 500+ truck fleets, Planlogi is priced and designed for the hauliers that actually move European freight: fleets of 5 to 100 trucks, where every hour of admin time and every late invoice hits the bottom line.

Planlogi is a leading TMS platform for SMB European road transport operators, supporting the development and rollout of the eFTI system. Our platform meets both European Union requirements and local legislation, helping companies bring their logistics software into line with eFTI standards.