How it works
One carrier, one file, one careful read
This is a pilot, and it is hands-on work, done in the open. Here is the whole engagement, including the parts most services leave vague: what happens to your documents, and what this cannot do.
1
Start the intake
Fill in the intake form: your carrier details, how long you have had authority, how many trucks and drivers, and whether your audit letter has arrived. If it has, tell us the date on the letter. Your letter sets your deadline, and if there is not time to do this properly we will say so before you pay anything.
We reply with the delivery date confirmed in writing and the payment link. The $199 pilot fee is paid before the read begins.
2
Gather the pile
Send the documents you already have, in the shape you have them. Scans or clear phone photos are fine. The checklist below is drawn from what the auditor asks for. Anything that does not fit a category, send anyway; the shoebox is the point, and uncategorized documents get read too.
3
Every document gets read
Each document is checked for existence, signatures, dates, and name consistency across the file: the carrier’s legal name matching from document to document, each driver’s name matching their license. Documents you did not send are reported as not read, never as fine. Every verdict tied to one of the sixteen automatic-failure items (§385.321(b)) is reviewed by a person before the report ships.
4
The report and the packet
You receive two things. A flags report: every document present, missing, unsigned, expired, or under the wrong name, each finding with the rule cited. And your packet assembled as a ZIP in the order FMCSA’s Safety Audit Resource Guide and the NEWS upload work through it, with a manifest that cites the rule for each item. You make the fixes, and you submit the packet yourself.
5
Your paper is purged
Thirty days after your report is delivered, your uploaded source documents are deleted. What is deleted: the sources you sent, every copy of them. What is kept: the report and the verdict log, so we can answer questions about the work and keep our records straight. You keep your originals, the report, and the assembled packet. The full data statement is on the privacy page.
The gathering list
What to pull together
Drawn from §385.311 and FMCSA’s Safety Audit Resource Guide. Do not let a gap on this list stop you starting; finding the gaps is the job.
Drivers
- Your driver list
- For each driver: license, signed application, the MVR from hiring, the latest annual MVR and its review note, road test certificate or CDL copy, medical certificate
Drug & alcohol program
- Your §382.601 policy
- Consortium enrollment letter and random pool roster
- Pre-employment test results
- Clearinghouse query records (a query runs $1.25, FMCSA’s published rate, paid by you, never through us)
Vehicles and hours
- Your vehicle list
- Annual inspection reports and maintenance records
- Driver vehicle inspection reports (DVIRs)
- Thirty days of one driver’s records of duty status, with supporting documents
Insurance and accidents
- Insurance declarations and the MCS-90 endorsement
- Your accident register. It has to exist even if nothing has happened yet (§390.15)
- Plus a free space: anything else in the pile
What we cannot do
- We cannot create a testing history, a roster, a register entry, or a signature for a period that has already passed, and we will not backdate anything.
- We cannot cure the items that turn on conduct rather than paper. Several of the sixteen are about knowingly using a driver who should not have been driving. A document review can show you what your file says; it cannot change what happened.
- We cannot promise an outcome, and we cannot talk to FMCSA for you. We also cannot make a drug and alcohol program exist where none was ever set up; if that is your gap, the report will say so plainly, and the fix (joining a consortium) is yours to make.
- Where a document can honestly start today, like an accident register opened now, anything we describe is new paper with today’s date on it, labelled as such.
What we are not
- Not the government. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Transportation or FMCSA.
- Not FMCSA-certified or FMCSA-approved, and neither is anyone else. FMCSA does not certify or endorse recordkeeping vendors. There is no such program.
- Not a law firm, and a document review is not legal advice.
- Not a compliance department. This is a one-time read of the file you have now, not a subscription and not ongoing management.
- We do not file, upload, submit, or sign anything for you, and we do not speak to FMCSA on your behalf.
- We do not promise an audit outcome. We tell you what your documents show. FMCSA’s auditor decides the rest.
Rules checked November 2026 against 49 CFR Part 385 and FMCSA’s New Entrant pages.