Transport & Logistics Accounting and Advisory

The Challenges Facing Regional Transport & Logistics

Transport and logistics businesses are the backbone of regional Australia. Without freight operators, livestock transporters and supply chain businesses, nothing moves. Products don’t reach market, livestock doesn’t get to sale, and regional communities lose their connection to the national economy.

But operating in this sector means contending with razor-thin margins, volatile fuel costs, an increasingly complex regulatory environment, chronic driver shortages and capital-intensive fleet requirements. Like manufacturing and construction businesses, transport operators face compliance and financial management challenges that generic firms miss. We do the accounting, tax and payroll in-house — fuel tax credits, fuel excise and GST treatment, driver award rates — and we do it so you understand it. From there come the opportunities most operators never get shown: fleet financing, driver structuring and route economics that change what the business earns.

Fuel, fleet and utilisation decide the month. You need an adviser who lives in the cost-per-kilometre economics, not one applying generic small-business advice to an asset-heavy sector.

That’s our expertise.

How We Help Transport & Logistics

We work with freight operators, livestock transporters, courier businesses and supply chain companies across regional NSW. Four pillars, each one built on the one before it — see how they fit together.

Example: Regional Freight Operator

A family-owned freight business running 22 trucks across regional NSW was profitable on paper but cash-poor. The owner was personally guaranteeing all fleet finance, fuel costs were eating into margins, and two key contracts were up for renegotiation with no data to support a price increase.

Challenges:

• No visibility on cost per kilometre by truck or route — pricing was based on “what we’ve always charged”
• Fuel tax credits under-claimed by an estimated $40K per year due to poor record-keeping
• All 22 trucks and the depot held in a single entity with the owner as personal guarantor
• Three drivers classified as subcontractors but working exclusively for the business — ATO risk
• Fleet replacement decisions made reactively rather than to a plan

Cyre Partners approach:

• Implemented monthly reporting with per-truck and per-route cost analysis — revealing two routes were loss-making and three trucks were running below 60% utilisation
• Fuel tax credit review and lodgement correction recovered $38K in prior-year claims, with systems to capture future entitlements accurately
• Restructured entities — fleet assets into a separate holding company, operating business in a trading entity, reducing personal exposure
• Transitioned three subcontractors to employment with compliant contracts, eliminating sham contracting risk
• Built a 5-year fleet replacement schedule aligned with instant asset write-off timing and finance terms

Outcome:

• Contract renegotiations secured 12% price increases supported by detailed cost data
• Two loss-making routes exited, one replaced with a higher-margin livestock transport contract
• Net margin improved from 6% to 11% within 12 months
• Owner’s personal guarantee exposure reduced by $1.8M through the entity restructure
• Fleet replacement now planned and budgeted — no more emergency purchases