Fleet software that thinks your excavator is a truck
Search for heavy equipment fleet management software and most of what you find is truck software wearing a hard hat. It was designed for highway fleets — route optimization, dispatch boards, ELD compliance, fuel cards — and then marketed to anyone with more than five machines. The design assumption underneath all of it is the odometer: distance travelled is the measure of work done. That assumption breaks the moment the asset is an excavator.
- Mileage PMs never come due. A dozer can log 1,800 hard hours in a year while covering fewer miles than a delivery van does in a day. Schedule its services by distance and the software will cheerfully report that nothing is overdue — right up until the engine lets go.
- Records are shaped like vehicle files. VIN, plate, fuel card, driver assignment. There is nowhere to put a final drive's rebuild history, an undercarriage inspection, or the hour count on a swapped engine — the things that actually determine what a machine is worth.
- Field workflows are built for drivers, not technicians. Route-first apps capture trips and stops. A maintenance operation needs inspections that feed backlogs, work orders a mechanic can close from the cab, and meter readings that keep PM schedules honest.
- Costs are measured per mile. Cost per mile is a meaningless number on a machine that is rented, billed, and bid by the hour.
Tenmil takes the opposite starting point. It is fleet maintenance software engineered around the hour-meter reality of construction, mining, and earthworks fleets — built in Edmonton, Alberta.
One record per machine, for its whole life
Fleet management starts with knowing exactly what you own and what condition it is in. Tenmil gives every asset a complete lifecycle record — not a row in a register, but the machine's full working history:
- Components tracked separately from the machine. Engines, pumps, and final drives carry their own hour counts — a rebuilt engine starts its own clock instead of inheriting the chassis meter — with full replacement and rebuild history and per-component warranty tracking with expiry alerts.
- A running backlog on every asset. Deferred repairs, upcoming services, and pending parts live on the machine, tagged with where each item came from — inspections, operator reports, or PM checklists — prioritized by severity, and added to a work order in one click.
- An honest hour history. Meter readings flow in from digital inspections and your telematics feed, so the hour count that drives PM schedules and cost per hour reflects what the machine actually did.
- Fluids accounted for. DEF and Freon usage is logged against specific assets, meter readings, and work orders, with consumption trends that flag anomalies and EPA-compliant refrigerant records.
The maintenance side of that record — work orders from open to close, PM programs, shop workflows — is covered in depth on our heavy equipment maintenance software page.
Preventive maintenance that runs on the hour meter
Hour-based preventive maintenance only works if the hours are current, and that is where most systems quietly fail — someone has to walk the yard with a clipboard, and by the time readings are typed in, the 500-hour service is at 620. Tenmil keeps the meters live from two directions:
- From the field: meter readings captured during digital pre-trip inspections update asset hours in real time — no separate reading run, no transcription.
- From your telematics feed: Tenmil syncs live equipment data for hour meters, location tracking, and fault alerts, so machines report their own hours without anyone touching a keypad.
The same telematics connection does more than count hours. Fault code triggers turn incoming machine data into action: configure severity levels and response actions per code, and critical faults create work orders automatically, notify supervisors, and assign technicians — while low-priority codes get logged without cluttering the board. Scheduled maintenance reports flag overdue and upcoming services so PM compliance is a number you track, not a feeling. On the Advanced plan — which carries the telematics integration described above — inspections and greasing routes round out the recurring-service program.
The payoff is mundane and enormous: services come due when the machine has actually earned them. No more servicing an excavator that sat parked for six weeks because the calendar said so, and no more discovering that the loader everyone assumed was fine blew past its interval three weeks ago. When the meters are live, the PM board stops being an argument and starts being a schedule.
True cost per hour on every asset
The number a heavy fleet actually runs on is not cost per mile — it is what each machine costs for every hour it works. Tenmil tracks ownership, maintenance, and operational costs separately for every asset and rolls them into a true cost per hour broken down into capital, repair, and operating expenses:
- Hourly rate trending shows how costs change over the machine's lifetime, so you can see the curve bend before it gets expensive.
- Rebuild and sell points come from real financial data on the asset, not gut feel about how tired it looks.
- Direct invoicing catches the strays. Emergency repairs, on-site service calls, and third-party invoices with no purchase order get allocated straight to the asset — split across multiple machines by percentage or fixed amount if needed — and every one updates the asset's cost-per-hour metrics.
This is the discipline covered on our equipment cost tracking software page — and if you want the operational argument for why it matters, read shop rate: the number that decides whether your maintenance department is a cost center or a business.
Parts and purchasing that keep machines working
A machine down for want of a $40 filter costs the same per hour as one down for a blown pump. Tenmil's parts and procurement layer exists to make that scenario rare:
- Real-time inventory with automated reorder points, so stock levels reflect what is actually on the shelf and the system flags reorders before the shelf is empty.
- Cross-parts mapping finds the right part every time. Equivalent parts are linked across manufacturers, superseded part numbers still resolve to the current part, OEM and aftermarket alternatives compare at a glance, and compatibility is verified against specific equipment models before ordering.
- Parts warranty tracking stops double-paying. Warranty details are captured at install — hours-based or date-based — and the system warns a technician who is about to replace a part the supplier should still be covering.
- Purchase order workflows with approvals keep procurement moving without letting spending go feral, and every PO lands on the asset it was for.
Field operations from the shop, the yard, and the jobsite
A fleet management system is only as good as the data coming in from the field — and heavy equipment works in places where paper gets lost and cell coverage doesn't reach. Tenmil's field layer is built for that reality:
- Mobile work orders, online or offline. Technicians complete work orders, run inspections, and look up parts on iOS and Android with full offline support — data syncs automatically when the device is back in coverage. More on the mobile CMMS app.
- Digital pre-trip inspections that feed the system. Guided inspections replace paper forms; failed items automatically create backlog entries on the asset, photos and notes attach to any item, and the full inspection history is kept for compliance and audit readiness.
- A live GPS fleet map with geozones. Every asset appears on a live map with real-time positioning and status. Draw custom geozones point by point, assign them to projects, and configure entry, exit, and idle alerts — so equipment moving between multiple sites is visible from one view.
- Time cards tied to the work. Technician hours post directly against work orders and assets, a weekly view shows each team member's hours and completed jobs, labor costs calculate automatically with regular and overtime rates, and approved time cards export to payroll in one click.
The same field layer serves every industry that runs heavy iron — construction, mining, earthworks, agriculture, forestry, equipment rental, government and municipal fleets, and energy — because the underlying problem is identical: machines that work far from the office, and decisions that depend on knowing what happened to them today, not last month.
Reporting the whole operation runs on
Everything above produces data; reporting is where it becomes decisions. Tenmil ships the reports a heavy fleet actually asks for:
- Up/Down reports showing fleet availability and downtime by asset — the industry-standard answer to "what's running today?"
- PM compliance reports that flag overdue and upcoming services before they become failures.
- Utilization reports that surface underused assets and redeployment opportunities — the machine idling at site A is the rental you didn't need at site B.
- Accounting-ready cost reports broken down by asset, location, or time period, exportable as PDF, Excel, or CSV — or scheduled for automatic delivery to your team.
And because the fleet system is rarely the only system, Tenmil connects to the ERP and accounting platforms already in place — QuickBooks, Sage, Procore, IBM Maximo, Oracle NetSuite, Oracle JD Edwards, Acumatica, and Explorer — alongside your telematics feed, so financial data flows without re-keying.
Truck-first software vs spreadsheets vs Tenmil
Most heavy fleets evaluating heavy equipment fleet management software are really choosing between three options: fleet software designed for trucks, the spreadsheets they already have, or a system built for machines. Here is how the three compare on the things that decide whether iron makes money:
| Capability | Truck-first fleet software | Spreadsheets | Tenmil |
|---|---|---|---|
| PM scheduling | Mileage and date intervals built around odometers | Date reminders someone has to maintain by hand | Hour-meter PMs fed by inspections and your telematics feed |
| Asset records | Vehicle files: VIN, plate, fuel card | Tabs that drift out of date | Full lifecycle: components, hour history, backlogs, warranties |
| Cost tracking | Cost per mile, if anything | Recalculated once a year by hand | True cost per hour per asset — capital, repair, and operating |
| Parts & purchasing | Basic or bolted on | A second spreadsheet, or nothing | Inventory with reorder points, cross-parts mapping, PO approvals |
| Field data capture | Driver apps built for routes and ELD | Paper forms typed in later | Offline mobile work orders and digital pre-trip inspections |
| Multi-site visibility | Trip and route focused | None | Live GPS map, geozones per project, entry/exit/idle alerts |
| Pricing | Behind a quote form | Free, until it costs you a machine | Public: $75–$99 per user/month, free trial |
The last row is not a throwaway. In a category where nearly every vendor makes you book a sales call to learn the price, Tenmil's plans are public — and the free trial requires no credit card, so you can judge the software on your own fleet before anyone follows up.
Pricing you don't have to ask for
Most vendors hide their pricing behind a quote form. Tenmil's is public: per-user plans, free trial, no credit card required.
- Free trial on every plan
- Mobile app included
- Data migration help at onboarding
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about choosing heavy equipment fleet management software.
The terms overlap heavily. Fleet management software traditionally emphasizes vehicles in motion — location, dispatch, utilization. Fleet maintenance software and CMMS (computerized maintenance management system) emphasize keeping assets running: work orders, PMs, parts, and costs. For heavy equipment fleets the useful product combines both, which is what Tenmil does — a CMMS core of work orders, hour-based PMs, parts, and purchasing, plus fleet operations like a live GPS map, geozones, inspections, and telematics sync.
Look for hour-meter-based PM scheduling, full asset and component records, work order management, parts inventory with purchase order workflows, cost-per-hour tracking with ownership and maintenance separated, digital inspections, a mobile app that works offline, GPS fleet visibility with geozones, and reporting for availability, PM compliance, utilization, and costs. If a product leads with routing, odometers, and ELD compliance, it was designed for trucks — not machines.
Tenmil publishes its pricing: Professional is $75 per user per month and Advanced is $99 per user per month (USD), with custom Enterprise pricing for larger operations. Advanced adds telematics integration, inspections and greasing, and the live GPS fleet map. Every plan includes the mobile app, and there is a free trial with no credit card required. Most vendors in this category hide their pricing behind a quote form.
Because the machines barely accumulate miles. An excavator can work 1,500 hard hours a year while moving only a few miles around the site — a mileage-based PM would never come due, and a purely calendar-based PM services idle machines while overworked ones keep digging. Engine wear, fluids, filters, and component life on heavy equipment all track hours worked, so the hour meter is the only honest scheduling basis.
Yes — if it is built for it. Tenmil tracks ownership, maintenance, and operational costs separately for every asset, computes true cost per hour broken into capital, repair, and operating components, and trends the hourly rate over the machine’s lifetime. That number drives rebuild-or-sell timing, internal charge rates, and bids — and it comes from live work order, parts, and hour-meter data instead of an annual spreadsheet estimate.
Yes. Tenmil’s live fleet map shows every asset with real-time GPS positioning and status indicators. You can draw custom geozones around each site, assign zones to projects, and configure entry, exit, and idle alerts — so you know when a machine leaves one site, arrives at the next, or sits idle inside a zone. Movement across all of your sites is visible from a single view.
Yes. The Tenmil mobile app has full offline support — technicians can complete work orders, run pre-trip inspections, and look up parts on remote jobsites with no connectivity, and everything syncs automatically once the device is back online. The app is included in every plan on iOS and Android.
Put your fleet on the hour meter
A live, one-hour walkthrough of hour-based PMs, true cost per hour, and mobile work orders — built around your own fleet scenario, from a team that has run one.