Maintenance Cost Analytics

Where to Find It

Open Reports > Maintenance in the sidebar. The dashboard aggregates every completed task in your organization into a single view you can filter by date range, trailer, and category.

The Four Core Views

1. Spend per Trailer

A sortable table of every trailer with: total spend, parts vs. labor split, task count, and spend per booking day. Click a trailer to see its full task history.

What to watch for:

• Trailers whose maintenance spend approaches or exceeds their revenue.
• Trailers with many small tasks — often a sign of a deferred larger problem.
• New trailers with unexpectedly high first-year spend — usually a warranty issue worth chasing.

2. Monthly Trend

A stacked bar chart of total monthly spend, broken down by category. Hover any bar for the exact numbers. Toggle between total, parts only, labor only, and per active trailer to normalize for fleet growth.

What to watch for:

• Seasonal spikes you can plan around (winter storage prep, pre-season inspection).
• A steady upward trend not explained by fleet growth — usually a sign your fleet is aging.
• Months with unusually low spend followed by unusually high months — often reflects deferred maintenance catching up.

3. Spend by Category

A pie chart plus a category table showing share of total spend, average cost per task, and task count.

Typical healthy mix:

• Preventive: 30 to 45 percent
• Repair: 20 to 35 percent
• Tire & Wheel: 10 to 20 percent
• DOT/Annual: 5 to 15 percent
• Everything else: the remainder

If Repair dominates, you are maintaining reactively. Raising your Preventive ratio usually lowers total spend within 6 to 12 months.

4. Average Cost per Mile

For trailers with mileage data, TrailerBase computes total maintenance spend divided by miles accumulated in the period. This is the single best cross-trailer benchmark.

Typical values depend heavily on trailer type — enclosed cargo runs lower than dump or equipment haulers — but within a single class you should see tight clustering. Outliers deserve investigation.

Filters and Date Ranges

At the top of the page:

• Date range: preset ranges (This Month, Last Month, This Quarter, Year to Date, Last 12 Months) or a custom range.
• Trailer: filter to a single trailer or a tag.
• Category: filter to one or more categories.
• Assignee: see the work done by a specific team member.

Filters apply to all four views simultaneously.

Exporting

Every table has an Export CSV button. The export includes the full detail rows, not just the summary — useful for year-end accounting and for sharing with an outside fleet consultant.

Comparing Periods

Click Compare to Previous Period in the top-right to toggle a side-by-side view. You will see absolute change and percentage change for every metric. This is the fastest way to answer "are we spending more or less than last quarter, and where?"

Tips

• Set a monthly review. Fifteen minutes a month walking through this dashboard catches problems early.
• Tie outliers back to specific tasks. Click any bar or row to drill down to the underlying tasks — never accept a suspicious number without looking at the source.
• Combine with utilization. A trailer can have healthy maintenance costs and still lose money if utilization is low. Cross-reference with Fleet Utilization Reports.