In short
What this page covers
- Build the rota around the peaks
- Shift templates you set once
- Rounds and zones as roles
- Open shifts when a round goes uncovered
For delivery companies
Rota software for delivery firms, built around the peaks
Cover the lunch and evening runs, get a round back on the road when a driver drops out, and keep the rota inside the number of vans you actually own. Free, for as many drivers and depots as you have.
Where the time goes
What actually goes wrong on a delivery rota
These are the everyday situations that turn a rota into a source of mistakes, phone calls and needless cost.
01
Two peaks, and a rota that is flat
Your day is not a day, it is two rushes with a hole in the middle. Twelve to two, then half five to nine. Staff it flat and you are late through lunch and paying drivers to stand in the yard at half three.
02
More drivers than vans
Eleven drivers on at 12:30 and nine vans on the fleet is not a tight rota, it is a rota that cannot run. You find out in the yard, in front of the two drivers who came in for nothing.
03
A driver drops out with the van half loaded
Forty drops on board and eighteen delivered when the phone goes. The round does not pause politely while you find somebody, it just becomes twenty two customers who are all going to ring you before six.
04
Friday night is the shift nobody wants
The busiest hours of your week are the hours your drivers most want off, and requests for them arrive one at a time, weeks apart, in a place where you cannot see the other three.
05
The rounds only live in one head
Two drivers really know the north zone. When one is off and the other is on lunch, the round goes to somebody learning it live, and a three hour run turns into five.
06
Employed and self-employed on the same Friday
Some of your drivers are on the books and some invoice you, and both of them have to be on one rota because both of them are on the road at seven. Keeping that in two systems means keeping it in neither.
How InShift fixes it
A rota shaped like a delivery day: two peaks, a hard fleet limit, and rounds that have to be covered. Everything below is in the free account, with no cap on drivers or depots.
Solution 1
Build the rota around the peaks
Put drivers on for the lunch run and off again, then bring the evening on at half four. Short peak shifts are the whole point, and you can see how many drivers are on the road at 12:30 before you publish rather than after.
Solution 2
Shift templates you set once
A lunch run, an evening run, a full day, a Friday surge. Set the hours once, say how many drivers it needs and which rounds they can take, then drop them onto the week. A month of rota takes minutes.
Solution 3
Rounds and zones as roles
Set up north, south, city centre, whatever you actually call them, and mark who drives which. Then an empty round is a visible gap on Thursday instead of a discovery at eight on Friday morning.
Solution 4
Open shifts when a round goes uncovered
Post the rest of the round as an open shift and every driver who could take it gets it at once, on their phone. The first one free picks it up. You approve with one tap and the van is moving again.
Solution 5
Every depot on one screen
One account holds all your depots. See who is on where, move a driver across for a busy Saturday, and give each depot manager only their own. It grows when you open the next one.
Solution 6
Hours ready for payroll
Hours add up as the rota is worked, at each driver's own hourly rate, and export to Excel for any period. Employed or self-employed, the rota just shows who is on which round: how you engage a driver is a matter for you and your accountant, and InShift does not decide it.
A day on the rota at a delivery firm
A depot running a lunch peak and a longer evening one, with rounds on zones and nine vans on the fleet. Note that the same van does both runs, and that the rota never puts more drivers on the road at once than there are vans to give them.
| Time | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 10:00-18:00 | Dispatcher | Loads the board, allocates rounds, fields the calls |
| 11:30-14:30 | Driver, lunch run | North zone: three hours, the lunch peak and nothing else |
| 11:30-14:30 | Driver, lunch run | South zone, back to the depot to hand the van over |
| 16:30-21:30 | Driver, evening run | Same van, second shift: the evening is the longer peak |
| 17:00-22:00 | Driver, evening run | Friday and Saturday only, the surge round |
| 15:00-22:00 | Dispatcher | Second half, closes the depot and books the vans back in |
Try it without an account
Three free tools that need no sign-up and no email. Build a rota or add up hours right now, and move to an account when the team has to see it.
Frequently asked questions
How many drivers do I need to cover a lunch and evening peak?▾
Start from the drops, not the drivers. If lunch is 120 drops in two hours and a driver averages fifteen an hour on a tight zone, that is four drivers on the road, and the evening at 300 drops over four hours is closer to five. Add someone who can cover sickness and the Friday surge. Put your own zones and drop counts into the rota and you will see your own number rather than this one.
I have more drivers than vans. Can the rota show me that?▾
InShift does not know what is on your fleet, and it is not going to pretend it does. What it shows you is exactly how many drivers you have on the road at 12:30, which is the number you hold against your vans. Most firms who get caught out are not short of vans, they are short of a screen that shows the overlap. If you want it stricter, set each van or round up as its own role and an unfilled one becomes a gap you can see on Thursday.
How do drivers see the rota?▾
They install the InShift app on their phone and enter a six digit code you give them. That is the whole setup, no email address and no password to forget. When you change the rota they get a push notification, so a driver never turns up for a round that moved.
A driver drops out mid-round. What do I do?▾
Publish what is left as an open shift. Every driver who could take it gets a notification at the same time, and the first one to accept has it. You approve with one tap. It is the difference between one action and ringing round while twenty two customers wait.
Does it work out hours and pay?▾
It adds up the hours as the rota is worked, multiplies them by each driver's hourly rate, and exports the timesheet to Excel for any period you choose. Rates are per person, so a driver who covers two depots is counted once, at their own. The hours were always the awkward part, and that is the part it takes off you.
Is it actually free, or free until it is not?▾
Free. All the features, as many drivers and depots as you like, no card and no trial clock ticking. We are not going to pretend otherwise on a page whose whole point is that you can trust the rota.