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The FMCSA Audit
Survival Guide
The paperwork side of trucking, taught plainly, for the owner, office manager, or dispatcher who got compliance on top of two other jobs.
Paperback · 238 pages · $29.99 · ISBN 979-8-18995-415-3
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12 printable checklists and templates below, ungated. No signup required.
Who it's for
Written for whoever the audit lands on.
If your company has a USDOT number, this book is for you. Excavators. Landscapers. Farms. Three trucks or forty. The rules key off what you operate, not what you call yourself.
Contents
What's inside
Every chapter is a story, then the rule, then what it means, then what the auditor actually looks at, then exactly what to do, with honest time estimates.
Nothing in it requires you to buy software or hire a consultant.
Read a chapter first
Chapter 1, on this site.
The letter page is Chapter 1, compressed: the four kinds of FMCSA letters, the date each one sets and the first 48 hours, step by step.
Read Chapter 1: You got the letterThe free edition
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Nothing to buy, and nothing in the book requires FileFlo.
The companion map
Start where you are.
Each printable companion belongs to a moment in the year. Pick yours.
The letter just arrived. The Notice-Channel Checklist, then The Audit-Day One-Pager. The letter page walks the first 48 hours.
Your first year as a new entrant. Am I Even Regulated?, then The Auto-Fail Checklist.
Hiring a driver. The worked Driver Qualification File, page by page.
Your drug and alcohol program. The worked Drug and Alcohol Program Record.
Hours and the trucks. One Month of HOS Self-Audit, One Unit's Maintenance File and The Pull-Over Card for the glovebox.
Reading your own record. Read Your Own SMS Profile.
After the audit. The Corrective Action Plan Template, then The 90-Day Plan.
For everything at once, work the FMCSA Audit Readiness Checklist on screen or print it.
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Every checklist and template in the book
The printable companions the chapters build, ready to pin up, put in the truck, or hand across a table. Download what you need.
Checklists & one-pagers
FMCSA Audit Readiness Checklist
Everything a DOT auditor asks for, each item mapped to the CFR section behind it. Work it on screen or print it.
Open checklistAm I Even Regulated?
Yes/no questions that tell you which rules apply, and which chapters you can skip.
Download PDFThe Auto-Fail Checklist
The items that fail a new-entrant audit all by themselves. No partial credit.
Download PDFThe Notice-Channel Checklist
Make sure the government's letter actually reaches you. The failure that quietly shuts carriers down.
Download PDFThe Pull-Over Card
A glovebox card: what has to be in the truck, and the driver's five minutes at a stop.
Download PDFThe Audit-Day One-Pager
What to hand over, what to say, and the sentences to read before they arrive.
Download PDFCorrective Action Plan Template
The structure auditors accept: specific, dated, assigned, one block per violation.
Download PDFThe 90-Day Plan
The whole plan on one page: files, then programs, then the weekly cadence that holds it.
Download PDFRead Your Own SMS Profile
A one-page walkthrough of the safety file the investigator opens first.
Download PDFWorked examples
The filled-in files, the way a finished one looks on paper.
Driver Qualification File
A complete, filled-in DQ file, with the four pages that look right and aren't.
Download PDFDrug & Alcohol Program Record
A real testing program on paper: enrollment, randoms, queries, the return-to-duty stub.
Download PDFOne Month of HOS Self-Audit
The hours-of-service check that catches what the ELD alone misses.
Download PDFOne Unit's Maintenance File
One truck's maintenance file end to end, tab by tab, with the chain that breaks it.
Download PDFAll yours, no email. The book has them in one place.
About the author
Chad Griffith founded FileFlo after running compliance in the trucking industry, at a Part 135 and Part 145 operation, and in AI safety and defense technology. The FMCSA Audit Survival Guide teaches the paperwork side of trucking plainly.
More about Chad GriffithBy hand, or built for you
The book teaches the method by hand. FileFlo keeps it running.
Everything in the guide can be done with a folder and a calendar. When you would rather have the files built and kept current, FileFlo reads, dates and files each record you send to the rule it satisfies, names what is missing and who owes it, and keeps the audit packet ready. You approve what goes out.
The Audit-Ready Setup · $499 today
The guarantee, first: 30 days, every dollar back: if you are not happy with the Setup within 30 days of purchase, FileFlo refunds the full Setup price.
Your gap report, built from your USDOT number: each missing record, the rule that requires it and who owes it, with new-entrant automatic-failure items first and every area marked with whether it applies to you and why.
Each driver's file in the order the federal rule lists it (49 CFR 391.51), every requirement cited, marked on file or not, with every missing item listed and an upload door beside it.
A record that fails a rule is held with one open item naming the failed rule and the fix. Only accepted records count as on file.
A sealed audit packet, indexed to the regulations, with a 30-day inspector link and a public page where anyone holding it confirms it is the copy you issued.
Three versions of it: yours, an inspector copy without your gap notes and risk math, and an insurer or broker copy that also leaves out personal details. Drug and alcohol records never leave it; an inspector sees a named count.
Your first 30 days of Core included.
A list of everything missing or due within 45 days, updated every hour, warnings in the app before anything lapses, and the packet on demand. After your 30 included days, Core continues at $199 a month (Fleet, $399, for 16 to 50 trucks) on the same card unless you cancel. We email you 7 days and 1 day before the first charge, and one click in either email cancels it.
Office from day one: your insurance filing status, the carrier packet brokers ask for, and one-tap answers to broker requests. It stays when Core continues.
Every piece of human work FileFlo owes you in the Setup is a tracked, dated obligation you can see, not a promise in an inbox.
You approve what goes out. Nothing reaches your drivers until you switch it on.
Start the Audit-Ready SetupMissing costs money. Fake costs everything.
When the letter comes, the book is yours either way.
30 days, every dollar back: if you are not happy with the Setup within 30 days of purchase, FileFlo refunds the full Setup price.
Want it on the desk? Buy the paperback on Amazon, $29.99.
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