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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.
The free edition
The paperback costs $29.99. The book is free.
The whole book. Every chapter, every appendix. Free. Pass it around.
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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 Audit-Proof 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 part no other guide ships. This is what "provable" actually looks like.
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. He ran compliance from the operator's side: COO of an autonomous trucking company, then director for a thirty-plus-aircraft Part 135/145 operation. He wrote this because nobody teaches the paperwork.
More about ChadBy hand, or by default
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'd rather the dates watch themselves, that's what we built.
Missing costs money. Fake costs everything.
The letter comes for every carrier eventually. The book is yours either way.
No credit card for the trial. Buy the paperback, $29.99, if you want it on the desk.