When you start using a fuel card to track your company’s fuel purchases, you’ll notice that there’s data you can dig into that you never had before. You’ll see first hand how collecting data at the pump (odometer, driver name, truck number, time, date, place, etc.) can make some very eye opening reports.
If you leverage the data properly you will soon begin to realize that your drivers don’t always buy fuel at the cheapest stations which is costing you money. I know shocking (sarcastic tone). In fact many drivers chose fuel stations based on how clean the pumps are, what kind of food the c-store has, or even if it’s just pure convenience. This short video, Leveraging Data to Uncover Savings describes exactly this problem.
Here’s how you can leverage fuel card data to discover hidden fuel card savings at the pump.
Step 1: Run A Daily Transaction Report
In your online fleet card account, download the transaction history report for the day into Excel and add a column for “cheapest nearby price”. The transaction history report will give you complete details of every transaction including time, date, place, and price.
Step 2: Search For Closest Cheapest Fuel Prices On Gasbuddy
Go to gasbuddy.com and search for the cheapest fuel prices in every city that your drivers purchases fuel in and type in the prices to the added column for “cheapest nearby price”.
Step 3: Calculate Your Fuel Card Savings
Now subtract the cheapest price from the price your drivers paid to get your total saving per gallon. It’s not surprising to find transactions where your drivers could have easily saved 40¢ per gallon if they would have fueled across the street.
Step 4: Time To Leverage Your Fuel Card Savings
Now that you know you can save your company big money by making sure your drivers know where to fuel, it’s time to direct them to the cheapest stations on a daily basis. There’s two easy ways to do this.
1. Use A Mobile App
Have your drivers download the Gasbuddy App and and tell them to simply search for the cheapest fuel closest to them on their route. Some fuel cards like the Voyager fuel card have a mobile app that will do this same function for you at all locations that accept the fuel card.
2. Create A Map
The second is to make a map of the cheapest locations within cheapest areas on your driver routes. For example, if your drivers are constantly driving from Houston to Dallas, there may be some cities along the routes that are far cheaper than other cities. Just hop on gasbuddy.com and use the gas price heat map to chart the cheapest locations.
Don’t Have The Data You Need To Leverage Fuel Savings?
If you don’t have the data you need to know where your drivers are purchasing fuel to find out how you can save money, you need to get a fuel card. Fuel cards go further than any credit card or corporate payment card by collecting fleet specific data at the pump and compiling the data into useful reports so you know how to save every penny.
Check out this article to discover what’s the best fuel card for your company.
