Drivers, vehicles, and fuel are the three biggest expenses and challenges every fleet manager has to deal with and all three of those areas have been extra challenging over the last 2 years.
It’s no secret fuel prices have risen dramatically nationwide since January 2021. Some places such as California are seeing nearly a $2 per gallon increase in just over 12 months. The rising fuel prices have created some additional problems for fleet managers.
Here are the problems we’ve seen fleet managers deal with relating to fuel card purchases over the last year and solutions to prevent these issues.
Problem #1 Fuel Cards Exceeding Dollar Limits
Most fuel cards have the ability to set transaction dollar limits, daily dollar limits, weekly dollar limits, and monthly dollar limits. We have received many calls with drivers whose cards get locked out because they are reaching these limits due to higher fuel prices. Your average transaction may have been $100 in January 2021, and now the same amount of fuel is $200. If you have the control set at $100 the driver will only be able to purchase half a tank.
Solutions:
- Request a list of all your fuel card details and perform an audit on your entire account to increase the limits to reflect the current average transaction amount needed per vehicle or driver
- You can also get a cardlock fuel card that sets controls based on gallons rather than dollar amounts which stays the same no matter what the price is
Problem #2 Reaching Transaction Dollar Limit At Gas Stations
You’ve probably been to a station where the pump shuts off at $75-$150 per transaction. Many stations do this to help prevent fraud liability which is a huge issue especially with higher fuel cost. This does affect most fuel card transactions.
Unfortunately with the cost of fuel running from $3.50 to $5.50 per gallon $100 might not even fill up the smallest vehicles in your fleet.
Solutions:
- Utilize CFN cardlock stations or truck stops that will provide higher transaction limits for fleet fuel cards
- If that is not an option you may want to add more transactions per day for your cards so your drivers can swipe the card multiple times at the pump to fill the vehicle
Problem #3 Increasing Incentive For Fuel Theft and Fraud
When the price of fuel goes up, so does the incentive to steal fuel. Whether that’s driver fuel card misuse or fraudsters stealing your fuel card information you need to be on high alert to protect your fuel card account.
Solutions:
- Perform an audit of your fuel cards to make sure the proper controls are set on your cards
- Setup e-receipts to alert your email every time a transaction is made
- Review your transactions on daily or weekly basis by running transaction reports
- Make sure your fuel card covers fraudulent transactions in case your fuel card gets cloned
