My grandma got an iPad for Christmas. The family thought it would be a good tool to look up recipes while she cooks, send out emails to the family, and look through pictures that people send her.
It was a good idea, until we realized how much technology skills grandma had, like zero, zip, nada. So for the first month her iPad was basically a giant flashlight. The good news, eventually she learned how to use it and now she sends emails to the family and find new recipes all the time.
Fuel cards are exactly like grandma’s iPad. They are completely worthless unless you administer them correctly and there’s a lot of people that don’t. In fact, Fleetcor, one of the largest fuel card companies in the world says somewhere between 30% and 40% of fleet cards have absolutely no controls set on them.
These are the stories you hear about in the news where ABC country has lost $40,000 last year due to fuel card misuse and theft. These stories could very well be avoided if the fuel card manager just simply setup controls on the card.
How To Use Fuel Cards The Right Way
The responsibility of setting up and administering your fleet cards the right way is on you and the sales representative you are working with. If your sales rep can’t help you setup your fuel card account, it’s time to look for another fuel card company because this is the most important step of the entire process.
If you have a professional sales rep that can help you, you need to figure out how you want to assign the fuel cards to the driver or the vehicle and then setup appropriate controls for each.
For example, if the driver only works 8am to 5pm, setup time frame limits that will shut off the card during after work hours.
If your truck has a 50 gallon diesel tank, make sure the card can only purchase 50 gallons of diesel only.
It’s actually very simple to setup and administer an effective fuel card program, it just takes a little bit of leg work. Check out this article on how to setup an effective fuel card program from start to finish.
The Good News…
Once you setup your fuel cards with all the appropriate controls, it’s time to sit back and let the program do it’s job. It’s also important to make sure you are receiving all automatic notifications such as e-receipts, and make sure all your fuel card reporting is going to the right place.
The automatic notifications will help you catch anything that goes beyond the controls you have set up so you can appropriately address the driver as soon as something happens.
