It might not seem like it, but the reports you receive from your fuel card provider are lot more than just a collection of receipts and a bill. When used to their fullest, they can save you and your company a lot of money as well as time and effort. In what is to follow, we’ll discuss each way your fuel card reporting can be used to save your company money and how to implement these strategies into your fleet management plan.
Reporting can save your company money because…
1.They can help prevent fuel card theft and misuse
As mentioned previously, what is reported to you is more than just a bill. It’s also a record of every purchase made, with the time and location it was made at. Meaning, that if the record shows a purchase made at a time or place or quantity it shouldn’t have then you know your card has been misused and can thus make the appropriate preventative measures. Click here to learn more about how to prevent fuel card theft.
2.They can help you keep up with maintenance needs
Before a fuel card can be used to fuel, the pump will ask that the driver provide a Driver ID# and an odometer reading. As a result, with access to the mileage on every one of your fleets you’ll be able to quickly and effectively determine which trucks out of your fleet need tune-ups.
3. Your reports can be used to budget company funds
Say you’re adding a truck to your fleet, or have just added a new customer and thus a new route and are wondering how much it will cost? Well you can use your fuel card reporting to narrow it down to the cent. Because with your reports, you can determine the amount it costs to fuel the truck because you know on average how much it costs to fill up and the amount of miles that can be driven between fuel-ups.
4. They’ll help you do your taxes
Every year, it is the burden of every trucking fleet in the nation to report their activities to the national government and that can be a real challenge. Especially if you’re a company that trucks across state lines. Because it is then your duty to report every instance in which you crossed state lines, and how many miles you drove past them. But all of this is made easy when you use your reports, which perfectly record the miles you drove and where you drove them. Click here to learn more.