Sam Butler, Business Development Manager at Fleetmaxx Solutions, explains the top five benefits of using a fuel card for your business.
Service callouts may have kept you busy on the roads during the lockdowns. But, while making the nation comfortable at home, have you had time to manage your company fuel costs? Here are five reasons why a fuel card could be the solution you need.
Controlling your costs
In these commercially trying times, cash flow remains a severe problem for many small businesses. Vehicle costs are a significant outgoing and keeping an eye on how much you are paying for fuel is essential.
As part of running a successful operation, business owners need to calculate each vehicle’s running costs. This calculation can be challenging to estimate without knowing the exact price of oil and consumer demand. For example, no one could have predicted the COVID-19 pandemic.
One way business owners can reduce costs is by issuing their staff with a fuel card. Before activating the card, you can specify exactly how you or drivers use it, setting limits on the cash spent, the number of gallons it can buy, or hours used.
Reduce admin work in real-time
There is much admin involved in running a business, and this requires strong organisational skills and a certain level of accountancy to ensure everything is working efficiently.
Another advantage of a fuel card is that all the transactions can get registered on a single invoice in a single swipe. In real-time, that transaction confirms an immediate invoice through the card’s chip and pin, with further information about the vehicle’s location, mileage, and fuel consumption, feeding instantly into your company’s accounting package. In an instant, you are ready for tax returns, overhead reports, balance projections, and more reporting.
Convenient and flexible choice
A handy item for business owners is the ability to issue fuel cards affiliated with specific fuel companies. Fuel cards tied to fuel companies can suit all circumstances, and there are options for the type of fuel – diesel, petrol, and even electric recharging.
Here is an overview of a few options:
Peace of mind and consistent fuel pricing
Knowing you can keep an eye on fuel expenditure is a massive reassurance. Fuel card providers negotiate huge discounts from fuel suppliers, meaning you buy your fuel direct from suppliers rather than the garage – avoiding all those supermarket and forecourt price wars.
For drivers, being able to access fuel whenever they need it gives everyone peace of mind.
Keeping an eye on logistics and benefits
Having a fuel card means having real-time information about mileage, location, and fuel consumption available.
For example, heavy fuel consumption combined with a late refuel could warn of traffic congestion on specific routes. Increasing fuel consumption might suggest that a vehicle needs an early service. This information provides opportunities for you to save more fuel and improve transport efficiency.
Fuel cards also monitor petrol prices and, once you have a fuel card, a national petrol pump price list gets sent to you each week. Consequently, you can drive or divert your drivers to garages charging less or operating loyalty reward schemes so that they can benefit too
HVP has partnered with Fleetmaxx Solutions to offer readers savings of up to 10p per litre on diesel and petrol. Head to gold.hvpmag.co.uk to find out more.
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