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How To Monitor & Manage Fleet Fuel Costs
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Business New Haven
11/11/2002
By: Michael C. Bingham
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Where does a company that regularly sends motor vehicles out on the road go to fuel?
Companies operating fleets of commercial vehicles small or large find they must confront a host of issues - fuel theft, improper expense accounting, vehicle efficiency, operator efficiency, timely and accurate accounting and reporting.
Fuel and vehicle costs can be a formidable expense item for many companies - right behind payroll and insurance. And with the retail price of gasoline hovering around $1.50 per gallon for regular unleaded (and almost certain to rise on the near-term future), those costs can escalate rapidly.
Fueling company vehicles at a typical retail service station can be anything but efficient. Often drivers must wait in line to use a pump (especially those buying diesel), then walk inside to pay. In addition, employers must worry about drivers charging extraneous (and unauthorized) items to the company's account, beyond merely wasting time.
One way some companies - especially those with larger vehicle fleets - address the issue is by installing their own above- or below-ground fuel tanks and dispensers on a company site.
That option may be a time-saver for company drivers. It can also be expensive - upwards of $50,000 for the fuel tank and dispensing equipment. Beyond the hardware costs, liability insurance and equipment-maintenance expenses can add up quickly, and many companies may decide it's simply not worth the hassle.
Enter the one-stop commercial fueling station. A West Coast innovation (where travel distances make fuel costs an even greater bottom-line concern) that has begun to appear in the Northeast, commercial fueling stations offer corporate clients a host of benefits any accounts-payable supervisor would love.
Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, a full-service commercial station allows your drivers to top off when it's convenient for them, not the vendor. The fueling station is also card-operated, so employers can monitor and, where necessary, control when employees fuel, what type of fuel they purchase, how often they fuel, the number of gallons they may buy per transaction and other bottom-line variables.
Besides efficiency, the key benefits are accountability and reportability. The data collected by the fueling station is fed back to the employer, who can precisely monitor fuel usage and costs.
Another "value-add" is that the information contained in the expense reports permits companies to better maintain the vehicles in their fleets. One available option allows drivers to input an odometer reading each time he or she fuels. If done accurately it afford the fleet-owner the ability to calculate not only the cost-per-mile for each car, truck or van in the fleet, but also total miles driven.
That information can be used in two ways by the business-owner. If the vehicle is not operating as efficiently as it should, the fleet owner can safely deduce that a maintenance issue - perhaps a tune-up, or perhaps more - must be addressed. Or it may be time for the vehicle to be replaced within the fleet.
Secondly, the report may reveal that the vehicle operator may not be using the car, truck or van as intended. If a company has two identical vehicles on the road, and one is showing a significantly higher cost-per-mile than its fleet sibling, then the owner knows there are problems to be addressed.
In addition, regular reports from the commercial station can make regular routine maintenance - oil changes, tire replacement - simpler and easier to manage.
Simpler and easier to manage - that's a worthwhile goal for any business decision-maker. And for companies that depend on vehicle fleets as their lifeline to business, a full-service commercial fueling station may be a sensible solution for managers and users alike.
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