Fuel is one of the most high-priced expenses people use to acquire both for their personal and business needs. But businesses, especially those utilizing fleet vehicles, should know how to efficiently use their fuel to reduce monthly fuel and overall business expense. One great solution is by using a fleet fuel card. This is like a credit card but exclusively for fuel consumption. Through it, you will also be billed on a monthly basis for all the transactions you will make.
By using fleet fuel cards, businesses can save a lot of money. These are just some of the reasons:
- It allows you have a monthly budget plan – By receiving a monthly report of all the fuel transactions you have, you can easily know how much money you will spend on it. And seeing each transaction can help you plan for more cost-effective ways to spend on fuels for your vehicles. For example, since fuel cards require drivers to note odometer readings, you can be aware of the mileage and its cost that will allow you to calculate efficiently and look for alternative routes that require lower fuel consumption.
- Limit unnecessary expenses – Your fleet fuel card, unlike any company credit card, helps you avoid having unnecessary expenses from employees. The fleet fuel card is only limited to acquire expenses like fuel, vehicle maintenance, car wash services and the like.
- Avoid costly errors – With fleet fuel cards, you don’t have to worry about receiving bundles of receipts and missing some of them since it’s connected to an accounting system and monthly report. This data storage will keep your expenses updated and accurate, thus avoiding you to have unwanted errors that would be another cost for your business.
- Give you discounts on fuel and other services – Having a fleet fuel card means getting discounts on fuel and related services and also freebies. You can also get discounts on partner merchants as well as loyalty points that you can use on your next fuel purchase. This does not only save your business some cash but also gives you privileges that you can use personally.
Aside from saving cash with your fuel expenses, there are other perks that you can get from utilizing a fleet fuel card including lesser fraud since you can track all fuel expenses so a single fraudulent transaction can be quickly snapped. Also, paying with cash is not always secured unlike when you’re paying with a fleet fuel card. Although, cards can also be stolen or loss, it couldn’t be used by others since it requires security PIN. This also ensures that your vehicle’s tank won’t run out of gas so you can also ensure that products or services are delivered on time.
Some fuel card companies will charge an annual or monthly fee for using the card which may seem like an added cost on your part but you need to weigh it up against the discounts you can get from using a fleet fuel card as well as the labour cost for the manual processing of receipts, reimbursement from drivers, and other administrative expenses.
