Fleet managers spend a lot of time dedicated to the control of the fleet budget. Fleet directors devote hours combing through budgets and expenses for opportunities to make savings. The idea is to focus on where money has disappeared. But there could be areas that aren’t properly considered due to lack of time and resources.
So when set to the task of controlling their fleet budget, where can fleet managers find money lost in fuel expenses? Fuel expense is no doubt the biggest cost fleets incur, but apart from the strictly evident fuel expenses checked while verifying fuel bills, where can further losses be looked for?
1. Fuel theft: there are a few ways in which fuel theft may occur. Despite the apparent lack of resources to do it, fraud might still happen. It might be your fuel is going somewhere and not necessarily into the fleet vehicle tank.
2. Purchases at the fuel station: if you have no regulation in your policy or in your fleet card settings, fleet drivers might just buy non-fuel items without you knowing it—have you ever wondered how much your drivers coffee consumption can add up to?
3. Fuel purchased on weekends: hopefully you already looked for this, but what about checking if all fuel purchases have been carried out during working time or if there are any particularly high expense on Monday/Friday—possibly the result of which is in breach of policy?
4. Cash payment: if you exclusively use fuel cards so as to avoid the distribution of cash to drivers, you won’t probably incur this. Paying by cash implies that anything can be counted as fuel: coffee, food or other items might be considered essential for the driver, but we need to determine what is absolutely necessary to power the vehicle rather than the driver.
5. Detours: if you had the opportunity to read one of our many articles on the subject, you might have seen how much impact detours make when considering fuel spend.
6. Unmanaged wear and tear or skipped maintenance: if you do not tackle vehicle issues or do appropriate servicing, chances are that you are spending more on fuel than you should.
7. What about driver behaviour? The driving style can seriously impact fuel spend.
Here’s some food for thought: it’s all about delving into fuel expenses more deeply—if you are unable to do this, check out how a fuel management system can assist by calling us.