If you run a business that depends on a fleet of vehicles, the use of fleet cards can be of great benefit to your company. Fuel cost is undoubtedly a significant expense for most businesses, and switching to fuelcard providers can be a potentially viable solution.
Fuel cards work similarly to company credit cards. They give companies an efficient way to control how much they are spending on fuel. With fuel cards UK employees can fuel at one of a group of forecourts. After that, your company will be billed once a month directly. Some fuel card providers even give you HMRC-compatible reporting that allows for more efficient expense integration. Here are reasons why you should make the switch to fuel cards. But if you are looking for a reputable car shipping and vehicle transport service provider, visit https://www.mvscanada.ca/.
Why Use Fuel Card for your company vehicles?
There are two chief reasons to consider switching to fuel cards for your company fleet. They include the following:
Cutting your fuel costs
Fuel cards UK allow you better control over your spending in costly places, like motorway services. This is especially true if you set weekly or monthly expense limits. The detailed management reporting that fuel cards offer reduces fraud chances significantly. The reporting also enables you to identify poor route choices, expensive locations, and inefficient drivers. This encourages more fuel-efficient driving and can lead to reducing fuel costs significantly. Finally, using fuel cards makes the management to be aware of fuel accountability that helps in the realization of the green targets by a company.
Reduce the administrative Load
There are several ways in which the introduction of fuel cards reduces your administrative burden. They include the following:
- It gets rid of petty cash which helps in safeguarding your employees.
- Generation of HMRC-compliant invoices that makes it easy to reclaim VAT.
- Because they give you a clear picture of your fuel spending, you are able to forecast better financially.
- Because cards send customers comprehensive monthly invoicing, there is no need to keep records of receipts.
- You also benefit from greater transparency when you link cards to specific drivers or vehicles.
- Thanks to 24/7 online management, you have greater control over fuel expenditure.
How Fuel Cards Benefit SMBs
If you are not yet sold out on the benefits that switching to fuel cards brings to your small or medium enterprise, we tell you some of the advantages fuelcard can bring to your company.
Fuel Cards Save You Money
The main benefit of using a fuelcard is that it enables you to buy fuel at discounted prices. Fuel cards suppliers usually work with the most established networks in the nation that enables them to sell fuel at rates that are lower than pump prices.
Also, it is not uncommon for a card provider to offer fixed weekly prices to cushion you from price fluctuations. This is important as it ensures that the company’s cash flow is not affected negatively. While fluctuations are a must, a fuel card lets you efficiently plan and manage fuel expenditures.
Fuel Purchase is Efficient and Convenient
The way a fuel card works is exact to a credit and PIN card. It eliminates the need for drivers to travel with cash, and also allows them to pay efficiently and quickly. Also, you don’t have to keep VAT receipts, and drivers can don’t need to worry about using their own money to pay for fuel and then reclaim it later.
Improved flexibility for your employees
With a fuel card, drivers can refuel across a wide network. Even in the event that employees have to change routes, they will still find a location that accepts their fuel cards. If the fuel cards you choose to use are accepted at supermarket forecourts, employees may also take advantage of loyalty card points and get promotional prices.
Increased Company Vehicle Policy Compliance
Another reason to join the fuel card bandwagon is that it enhances compliance with the fleet policy of your company. Many fuel card providers offer POS controls that limit how often, what employees can buy, and how much. It can even lock out merchants. This is not only advantageous to compliance with vehicle policy, but if you can control it at the pump, the fleet manager will have less reporting and data mining to do.
While corporate cards also do provide limits, they are very rarely fleet-oriented. While product code limits, merchant lockout, and dollar limits can help, failure to Level III data and PIN capabilities is a major handicap of these cards insofar as using them to purchase fuel for your fleet is concerned.
Improving Program/Driver Service
Fuel card programs provide a toll-free 24/7 service that enables customers to find help at any time. If you need to report a stolen or lost card, or you are disputing charges, or generally want to get help, you will be surprised at how simple and fast the process is. Also, these systems are password- and user-identification secure.
Also, fuel cards have expense management and online accounts. They further give customers access to transaction information, reporting, and new card ordering.
Fuel cards are relatively at less risk of fraud than corporate card programs. Corporate card programs are based on credit card platforms like MasterCard, Visa, and American Express. These cards tend to be more at risk of all kinds of fraud than fuel cards, the majority of which use proprietary platforms and closed merchant networks.
Conclusion
It could be that you are just getting introduced to the idea of fuel cards. How do you know if it is a good thing for your business? The truth of the matter is that fuel cards UK have many benefits to offer your company. From getting fuel at discounted prices to more seamless operation, the advantages of signing up for a fuelcard are numerous.
Fuel cards are also great for SMBs. They make fuel purchasing efficient and convenient, improve your employee flexibility, and enhance company vehicle policy compliance.