Multiple Combinations Available to Companies with Different Vehicle Platforms
Regardless of your company size, you may have experienced a situation where the shuffling of units available for servicing your customers didn’t meet the needs of your employees and the tasks they needed to perform. Few business models today still adhere to assigning a particular vehicle to a specific employee. Rather, most companies have employees cross-trained on specific vehicles so that the business can be flexible when the need arises.
To simplify this issue, companies need to find ways to remain available in the field, reduce costs, cut travel time, and securely conduct transactions from spend accounts. This is why fleet fuel cards make sense to business managers and employees alike.
Depending on your company’s needs, fleet fuel cards can be issued to drivers or to vehicles, with Personal Identification Numbers and/or unit numbers required to authorize a transaction. This way, an employee can carry a card with them on their person and use the card in any authorized vehicle or the card can remain with the vehicle, available to anyone who requires to refuel or service the vehicle. The PIN authorizes the transaction at the point of purchase and links the vehicle to the employee for auditing purposes.
Also, odometer/hubometer ranges, invoice number range, and daily spend limits by total cost, gallon limits, hour/day limits, fuel type, and location restrictions can be instituted to reduce the company’s exposure to fraud and abuse.
Other features of a fleet fuel card can be to assign different cards and/or PINs to different platforms. For example, if your business has a ‘off road use’ application, the same card for road use can be used or a separate card can be issued for that purpose. If the same card is used, a separate PIN authorization will identify the transaction just like a separate card would do, so that the company can accurately identify tax recovery data needed for refunds.
Fleet fuel cards can also be used for cash advances and many programs have incentives like 24/7 roadside assistance, maintenance discounts, fuel rebates, and loyalty programs. Often, the rebate programs will pay for cards services charged by the card vendor.