January is always a good time to review the expenditure of your business and introducing fuel cards to your fleet could help reduce costs, better monitor spending and analyse fleet driver activity on a day to day basis. In a world where data drives productivity, fuel cards remove the hassle of old-school paperwork as well as offering a simpler and more cost-effective way of paying for fuel. With the right fuel card, fleet decision makers can increase their control and lower their costs over multiple areas of their fleet, as well as enact new initiatives such as electrification to drive their fleet forward.
Reduce your costs
As a fleet manager, costs can feel like they’re coming in from all angles with increased admin, fuel price rises, transaction fees, fraud and unplanned downtime. Fuel cards enable fleet decision makers to manage fuel costs through tailored pricing models to help stay on top of fleet costs for their business. Whether you’re managing a car or van fleet, fuel cards offer clear pricing structures with a range of competitive options, depending on the number of vehicles you operate and your network and business requirements. You can even choose to cap your fuel price for protection against rising prices whilst maintaining the ability to benefit from a drop in prices.
Protect against fraud
To protect both business and drivers from fraud, fuel cards help maximise security by enabling fleet decision makers to monitor all transactions and therefore detect unusual behaviour immediately, minimising the potential damage to your business. You can also set purchase limits for each fuel card so you can prevent non permitted items bought. Many fuel card providers, including BP, provide fraud protection systems that check each transaction to address unauthorized card usage.
Utilise reporting tools
Fuel cards are also a great way for businesses to track their drivers’ fuel usage and can be an effective tool to provide actionable insight on how each driver is performing, as well as useful reporting tools. For example, BP’s FleetExpert analyses costs through a single dashboard giving insight into things like fuel consumption and CO2 emissions as well as saving considerable time by making management tasks and reporting simpler and more efficient.
Jo McDonnell is UK manager for BP Fuel Cards
