Some easy ways to make the change
Whether you're a small business owner with a fleet of vehicles or a team of salespeople in company cars, one of the biggest daily outlays is always going to be fuel for business purposes. All companies – from SMEs to sole traders – know only too well the pain that goes with constantly filling up at the forecourt to make sure their delivery and transport arms run smoothly.
Some businesses continue filling up in the same places because that's the way they've always done it, but a challenging economic climate with unpredictable fuel prices means the ones that save on fuel can steal a march on their competitors. It might not seem like a lot in isolation, but saving at the pump each time your team refuels at supermarket petrol stations can soon add up.
Make fuel cost management easier
Fuel expenses are a major factor in a business's bottom line, but they might not seem it. A £20 saving here and there might not look like a lot in isolation, but spread over a dozen cars, vans or lorries for a year it soon adds up.
With diesel and petrol prices remaining unsettled, keeping track of business fuel costs is essential to maintain healthy cash flow and profit margins. Knowing how much your monthly fuel spend will be before your team submit their expenses at the end of each month will end the uncertainty.
Take control of your paperwork and receipts
Paper receipts make monitoring monthly spend an unnecessary headache when bringing them into the modern age with an easy to access online system can transform your internal process.
Seeing each employee's spend connecting to them or their vehicle on a dashboard allows you to break down the figures easily in real-time, without waiting for drivers to submit their expenses and receipts. Online systems linked to business fuel cards also provide HMRC approved VAT invoices, which will bring a further big reduction in admin time for your team.
Take control of your paperwork by managing and viewing invoices online, allowing for effective cost control and timely year end accounts and tax returns.
Maximise efficiency and logistics
Is your fleet running as efficiently as it could be? A non paper-based system that lets you monitor each driver and vehicle's routes will help you tweak your fleet's performance to become even more efficient and environmentally friendly.
Business fuel cards are linked to an intuitive system that assesses miles per gallon and links to head office, allowing fleet managers to see if a car, van or lorry isn't performing as well as others. It might be that a driver's route needs to be changed slightly or their vehicle needs maintenance.
They might even be accelerating or braking unnecessarily which can be easily remedied through training, but whatever the issue it's not easily identifiable by simply looking at a monthly mountain of receipts.
Make your drivers' lives easier with an app
If they're using their own cards your drivers probably aren't too keen on being out of pocket while their expense claims are being processed. That's where company liveried business fuel cards and the supporting system can make a huge difference to their day.
Fuel cards help firms consolidate, monitor and manage their expenditure more easily as well as being secure and offering the flexibility to get the best prices at the pumps. Because there's no cash or company credit cards, the risk of theft or fraud disappears.
They can only be used on fuel and can have pre-set limits while offering access to thousands of forecourts around the UK.
Here's the best part… get cheaper fuel with a fuelGenie card
The fuelGenie fuel card gives business drivers access to great value prices at more than 1,350 Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury's forecourts along with 900 Shell petrol stations throughout the UK. Your business will benefit from fuel at an average of 3p per litre* less than the national forecourt average.
Find out more about the benefits here
*The “3 pence per litre” saving message is based on the difference between the published Government Weekly diesel fuel pump prices and the diesel pump price (inc. taxes) paid per litre for diesel by fuelGenie customers for the comparable period.
Does size matter?
Economies of scale make a big difference depending on the size of your business. So while fuel cards will save companies with larger fleets more, the benefits soon add up even if you're running a small team.
Regardless of whether you have a few sales people with company cars a fleet of six vans or a yard of 20 lorries, fuel spending soon adds up over the financial year as your employees drive between jobs and clients. With the help of a fuel card, small businesses can save money on the price of fuel and reduce their overall fuel costs.
Reducing costs by maximising efficiency through more effective route planning and fuel consumption analysis is an excellent way to save money and free you up to invest in other areas of the business or boost the end of year figures. Because all your fuel cards are connected to a single monitoring system, you can easily see which routes or vehicles are performing well, start to predict your outgoings and forecast the future – all while staying within budget.
In short…
Efficiently managing fuel costs with business fuel cards will:
- Improve business sustainability..
- help you understand the factors that influence fuel consumption
- allow you to launch maintenance strategies
- boost your strategic route planning
- ensure your drivers are well trained
- promote healthier fleet management work thanks to technology
- foster a fuel-conscious culture
- reduce costs.
So if you're constantly facing the question of how to save on fuel costs for my business, fuelGenie's business fuel cards have the answers.
