Powerful Fleet Management Reporting: 7 Ways to Simplify Your Fleet Company
There’s nothing better for fleet managers than improved driver productivity and safety, increased fuel efficiency, and more savings.
But how can your fleet manager achieve this for your fleet company without the right tools?
Fleet management systems like Cartrack’s offer advanced yet easy-to-use tools for your fleet company, helping your fleet managers use powerful fleet management reporting to address fleet-related pain points head-on.
Fleet management systems are designed and equipped with tools that simplify your fleet company, whether your business leases out a commercial fleet to customers, is in the transportation industry, or has a fleet of delivery vehicles hitting the road every day.
7 ways to simplify your fleet company with fleet management reports
You may have once believed that simply installing a GPS tracker to your fleet would instantly help you improve your fleet company. While we’re here to confirm this belief, just with a twist. GPS fleet management is the key to simplifying your fleet company.
A recent survey found that 60% of business owners with a GPS fleet management system had not unlocked the full potential of a fleet management system.
Managing a fleet is not an easy task, no matter the fleet size or industry. Here are seven ways you can start smarter and simpler fleet management with customised reports that help you get more bang for your buck in terms of safety, productivity, and profits.
1. Keep track of every vehicle and asset in your fleet
It gets difficult to confirm how your drivers and clients are handling your assets when your vehicles are out on the road, or your machinery is stationed at a remote worksite. Managing your fleet can get even more complicated depending on the number of fleet vehicles you have and the mix of your different assets.
The primary advantage of tracking your fleet is that you can prevent the theft and misuse of your valuable assets or simply gain insights into the productivity of your fleet. With a GPS fleet management system like Cartrack’s, you can simplify your fleet company by:
- Using live GPS tracking: With a GPS tracker, you can always know where your fleet vehicles and assets are. Fleet managers can also get real-time updates on their vehicles so they can address issues such as whether drivers are using them outside work hours.
- Setting geofence zones: Set virtual boundaries around specific locations to get alerted when your vehicles enter or exit the area. For example, you will get alerted if any of your heavy machinery is removed from one of your construction sites and used at an unauthorised location.
Analysing vehicle trip history reports to increase driver productivity
You can see the start and end locations for all your vehicles and understand past vehicle activities. This is a great way to identify fraudulent activity with your vehicles, or you can simply create a logbook to separate business trips from private trips on your vehicles.
Understanding your vehicles or assets is one of the most straightforward ways to identify your fleet’s shortfalls.
2. Monitor your driver’s behaviour and performance
Your fleet’s profitability, productivity, and safety highly rely on your drivers. If your driver is not meeting service standards, this can turn customers away and affect your profits, similarly, if your drivers are undercutting their work hours or making personal runs during deliveries, they can affect productivity.
Safety is also important, and reckless driving can cause fatal accidents that cost lives and damage your vehicles. Fortunately, our fleet management system makes the work of monitoring drivers easy with a collection of driver behaviour and performance tools such as:
- GPS tracking and telematics: This single tool also helps fleet managers monitor how drivers use fleet vehicles. Fleet managers get reports on harsh driving events such as speeding, harsh braking and excessive idling. Monitoring these types of behaviour helps managers understand their drivers’ bad habits and use insights to correct bad driving and train drivers on safety.
- Driver identification tags: Prevent unauthorised vehicle and machinery usage with driver ID tags assigned to each of your drivers. This way, fleet managers can know which drivers have used their fleet and improve accountability.
Driver scorecards: The perfect driver behaviour reporting tool
See how your drivers score in terms of good versus bad driving habits and incentivise drivers based on their scores. This is an excellent way for fleet managers to recognise drivers.
3. Use purchasing controls for fuel
Track your fleet’s fuel consumption, tackle high fuel expenses, and prevent fuel theft in your fleet by introducing fuel purchasing and efficiency controls. Fuel theft is a growing concern in South Africa, so if you have been suspecting fuel theft in your fleet or you’re concerned about the sudden increase in your fleet’s fuel expenses, there are solutions for your fleet.
Cartrack’s fuel management system uses three primary tools to help you control fleet fuel costs, these include:
- Fuel sensors: Measure the amount of fuel in your vehicle or machinery’s tank using sensors. This information helps managers monitor their fleets’ fuel consumption per period which is helpful for budgeting and fuel claim validation.
- Fuel cards: Drivers and other staff can use business fuel cards for refuelling vehicles and machinery or paying for vehicle servicing. Fuel cards help reduce the administrative work of tracking your fleet fuel costs but also quickly identify fuel theft and other issues.
Keep track of that liquid gold with fuel consumption reports
Fleet fuel reports are an effective way to monitor your fleet’s fuel consumption and track your expenses. You can customise and automate fuel reports that will help you quickly identify fuel theft or inefficiencies.
4. Save with preventative maintenance
Establishing a maintenance schedule to effectively minimise vehicle downtime and extend your fleet’s lifespan, completely reversing your fleet company. Instead of attending to vehicles and machinery once they have broken down, your fleet staff can get proactive about maintenance to avoid these issues and costly repairs.
Now fleet managers can simplify fleet maintenance and save on their fleet with Cartrack solutions for maintenance that include:
- Maintenance reminders: Our preventative maintenance software lets you schedule maintenance and services according to your fleet’s needs to ensure uninterrupted workflow. Now fleet staff know when and why a vehicle or machinery is not available.
Increase your fleet’s longevity with vehicle health reports
Get detailed, customised reports on your vehicle and machinery’s health and see the history of the asset’s condition. For example, battery health and engine performance. This report helps your fleet managers stay informed on your asset’s condition and identify issues that need servicing or repairs faster.
Use maintenance reports for fleet health and reduced downtime
Maintenance reports provide a summary of your vehicle history, so your fleet staff can plan for any vehicle downtime or use these reports to assess whether they should replace certain vehicles or equipment.
5. Prioritise safety and compliance
According to a 2023 survey for fleet managers, 48% of fleet owners identified fleet safety and regulatory compliance as their number one priority. Regulations for fleet compliance are constantly changing and updating, so this has become a big challenge for fleet managers globally.
Fleet companies must comply with several safety regulations that are constantly changing to ensure the safety of drivers and vehicles when they are on the road. Our fleet management system helps simplify fleet compliance with:
- Safety training: Conduct thorough onboard training for new drivers and keep training older drivers on safe driving. Fleet managers can use driver behaviour reports to train drivers on safer driving practices.
- Record keeping: Store important driver and vehicle information on our cloud-based fleet software so that all your fleet staff and stakeholders can access the documents from anywhere. Fleet managers can also set reminders to renew vehicle licenses or complete fines and toll payments.
Keep your drivers safe on the road with driver inspection reports
Fleet managers can ensure drivers are prepared for every trip with a pre-trip inspection. For example, you can require drivers to check whether a fire extinguisher is available before any trip.
6. Use tasking and scheduling software
With Cartrack Delivery, assigning delivery tasks, field service work or emergency service calls to drivers and mobile workers has been simplified. Fleet managers can easily coordinate deliveries, tasks, and fleet vehicles so your fleet company stops losing out on profits.
No matter what industry you are in, food and beverage, logistics or e-commerce, our delivery tool disentangles the process. Fleet managers can use Cartrack delivery for:
- Task management: Fleet managers can easily update delivery/field task information and quickly match drivers with available fleets. The process is instant, and any updates are instantly communicated with your drivers, so there are no delays or miscommunication.
- Route planning: Managers can quickly track drivers without disrupting their deliveries and tasks. If there are changes to a task, managers can also instantly change the schedule for delivery or services via the Cartrack Web Page or the mobile app.
- Communicate with drivers and customers: Use Cartrack delivery to ensure an open line of communication between fleet managers, drivers, and customers. These tools help drivers communicate delays directly with customers and managers.
7. Manage and reduce your fleet overhead expenses
Track, analyse, and control all the expenses associated with your fleet of vehicles, heavy machinery, and assets. Fleet overhead expenses refer to the indirect costs associated with your fleet. These costs can easily go undetected, such as vehicle taxes or renewing licensing fees. Managing these types of expenses is important for budgeting and seeing the return on your fleet investment.
With Cartrack’s MiFleet, you can ensure your fleet expenses don’t get out of control. MiFleet is a cost and accounting management software that tracks all the expenditures related to your fleet company, see how fleet managers easily access and use MiFleet to manage such expenses:
- Budgeting: Reduce your fleet’s overhead expenses by tracking the expenses over time and identifying areas where your fleet could save money.
Gain full financial control of your business with driver and asset reports
Receive reports on all costs associated with your vehicles, drivers, and assets. Now, fleet managers can get a breakdown report to understand the profitability and ROI of their fleet investment.
Take advantage of automated MiFleet reports for smart budgeting
These customisable reports can be automated for fleet managers to access monthly or every other quarter so they can understand their fleet’s expenses and budget appropriately for the next quarter.
Fleet management reporting is a smart, strategic, and powerful way to improve your fleet company.
Access Powerful Fleet Management Reporting with Cartrack Nigeria
Cartrack’s fleet management system digitises, compiles, and organises various fleet reports, so you don’t have to deal with 500 computer tabs, over-complicated spreadsheets or incompatible fleet software.
Contact us to find out more about fleet management reporting for your unique fleet company.
