Why You Need Fuelcard for Your Business
Introduction
Businesses using vehicles daily gain in many ways by switching to the use of company fuel cards. Efficiency and seamless organization are critical when running fleets. Using fuelcard is a perfect way to enable easier management of these requirements.
In this blog, we take a closer look at reasons a business should embrace fuel cards UK as an important tool for streamlining manual processes and providing drivers, fleet managers, and business owners with the freedom to accomplish the jobs they were hired for.
Discounted Fuel Costs
The most important reason to switch to company fuel cards is the savings your business enjoys at the pump when fueling. Most fuelcard vendors will tell you one week prior about the fixed cost of fuel per litre. This cost is usually 2-3p lower than the normal asking price. Motorway prices are even cheaper, as they can be even 10p less expensive.
Fuel prices fluctuate a lot, and having to pay the fuel costs per mile could mean you are overpaying for your fuel. A fuel card ensures you are in total charge of the fuel expenditures of your business by ensuring that you always pay the right price.
The savings might seem small, but they could make a huge difference in business finance, especially in a case where your business uses the car regularly and for long-distance trips.
Greater Flexibility for Your Drivers
Fuel cards UK provides businesses and fleets more refuelling flexibilities across a large network. It is not uncommon for routes and plans to change. When that happens, the fact you can use your fuel card across several networks provides your drivers with the freedom to adjust routes as necessary.
Fuel card providers will give you a wide range of networks from top brands like Shell, BP, UK Fuels, and Esso, to mention but a few. This enables you to choose the networks you want to be included in your account. And with the help of the garage locator tool, drivers can easily find the nearest petrol stations anywhere they are. Even if they change direction for traffic reasons, they will still be able to find stations to refuel.
A good fuelcard company will find the perfect card to match your driver’s routines, whether they want to use it nationally or locally. This way, your company has more freedom to send drivers to any route because they can refuel without any worry or hassle.
Secure fuel purchases
Contrary to a credit or debit card, a fuel card is restricted to allow payments to top up the tank of a vehicle only. Also, many providers today even allow you to assign the card to a specific vehicle or driver.
Thanks to this security level, you will find it easier to track how much each company car costs the business. And in the case of bigger companies with fleets of 5-10 vehicles, it can form a good fleet management system that helps you to reduce fuel consumption.
You don’t need to keep a record of fuel receipts
When you opt for a company fuel card, you will not require to keep records of payments (receipts). That is because each fuel payment is sure to be recorded on invoices that show all the transactions at the pump. Your provider will send you a comprehensive invoice detailing the money your business spent on fuel. Also, you can request a paper record of the same.
Since it contains the total amount of money being spent on fuel in one place, this can be a great time saver from an accounting standpoint. The invoices are also HMRC-compliant, meaning you need less time to do admin work.
Note: Employees are required to pay a tax benefit on the fuel bought for personal reasons. This includes commuting to work and from. Therefore, make sure you keep any fuel top-ups receipts after any personal journeys.
Easy Tracking of Numerous fuel cards and all purchases
Fuel cards UK enable companies to easily keep tabs on fuel spent, eliminating any issues about unrecorded transactions or lost receipts.
All transactions for tolls, oil services, and fuel are tied into a single invoice that you can view on any account management tool.
It enables you to envision the big picture with greater accuracy of all your fuel cards. You can view these cards per individual vehicle or driver. Also, there is a live map on which to view all transactions.
Reduce your carbon footprint
With heightened pressures on companies to decrease their carbon dioxide emissions, it has become more important than ever to measure carbon footprint. A key benefit of fuel cards is their ability to help your company lower its carbon footprint. It does this by generating reports to enable you to keep tabs on your carbon use.
With these reports, your company can not only come up with reduction targets but also measure them. This has two advantages. The first one is that it enables you to have a greener fleet. The second one is that it helps you to be more efficient in fuel use, which eventually saves you money.
Reduces administration time
Fuel cards come with an easy online management system that simplifies and also improves the administrative processes accuracy associated with operating a fleet business. It eliminates the need to collect and file thousands of receipts, and having to deal with unlimited fuel expense forms.
By detailing all the transactions on HRMC-compliant tax invoices, it becomes easier to reclaim VAT. This not only saves your business time but also money.
Conclusion
While there are many benefits of fuel cards, the most important one is that which helps every business, whether small, large, new, or old. This benefit is the ability to save money for your company.
This is because they give you fixed weekly fuel costs and also reduce admin time. But that’s not all. Also, the fact fuel cards UK enable easy claiming of VAT enables your organization to get tax rebates from HRMC. You could even say fuel cards earn your business money.
