Using one of the many available fuel cards in Australia can really be beneficial to your business in terms of administration and controlling costs. This article will look at how fuel cards can benefit your business and make your working day much more straight-forward when it comes to balancing the books.
Pay and Reclaim
This is the traditional method employed by businesses and is where employees pay out of pocket for petrol and claim back the amounts as expenses. This needs to be backed up by receipt evidence and this means physically handing over the information at some point, whereas a fuel card allows you to track all instances of fuel purchases and means that the employee is not burdened by the upfront cost of the petrol. Employers must remember that the employee may not always have cash available to do this and this makes fuel cards extremely convenient for both employers and employees.
Receipts
Employees must keep receipts when purchasing fuel and these are very easy to lose, this means that in some instances they may not be able to recover the cost of the fuel as they will not be able to substantiate their expense claims. Using fuel cards means that you will not incur any administrative costs in order to chase those claiming for expenses that do not have a receipt and is much more convenient for both employees and employers because a total record of all transactions is already stored.
Targeting drivers and controlling expenses
One of the greatest benefits of fuel cards is their ability to provide summaries of all transactions and will assist in budgeting for future periods. The information provided by the summaries will be able to identify drivers that use much more fuel and this can be compared against private mileage information to identify those that may need to drive more efficiently. These employees can be educated and they will be acutely aware that they need to drive in an efficient manner.
Competitive Pricing
Having a fuel card that is accepted in many locations will allow employees to take advantage of lower priced petrol and means that they will not have to travel to inconvenient locations to get this. This will generally mean more efficient driving by employees as they will not have to deviate their route in order to get fuel and means lower overall costs for your business.