7 Features the Best Fleet Fuel Card Will Offer
More and more businesses of all sizes are adopting fleet fuel cards. These cards offer businesses an alternative to traditional fuel payment methods like cash and credit cards.
A fleet fuel card collects fuel expense data automatically. This feature alone can be a huge time saver. But the best fleet fuel card can do much more than that!
As you search for the best fleet fuel card for your business, look for the seven features discussed in this article. They’ll help ensure you pick a fleet card that can truly bolster your bottom line.
What is a fuel card?
A fuel card is a special type of fuel payment card used by businesses that manage vehicles. It looks and works similarly to a credit card. But take note of a few very important differences:
Fleet Fuel Card v. Credit Card
A fuel card is a special type of fuel payment card used by businesses that manage vehicles. It looks and works similarly to a credit card. But take note of a few very important differences:
- A private payment network: fleet card vendors create networks of fueling stations that agree to accept their card. This special network allows for the collection of valuable data like odometer readings.
- A private PIN number: fleet cards employ a PIN that is personalized to each driver. This helps keep cards secure. It also helps tie fuel purchases to specific drivers.
Automatic data collection: instead of relying on drivers to collect receipts and management to manually key in data, a fuel card automatically records expense and mileage data.
While most fleet cards share these fundamentals, some offer many more capabilities.
The Key Features of the Best Fleet Fuel Card
Feature One: Wide Acceptance
Fleet cards are only accepted at stations that have agreed to be part of their payment network. For the most impactful cards, this won’t be an issue. Some cards offer coverage of over 95% of stations nationwide.
Most importantly, make sure your drivers’ most important fueling stops are covered by your new card. Your fleet fuel card should never force drivers to go out of their way for an out-of-network station. The worst-case scenario is leaving a driver stranded without an in-network option for fuel.
Feature Two: Help Finding the Best Fuel Stop
The best fleet card for your business will actually help your drivers locate fuel. An app can help drivers quickly find the best price nearby. It can even help compare prices for specific fuel types.
Feature Three: Easy Online Access
Your card should provide easy access for drivers and management alike. Drivers should be able to manage their card and track expenses from a simple mobile app.
For managers, an intuitive web portal is the best option for providing easy access to fuel expense data. The most effective interfaces will make it quick and easy to generate custom accounting/tax reports, manage cards, and set up spending controls (see below). Features like custom filters should help managers drill down into the data as efficiently as possible.
Feature Four: Proactive Spending Control
Fuel cards give businesses the data they need to identify suspicious spending habits. But that’s not the only tool they offer for preventing misuse.
Your card should allow for custom controls like time of day restrictions, geographic restrictions, and overall spending limits. All of these tools help prevent costly misuse before it starts.
Feature Five: Service and Support
Your business depends on its vehicles. And those vehicles will depend on your fleet card to fuel up flexibly.
If you ever encounter an issue, it’s vital that you can count on your fleet card provider. 24/7 service and support is a feature that any high-quality fleet card vendor should provide.
Feature Six: Smart Alerts and Monitoring
Your fleet card should do more than just capture data. It should proactively monitor this data for suspicious spending, theft, or fraud. Automatic pump shut-off will help protect your fuel spending from costly misuse. And custom alerts ensure you’ll be ready to deactivate stolen cards immediately.
Feature Seven: Actionable Analytics
Smart analytics are the key to learning as much as possible from your fuel expense data. For instance, if a vehicle isn’t getting the same mileage as others of its make and model, it could have a maintenance issue. If one driver is consistently showing worse efficiency, bad driving habits are likely at play.
Ensure your fleet card provider offers the analytics you need to solve real business problems with your fuel expense data.
Learn More About an Impact Fleet Card
Fleet cards should be a powerful, flexible payment tool. But as these features show, they can also be much more than that.
Click the link below to learn more about using a fuel card to manage your vehicle more effectively than ever.