Integrating fuel data into fleet management systems has a ton of benefits. Want to know more? Read the article to learn more about fuel data integration in fleet management and its key benefits.

Fuel is primarily the main expense for fleets. When running a fleet business, you are bound to be bothered by fuel being one of the most significant expenses.

While fluctuating fuel prices are not in a fleet manager’s control, properly tracking fuel usage and adopting useful ways to lower and optimize fuel consumption is.

A fleet manager should prioritize efficiently tracking fuel usage metrics to avoid overconsumption over anything else. In fact, every fleet business should monitor fuel usage by using fuel management systems and fuel cards.

With such data available to the fleet managers, they can gain several benefits by integrating fuel data into fleet management systems and using the same data to track vehicles, maintenance, and other significant areas of their operation.

In this blog post, we will look at the key benefits of integrating fuel data into fleet management systems and understand how to go about it.

Benefits of Integrating Fuel Data into Fleet Management

Here are the top 5 benefits of integrating fuel data into your fleet management system that every fleet business owner and fleet manager should understand.

Better Preventive Maintenance with Accurate Mileage

Automatic mileage updates come through ELD integration. The majority of fuel card providers require a mileage entry every time the fuel is pumped. When that happens, every time fuel data is integrated into the fleet management system, all fleet vehicles associated with the fuel cards will be updated.

Though it is a basic element, it still affects several aspects of a complete fleet management system. When you timely get automatic mileage updates from ELD integration, you can ensure preventive maintenance for the vehicles whenever the need be.

When there is no way to automatically get mileage updates of the vehicles, you would have no option but to rely on someone to remember updating it in the fleet management system manually. It can become practically impossible to know whether each vehicle’s meters are up to date, especially when operating hundreds of vehicles.

Therefore, it is recommended to use the mileage updates directly from ELD integration and integrate them into your fleet management system to eliminate the limitations in the manual system.

According to research, vehicles tend to run more efficiently and have better fuel efficiency with frequent and proper preventive maintenance.

Accurate Tracking of Vehicle Costs per Mile

Another benefit of integrating fuel data into fleet management systems is accurately tracking vehicle costs per mile. When mileage updates from the fuel transactions are integrated into the fleet management system, you can seek benefit from the reports that collectively show fuel and other expense information.

Most fleet management software provides an Asset Operating Costs report that shows an overview of each fleet vehicle and its operating costs per mile. Accurate information about miles brings accuracy to this report as it is based on the mileage updates between a certain time.

With accurate mileage updates recorded from fuel data, fleet managers can be certain that the data is accurate. As a result, the same data can help them make more informed decisions in the future.

Minimize Fuel Theft

Integrating fuel data into fleet management software can easily help fleet businesses detect and prevent fuel theft. When you set a particular capacity on the fuel tank size on each vehicle, the reports will show fuel transactions that exceed that amount.

What’s more, some fleet management software can also be configured to automatically send you an email, alerting you whenever a vehicle fills a tank beyond its capacity.

When staff workers are fully aware that fuel capacity is being tracked within the system, they will likely refrain from any fuel theft attempts. We can bet fuel theft will be significantly reduced if not eliminated.

Utilize Fuel Data for Several Reports

Fuel card providers can help provide reports related to fuel, such as overall fuel spend, who purchased it, the time and day of purchase, etc. Fleet businesses can integrate the fuel data into other operational reports that you can find in a complete fleet management system.

For instance, configurable fleet management software can help you create a wide range of reports utilizing the fuel data for anything you need.

Let us look at a few examples below:

• You can create a report that links fuel usage over a period and how it relates to certain types of tires. Certain types of tires are also likely to be linked to better or worse fuel efficiency than others.
• You can maintain a record of fuel consumption relating to a particular vehicle and observe trends over certain times.
• You can track fuel efficiencies and be notified when the fuel consumption of a specific vehicle exceeds compared to the standard consumption level.

It is noteworthy that no fleet management system will have a pre-built report; you would have to create it using configurable fleet management software.

With the help of configurable fleet management software, you can create new reports on the go or allow the provider to make them quickly to meet your requirements.

Make Your Work Easier

It is essential to understand that a fleet management system should be able to make your work easier, not complicated. By integrating fuel data into fleet management system, you can save your time in a lot of different ways, such as:

• There will be fewer manual data entries to work on
• Transport all reporting into one system to avoid multiple data sources and log-ins as much as possible
• You can easily spot trends and problems in your fleet associated with fuel.

Conclusion

We conclude that fuel management systems and fleet management software perfectly complement each other.

You can achieve better fleet efficiency and productivity by investing in both systems. Fleet managers must know and understand the benefits of integrating fuel data into fleet management systems.

Even better, they should also consider investing in a robust, cloud-based TMS software to gain better visibility into your fleet and improve complex trucking operations.