For 40 years, fleet payments haven’t seen much innovation, but that’s begun to change. By and large, HVAC and plumbing service businesses haven’t seen much innovation in financial services that suits their specific needs. Some companies have emerged to serve the trades, but the process for managing employee and fleet expenses remained the same as it was 20 years ago.

In the past, you would either supply a fuel card that could only be used to purchase gas or supplies at certain locations, inconveniencing your personnel with limited usability and keeping them from doing their jobs more effectively.

Or you could give your team a general corporate credit card that didn’t provide robust spending controls and might put you at risk of abuse of the program. With these cards, you couldn’t get a real-time view into transactions, software capabilities were limited, and cards that lack chips or additional verification are lacking in security and are prone to fraud. 

If a significant portion of your workforce is out on the road, giving them the tools to be more efficient in the field is necessary to control expenses in real time.

Now, thanks to new card infrastructure and software innovations, fleet cards can be smarter than ever. You can get the trust and visibility you need to avoid abuse and waste, while empowering your technicians or field employees to use their approved spending, keeping them focused on serving your customers and growing your business. 

A modern solution helps owners set the specific spending rules that they need while maintaining control, getting the best features from both fuel card and corporate card offerings. Businesses can authenticate the identities of their card users to prevent fraud, get precise data to stop any kind of waste or abuse, and save time in operations by linking a modern fleet card with other tools, such as telematics and fleet management software.

Here’s the rundown on how a modern fleet card can transform your fleet operations:

Security Comes Standard

Do you and your team feel confident that your fuel card program is safe against fraud?

According to a study commissioned by Shell, 57% of fleet managers believe fuel-related fraud is a serious issue. And two out of five drivers have seen another driver act fraudulently.

Aside from employee misuse and abuse, fuel cards are still uniquely susceptible to fraud: many older fuel cards have only a magnetic stripe and no chip. Gas stations are notoriously the victims of card skimmers – people who copy the data from the magnetic strip of your card when you use it - which makes chipless cards particularly vulnerable.

With a more up-to-date platform, fleet managers can add the employee’s mobile phone and other identifying information and assign it to their card within the fleet card’s software portal. This means that the card is useless unless the employee has checked in via their mobile device. This also effectively means that if the card is stolen or picked up off the street, it cannot be used or skimmed. And modern cards have chips that ensure that businesses won’t be held liable if their cards are copied and used for fraud.

Fleet managers can also enforce GPS-based controls to block fraudulent fuel transactions. If the vehicle is in one location, but the card is being used 20 miles away, fleet managers can stop the transaction in real time using data from linked telematics software. 

With this level of security, businesses can limit their liability and reduce fraud and employee waste. For example, customers using our cards have seen a 9% savings per month in their fuel costs and get back up to 16 hours per month in time spent chasing data, because the software and innovation are much more efficient in monitoring and controlling fleet expenses than previously used methods.

SMS on Driver Phones Creates Reliability

It’s critical for HVAC or plumbing businesses to get a complete, live understanding of their field operations. In particular, getting access to accurate data about your fleet equips you with the right insights to ensure your team is as efficient as possible. 

Users of older fuel card will be be familiar with the “PINs at the pump” system to activate the card for use. Using this system, employees put identifying information into the dial pad on the gas pump after they swipe a fuel card to collect important transaction and vehicle information.

Fuel cards that use PINs, however, have several issues. PINs can be shared, for example, so it’s hard to track who’s actually using the card, and manual entry is prone to user error, resulting in inaccurate data and a lack of control.

For example, if an employee is trying to key in the right vehicle number or odometer reading to make the transaction when the weather is freezing cold or there are other distractions, the employee may enter inaccurate information, resulting in inaccurate reporting or a failed transaction. That means that the administrator cannot get insights about appropriate use of vehicles, the out-of-policy spend, miles per gallon and other key information used in decision making about the fleet. Our customers often state that bad data from odometers or incorrect PIN entries was a large factor in their decision to switch fuel cards.

A modern platform, on the other hand, empowers managers or accounting personnel to match card usage accurately to the correct driver and vehicle, allowing administrators to correctly categorize transactions and spot any potential card misuse.

By passing identifying data through the SMS on driver phones, the driver no longer has to memorize a vehicle code and can check in at the pump through their own phone. With the workflow on an employee’s mobile device, the system automatically captures which card is being used and matches it to the right driver and vehicle, and applies the correct spending rules. The administrator can also manage the fleet card program from their desktop or on their mobile device and can customize the spending rules on the fly, whether it’s limiting card use by location, time of day, and/or spend category, or other controls. 

Integrations Fuel Efficient Processes

Have you ever thought about how your fuel card data can inform how you see your vehicles and the cost of ownership in your other fleet software? Or have you considered how you can eliminate manual processes by passing vehicle data between systems?

One of the most impactful features of a modern fleet card is the ability to integrate with other fleet tools. Owners may have never thought of their fleet cards as being an essential part of your software setup.

Older fuel cards weren’t always built to handle real-time transaction reporting, or connections to other software. Owners using software for fleet management and telematics, know the insights provided by those platforms are only as good as the fuel usage data that is fed into the platform.

It’s critical to understand the total cost of ownership of your vehicles and your fleet, and without purchase data or with data that’s inaccurate, that becomes hard or impossible to do.

With a smart fleet card, fleet managers can pass vehicle and fuel usage data between systems seamlessly. Integration with fleet management and telematics solutions enables proactive maintenance scheduling, reducing breakdowns and improving overall vehicle reliability, as well as accurate vehicle tracking and routing. 

Many fleet owners and operators also rely on integrations between the fleet card and accounting software to provide them with more accuracy when they categorize their team’s transactions and job costing.

Customers who take advantage of these connections are empowered by the data they get and use these insights as a game-changer: they’re now able to get true visibility into their fleet expenses and operations, and use reliable, actionable data to make business decisions accordingly.

Technology Innovation for every Business

Using a modern fleet card solution empowers employees to confidently use their cards for their intended uses, and finance and operations teams can better manage spending using real-time data on a user-friendly platform. 

Over the past 10 to 15 years, the financial and venture capital industries have fueled innovations in financial technology. According to global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, venture capital funds for fintech grew from $19.4 billion in 2015 to $33.3 billion in 2020. But many of these products are designed for individual consumers, or startup technology companies.

The rapid transformation in fintech has not translated to local and regional businesses at the same pace. It’s time to take the promise of fintech, with its real-time insights, transparent pricing, and efficient products, and put them in the hands of the businesses that sustain our local and regional economies.

Daniel Simon is the CEO and founder of Coast, a modern fleet card and expense management platform that helps companies govern their fuel and fleet spending.