The Importance of Accurate Fuel Reporting as Prices Rise | Utilimarc Fleet FYIs

Gretchen Reese (00:24):

Hey there. Welcome to the Fleet FYIs Podcast, the weekly podcast by Utilimarc that reveals how you can make the most of your data for smarter fleet management. My name is Gretchen and every week, you'll hear from me or some of the industry's finest in candid conversations that will not only shed some light on over two decades worth of fleet data insights, but also some of the industry's hottest talking points and key metric analysis with the aim to help you better understand your fleet from every angle.

(00:52):

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(01:10):

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(01:34):

Hello, everyone. And welcome back to another episode of the Fleet FYIs Podcast. I wanted to dig into a relatively sensitive topic today, and I mean sensitive in terms of more of the context of timely, rather than a provocative topic. We know that inflation by now has really dug a hole in the pockets of the everyday consumer and businesses alike. And fleets are no different when it comes to being impacted by these higher costs and still rising going forward.

(02:03):

Fuel, as we all know is one of the biggest capital spends for any fleet. So detailed reporting on fuel spend and consumption is always important. No matter the year, no matter the type of economy that we're in at the moment, and as fuel prices are rising all around the world, we need to ensure that these reports are accurate because it's become critical to a successful fleet budget, especially as we're planning for the future.

(02:28):

Fuel prices have been so much higher and especially higher than usual lately with the national average hitting just over $5 a gallon earlier this summer. And some states actually seeing prices soar far over $6 a gallon. And though prices have been coming down a bit since the peak, gas prices are still on average about a $1.50, more expensive than this same time of last year.

(02:53):

Now because of this, it's more important than ever for fleet managers to stay on top of fuel spend in order to reduce waste and to keep fuel spend lower or to a minimum as low as we possibly can, right? But unfortunately, manual reporting just isn't, it's not hitting the mark here. It's always subject to human error and it's subject to oversight.

(03:14):

And additionally, we've heard a lot of people expressing concern just over the rise of internal fuel theft whenever prices get this high. I mean, it's something that we can expect all across the board, right? It happens in every single industry.

(04:04):

So what's the problem here? Well, for many fleets data management is typically handled manually. And sometimes that can lead to inefficiencies without an automated way to crosscheck fuel transactions with vehicle mileage. A lot of fleet managers have only one-dimensional view of their data, which can open up whole can of worms when it comes to digging deeper into this topic here. And this runs the risk of missing transactions that don't match up and understanding where the fuel spend is actually going, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

(04:34):

And for example, it could potentially be very easy to miss several fuel transactions on telematics linked to a vehicle that hasn't actually accumulated any mileage. Alternatively, a fleet manager could overlook a gasoline transaction on FMIS linked to a truck that we all know takes diesel or their entire company knows that takes a diesel fuel instead.

(04:54):

The problem here is that with fuel transactions being tracked in one system, it's almost impossible to crosscheck them with what's being tracked in another system, especially with Silo Data causing issues all across the industry here. We've touched on that in and other episodes. And if you'd really like to take a look at them, feel free. There was one just a couple episodes ago, and we've talked about the importance of BI and understanding where when your data meshes together, that can really only benefit you more on earlier in this season.

(05:23):

But my point is, is that fleet managers can try and do so manually? Especially when it comes to these crosschecks here, but this can be extremely time-intensive and unproductive. So how can we actually get a clear picture then of where fuel spend is going? We actually really wanted to know how fleets across North America are dealing with this, not just understanding where fuel spend is going, but just in general, how we're dealing with higher and rising fuel costs? Even if they're starting to come down a little bit.

(05:53):

So if you are on our email list, if you're not, you can always sign up on our website, which is www.utilimarc.com to keep an eye out for a soon to come survey on inflation fuel and all things cross center. I'm really excited about this one. I think if you guys like to participate in surveys like this, we always send out the responses to all survey participants, but keep an eye out for that one, because I think this is going to be one that's going to shed a lot of light on fuel reporting and how a lot of fleets all across North America are doing it?

(06:23):

But onto my next point here is I wanted to talk about the solution because I don't want this to all be doom and gloom, right? We don't want to hear about a ton of problems that who knows how we're going to fix them. The solution might seem a bit simple. I'll just throw that out there right now, because not every manager is doing it, but they could be. We've talked about again, business intelligence before, but again, lets you bring all of these different data sources into the same environment to be crosschecked in a way that's automated, it's accurate, and it's easily distributable.

(06:58):

Wow. That's a multisyllabic word that is just not doing me any favors today. My point is that essentially BI lets fleet managers shine a light on this previously one-dimensional data to really see the full picture here. So if you're using telematics, you're using fuel cards, and you're using FMIS Data as sources. Your data is cleaned, it's standardized, and it's brought into the business intelligence platform for analysis in one place.

(07:25):

So there you're using a system of checks and balances and business intelligence then gives fleet managers the ability to quickly see when a transaction is flagged, as being potentially fraudulent, that you can say, "Nope, this is fine. Or actually I need to look into this." And you can see why it's being flagged as well.

(07:41):

So here's one thing as well to also take note of is that with a business intelligence platform, fleet managers can also keep an eye on fuel spend per unit. They can see changes in trends over time and they can compare their fuel consumption to other similar fleets in the industry. I think honestly, it's a critical tool for monitoring costs and making confident data back decisions, but there's always something that works best for every single person.

(08:09):

And we like to say that BI can be a one-size-fits-all solution, reason being it's because it's very tailorable to every single person that subscribes to business intelligence. It's an interesting one. That one.

(08:57):

Ultimately, it's nearly impossible for fleet managers to prevent fuel fraud and accurately monitor fuel spend without the right tools. That's pretty plain as day. The best business intelligence tool will give fleet managers reliable insight into what's going on in their fleet, whether it pertains to fuel fraud or any other topical concerns that you might have.

(09:16):

I mean, obviously fuel is not the only type of reporting that a BI platform can handle, but though fuel prices might be a major concern today. The fleet industry inevitably changes as time passes. This we all know by now I'm sure, but the thing is, is that business intelligence actually really lets you seamlessly shift your focus. It lets you integrate new data streams and it lets you track different metrics as your fleet changes too, making it the ultimate future proofing fleet tool, I think.

(09:45):

Let me know your thoughts. I'd love to hear what you think about this topic. BI fuel fraud, fuel reporting, anything like that. Send me an email, tag me on LinkedIn, use the hashtag Utilimarc Fleet FYIs, or you can even send me a carrier pigeon if you feel like it. Anyways, that is all for me this week. I will chat to you all, again next Friday. Ciao.

(10:27):

Hey there, I think this is the time that I should queue the virtual high five because you've just finished listening to another episode of the Fleet FYIs Podcast. If you're already wanting more content, head over to Utilimarc.com, which is Utilimarc with a C, U-T-I-L-I-M-A-R-C, dot com, for this episode, show notes and extra insights coming straight from our analyst to you. That's all from me this week. So until next time, I'll catch you later.