Employees filling up their own cars or other fuel frauds are a common problem in companies where there is no fixed reimbursement for fuel. An efficient way to avoid such malpractice is with GPS fuel control. Learn about how this tool works in B2Field, how to get an automatic calculation of fuel costs and maximize fuel savings.
How businesses conduct fuel reimbursement — with and without GPS
The Labor Code obliges the employer to reimburse fuel and lubricant expenses if an employee uses their own vehicle at work. However, the law does not provide specific guidelines as to how to calculate such payments. That is why each company solves this task in different ways. Four most common ways include:
- fuel cards that can be used to fill up cars at certain gas stations only,
- fixed amounts, regardless of whether the employee exceeded the amount or managed to save up,
- reimbursement based off receipts from gas stations provided by the employee,
- calculation based on mileage. In which case, mileage is calculated using different methods: with the help of maps or GPS trackers.
Unless you turn to specialized devices, calculating mileage and the compensation itself is quite time-consuming and sometimes even proves to be unreliable, making it difficult for business and personal trips — which employees occasionally pass off as work-related ones. This is why companies turn to GPS for recording mileage — the precision is up to 6-7 feet which allows for GPS fuel control and fair reimbursement.
In addition, B2Field transmits the vehicle’s location every few seconds, so it is not possible to swap geolocations to increase the mileage and receive a greater compensation.
The mileage is recorded in reports and is available in travel history. Reports come in handy when you need to have a look at the total mileage, while travel history shows the mileage for each trip separately.
Fuel consumption control using GPS: automated calculation
B2Field developed a special tool to automate the calculation of fuel reimbursements. It allows you to get information about the compensation amount for each employee. B2Field not only calculates the costs for the billing period but also generates the cost per trip, if necessary.
The service uses mileage data and information that must be entered just once: the rate of consumption per 100 miles and the cost per unit of fuel. As a rule, this information is specified in the agreement on the use of personal property between the employee and the employer.
The amount of fuel reimbursement is generated in the automated trip reports. Besides GPS fuel control and reimbursement, you can also find out:
- the number of trips,
- travel time,
- average and maximum speed.
Thanks to this calculation automation, you can save yourself time and eliminate errors that often occur when calculating manually. As a result of GPS fuel reimbursement systems, fewer contentious situations arise as compared to calculating with maps or GIS, because temporary road closures and force majeure are taken into account.
How to set a fuel consumption rate
If you manage a small staff of field employees, you can draw up individual cost recovery agreements in which you specify the consumption rate. Depending on whether such an option suits both the employer and the employee, the data in the vehicle operation manual might serve as the basis for the decision.
However, with a field team over 3 employees GPS-based solution will be a great source for fuel savings and will easily help to sort the trips into business and personal.
Fuel savings based on hard data
The GPS fuel control system is an important tool when it comes to managing field specialists. And in order to achieve the most objective and comprehensive control possible, B2Field will reconstruct the picture of the working day to the smallest detail in the travel history. This will help to dispel your doubts about the employee’s trips throughout the work shift, if any.
With the travel history feature you will see on the map a detailed route taken by the employee with all the stops. You will see the speed, the locations the specialist visited, as well as the travel time.
Thanks to the travel history, our clients can spot unscrupulous employees: those who stop by on personal matters on their way to the client or clock off earlier than they are supposed to. You will immediately notice any detours on the map.
Credible fuel reimbursements with B2Field
B2Field helps companies generate transparent reimbursement calculations and pay fair compensation. Using this method, the employer receives ready-made calculations that are guaranteed to be accurate and eliminates any scenario where the employee may take advantage of the systems in place.
