How Is Your Fleet Performing? Find It Out With An Audit!
Irrespective of the business type, it is vital to observe the shortcomings or the wrong ways of operations. This practice not only helps you design a foolproof operational cycle but also ensures that your staff is efficient and happy.
The best way to determine how your fleet is performing is by simply conducting an audit. If you are intimidated by the term 'audit', please ensure that here we are sharing the 5 simple ways that will help you create an internal audit. Trust us; it won't demand much effort and time of yours.
Why Conduct An Internal Fleet Audit?
An internal audit helps measure the compliance of the current operational practices against the standard policies and procedures. It can help the fleet managers in:
- Examining the accuracy of the drivers’ performance records.
- Analyzing the monthly expense reports.
- Determining the productivity of the overall fleet.
- Limiting the risks, mishaps, and misconducts in the trucking business.
5 Helpful Audit Actions for Any Fleet Manager
1.Fleet cost
This is undoubtedly one of the most common audit types. The fleet managers are required to keep track of all sorts of expenses related to operations, maintenance, and repairing of the vehicles. This will further help analyze expenses such as cost per mile, day, week, or month. Additionally, you can figure out the specific costs associated with a truck, route, or customer.
Ensure that you also keep a record of the truck number, date of each transaction, and mileage rate of each vehicle. This practice will subsequently help locate discrepancies and offer you the opportunity to reduce the costs wherever possible.
2. Accurate accounts payable process
Every organization has a set of rules for authorizing the payments. This is known as an accounts payable process, and it ensures to centralize the power to manage the funds and finances. Some of the examples include
- A driver has the authority to replace the tires in an emergency.
- A fleet manager has the authority to send the trucks for regular maintenance.
- A director has the authority to sign the salary checks.
It is vital to audit the accounts payable process if you want to maintain a flow of financial operations without hampering the fleet's efficiency.
3.Vehicle record
An accurate and updated vehicle data empower fleet managers to make more informed and precise decisions. You can leverage the latest technology for telematics and generating fuel cards. The collection of these sorts of vehicle records will help in:
- Spotting the ROI rate.
- Replacing the vehicle by comparing it with the previous performance tally.
- Determining the vehicle's fuel efficiency.
- Evaluation of the total ownership cost.
- Finding the utilization rate.
- Calculating the cost per mile.
Fleet managers can make sturdier and result-oriented decisions by carefully cross-checking, comparing, and analyzing these figures. This will consequently increase the profit rates and make you more efficient in driving operations.
4.Legal fleet documentation health
As a fleet manager, it is one of your core responsibilities to ensure that the documents are stored in the vehicle as well as in the office. This will save you, and the driver from hefty fines levied during the routine road check-ups.
Moreover, healthy documentation of each vehicle and the driver will speed up the rescue process in emergencies like accidents or breaking down. The list of primary documents includes:
- Tag Information
- Certificate of Origin (CO)
- Insurance papers
- Driver License
- Incident Records (like tax forms, employee documentation, driver's drug and alcohol test, and more)
- Motor Vehicle Record
- Odometer statement
Maintaining these records will also assist you in selling the trucks at any point in time. This audit can be conducted only if the lessors have submitted COs and vehicle titles and the sales team has provided the federal odometer statement.
5. Technology
It is needless to say that technology is becoming the backbone of all sorts of operations. While auditing the other factors, you cannot overlook the opportunities to deploy technical tools and services for increasing the efficiency of the vehicles, drivers, and other officials. Some of the common areas to utilize technology in the fleet industry are:
- Route optimization
- Location tracking
- Odometer statement
- Driver behavior monitoring
- Fuel card management
Additionally, a cloud-based system will aid in centralizing and decluttering the information. It will ensure that all the required data is available at your disposal.
Take home a message-
The fleet managers can swiftly run all the procedures by carefully auditing the fleet performance at regular intervals. By adopting technology and better fleet cost management methods, an increased efficiency can be expected.