Vehicle fleet management: How do you manage a fleet of company vehicles in 2021?

Vehicles are essential asset for most businesses. If your business has more than 4 vehicles under its operation, then a vehicle fleet management software will surely be beneficial to your business.

Managing your vehicle fleet can be challenging.  There will be a lot to track like vehicle maintenance, gas receipts, parts inventory, vehicle inspection, vehicle location etc. Hence, it is important to have a vehicle fleet management strategy that includes purchasing a fleet management software to facilitate all these activities.

Just before we go into explaining what a vehicle fleet management software entails and the best vehicle fleet management solutions out there, reserve a tab to see our Tesla Cybertruck review.

What is fleet management software?

In simple terms, a vehicle fleet management software is an automated solution that provides users the ability to manage targeted activities related to their vehicle fleet for the purpose of saving costs, boosting efficiency and following government directives.

Vehicle fleet management software are typically offered as a Software -as-a-Service (SaaS). This means that a vendor provides a central hosting, usually cloud based. The vendor could then deliver it to users on a subscription basis or at a one-time cost.

Uses of a vehicle fleet management software

Fleet management software enables a business to proactively manage all tasks in the fleet lifecycle on a centralized platform. By having a fleet management system in place, businesses can realise their vehicle fleet management strategy with ease. In this section we will walk you through some of the major uses of a fleet management software:

Driver Safety Compliance Monitoring

Fleet management software enables fleet managers to ensure that drivers are adhering to safety standards and behaviours, through tools like event data recorder (also dashcam) or Vehicle tracking systems.

With driver safety being one of the top challenges for all fleet types, a vehicle tracking software can help get distracted drivers back on track thereby helping you avoid huge financial impacts. 

Maintenance workflow simplification

One of the key uses of fleet management software is that you can leverage it to improve your fleet maintenance process. Fleet maintenance is a joint effort, with various stakeholders sharing tasks to successfully keep the fleet on the road for as long its lifespan can carry. Further, fleet maintenance workflow often involve vendor team, driver team, inventory team, admin team, company executive team, etc. communicating to ensure that fleet is serviced on time and on schedule.

A fleet management software will help you avoid potential miscommunications, inefficiencies, time wasting and interruptions by automating the workflow for fleet maintenance. More so, you get a platform for shared collaboration where the following can be managed:

• tracking fleet vehicles health
• automating servicing or repairs reminders
• real time notification of issues
• automating maintenance related approvals
• tracking maintenance spend
• outsourcing maintenance work to chosen vendors
• scheduling maintenance tasks internally through work orders
• providing dashboards for reporting and audit

Inspection Management

A vehicle fleet management software serves as a replacement for paper vehicle inspections forms. This mitigates issues such as paper form damage, misplacement or late communications, hence, speeding up the fleet maintenance process.

Electronic vehicle inspection is a vehicle fleet management best practice that every business with fleet should adopt. By managing vehicle inspection electronically, drivers can conduct exhaustive inspections and document results immediately into a centralized database. More so, if there is a failure in an inspection item, alerts be instantly sent for troubleshooting.

Analyzing Fleet Metrics

Fleet management software saves you valuable time from going through spreadsheets. You can get insights on your assets without having to manually compute numbers. Fleet expenses and other metrics can be automatically aggregated on one platform, with the data analyzed and customized reports generated. Consequently, all these will result in an efficient process for managing a fleet.

Besides, when you track metrics, you will get a validated data to plan your budget. You will also get insights into what assets to replace and when to do so.

Further, leveraging data like cost-per-mile and repair costs can help you determine whether your fleet operating costs are negatively affecting your bottom line.

Lastly, a good vehicle fleet management software should either be comprehensive or provide an ability to integrate other asset management tools. Thus, data can also come from integrated tools.

What is the best vehicle fleet management software?

In this section we will detail some of the best vehicle fleet management software we have come across:

VinitySoft

Vehicle Fleet Manager from VanitySoft is top on our list given that it provides a comprehensive fleet management experience. With the VinitySoft Vehicle Fleet Manager you get a free 30 days trial period that gives you access to its full functions to help you decide if the software is best for your business. In addition, the company offers a 30-day money back guarantee after you purchase the software.

Types of Vehicles Supported

• Trucks and Trailers
• Cars
• Commercial Vehicles
• Taxis
• Ambulances
• Bicycles
• Buses
• Heavy equipment
• Police cars
• Limousines
• Boats
• Air crafts

Pros

• Simplified user setup
• No subscriptions and hidden charges. Just a one-time purchase payment.
• Web-enabled
• Money back guarantee
• Minimal and cheap customization

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Fleetio

Fleetio is a top contender on our list of best fleet management software. It provides solutions for Fleet Management, Fleet Maintenance, Fuel Management and Equipment Management.

Top Features

• Essential Maintenance management
• Vehicle inspections and Recall Management
• Integrations
• Contact and Vendor Management
• Driver Records and Assignment
• Fleet Operations Report

Pros

• Mobile app enabled (Fleetio Go and Fleetio Parts)
• Allows for integration with other asset tools
• Unlimited users

Cons

• Subscription based

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Locus

Locus optimizes fleet logistics operations for companies in the FMCG, home services, retail, e-commerce and third-party logistics sector. Examples of the range of products for vehicle fleet management owned by the company include:

• TrackerIQ Fleet Optimization Software – for real time fleet tracking, insights and analytics.
• Dispatcher – enables automation of delivery route plans
• IntelliSort – provides automated Parcel Sorting System.
• Accupin – provides address verification and geocode validation system for fleet driving proficiency.
• FleetMix – for analyzing demand scenarios to advise on appropriate fleet composition

Top Features:

• Intelligent Geocoding
• Dispatch Synopsis
• Predictive Alerts
• Real timeTracking
• Enroute Analytics

Pros

• 24/7 Live Rep support
• Web based

Cons:

• High starting cost
• No mobile app

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Wrap up

The benefits of fleet management software can not be overemphasized. Especially, given the increasing need for real-time collaboration across various industries. More so, if your organizations has a fleet, its best bet will be to leverage a fleet management software in order to increase fleet efficiency.

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