Managing a whole fleet of business vehicles that your company owns and operates isn’t easy. There are plenty of things that you need to think about if you are looking to improve your processes and limit your business vehicle depreciation.
Not only that but avoid wasting time, money, and resources on your business vehicle’s fleet. There are places where you’ll need to spend money, such as on air compressor options and on insurances, but you want to be sure that you are making the right choices for your business.
Saving time and money should be a priority for you! Let’s take a look right now at some of the main things to consider when you have a fleet to manage in your business.
There are plenty of changes, big and small, that you can make that’ll improve the outcomes for your fleet and your business as well.
Table of Contents
Stay on Top of Regular Maintenance for Your Business Vehicles
It’s vital that the business vehicles are properly maintained at all times. It’s impossible to run a fleet of vehicles efficiently if you’re not doing everything necessary to maintain them. Not only that but to stay on top of their various needs.
With the right maintenance, you’ll be able to make the vehicles last longer and have to go through a few repairs, which is a huge financial bonus for you as well.
Make sure you have the number of a trusted truck shop technician or similar who can be called out when you need to have repairs carried out for your trucks and other vehicles. Remember, time = money!
So make sure that you’re doing everything you can to keep things on the right path.
Communicate With Drivers
You also need to make sure that you are able to properly and easily communicate with your drivers, and this is the kind of thing that can be really important and deeply effective in terms of managing the whole fleet much more successfully.
There are a lot of ways you can do this – you can of course use a radio or even hands-free phones, but it’s up to you which you go for. As long as there is a good way to communicate with all drivers, that can help in everyday situations as well as in emergency ones.
Aim to Reduce Mileage on Your Business Vehicles
First of all, you should be trying to do as much as you possibly can to reduce the number of miles your company vehicles travel each day. You don’t want to be driving more than needs to be driven.
When you are driving too many miles with your fleet, it obviously just causes you more problems. With today’s price of gas, this is very important!
Lisa, SMall Biz Tipsterm
Efficiency is one of the most important things of all and that shouldn’t be overlooked. Furthermore, it can cause business vehicle depreciation.
Manage Your Logistics
Logistics refers to everything to do with getting the cargo to the right place on time and doing so as efficiently as possible. That helps to save money and time, reduces the likelihood of incidents on the road due to driver tiredness, and generally means that you are running your business much more efficiently.
You need to make sure that you are managing your logistics as well as possible at all times, which is not always easily done but is the kind of thing you can always work on if you want to.
You never know during the winter months what hazards lay ahead of your vehicles.
Track the Business Vehicle Fleet with GPS
It’s a good idea for your business to properly track the fleet of vehicles when they’re in use because this will help you with the aim discussed above. With GPS you know the routes they are on and how the vehicles are being used.
Then, you can ensure employees aren’t breaking rules and aren’t taking longer routes than they need to. With the price of fuel for your business vehicles today, this is a huge money-saver.
Not only that but your customers’ expectations of delivery times could be jeopardized.
As you track their movements more, you’ll find new ways to reduce mileage and reduce the amount of time on the road as well. This will further offset the business vehicle depreciation.
You can use your mileage for a business vehicle write-off too.
Use Fleet Management Software
If you want to manage your fleet properly and professionally, you definitely need to be using the very best fleet management software.
This is one of the major tools that’ll help you to work as efficiently as possible. Your fleet will be directed to the next job with all efficiency metrics first taking it into account.
You can plan things out in much more depth and gain lots of new insights with the help of this software.
Know the Risks and Dangers of Your Business Vehicles Fleet
It’s important to understand the risks that come with operating your own fleet. For some businesses it makes sense. You may be able to use them for a business vehicle write-off.
However, for others, it might make more sense to mitigate those risks by simply hiring a third-party company. They can take care of deliveries for you to save time.
You don’t want to find yourself dealing with legal issues after a crash on the road involving one of your business vehicles.
If that ever happens, you’ll need a specialist truck accident attorney and decisive action will need to be taken.
Recruit a Team of Drivers You Can Trust
Who drives your vehicles is a really fundamentally important part of all of this too, and it’s one of those areas that you can always look into and improve if you want to make sure that you are actually looking after your fleet properly.
Recruiting the best is easily done as long as you have a proper recruitment process. The process is something that you might find is actually surprisingly simple to do right.
Put the Right Insurance Cover in Place
Finally, you should also make sure that you’ve got the right insurance coverage in place. Your business vehicles are going to be on the road a lot and accidents can happen. It’s also a legal requirement for commercial vehicles to have the correct insurance in place.
Be sure to take a look at the specific rules and laws in your area. However, make sure you’re abiding by them.
Conclusion: Managing Business Vehicles Fleet
Managing a fleet of vehicles presents your business with challenges that you wouldn’t otherwise have to face.
That’s why it’s in your best interests to make sure that you’re managing the fleet correctly. Therefore not allowing the task to get away from you. If you’re going to run a fleet, you need to do it properly.
Have you had to manage a business vehicle or a fleet of company vehicles? I’d love to know if you used a business vehicle write-off. Please leave a comment below.
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