New to Fleet Management? - Get started here!
Updated on August 18, 2022 - 4:00 PM by Admin, TruckLogics
Fleet management is the process of grouping, coordinating, monitoring, and maintaining all of the vehicles involved in a business. The main objective of fleet management is to take care of all the fleet activities to ensure improved fleet efficiency and fleet maintenance.
Any business that involves managing commercial motor vehicles should possess an effective way of Fleet Management. When it comes to trucking businesses, the need for a fleet management system increases even further.
Why is Effective Fleet Management Important for Trucking Businesses?
There are numerous reasons why well-built fleet management is highly essential for trucking businesses. The major reason is the impact it has on operational efficiency.
From dispatch management to accounting, a trucking business involves a lot of operations.
- Managing all the Financial Operations such as invoice tracking, income, and expenses
- Managing customers
- Managing day-to-day dispatch activities
- Managing the activities of fleet drivers
- Planning and tracking vehicle maintenance
Each of these operations demands a significant amount of time and money. When there is a well-defined system to carry out all of the fleet operations, time-consumption and the cost incurred on each process will be reduced considerably, boosting the business's efficiency.
All of these fleet operations cannot be managed by the business owners themselves. That’s when fleet managers come into play.
What Does a Truck Fleet Manager Do?
A fleet manager plays a major role in running a transportation business. They regulate the fleet operations to help a business run efficiently, safely and in compliance with laws and regulations.
Fleet managers will perform multiple operations such as:
1. Driver Management
Driver Management is a very critical process in fleet operations that ensures the productivity and safety of all of the drivers.
A trucking business can hire drivers either on a contract basis or as permanent employees. Fleet managers are responsible for managing every operation related to both categories of drivers.
The driver management process can be put into two categories:
Dispatch Assignment:
Whenever there is a dispatch requirement, fleet managers will notify all available drivers. They will assign the loaded trucks to the available drivers and provide them with all of the information needed for the dispatches such as:
Expenses and Settlements:
Usually, settlements can be made either for a single dispatch or for a duration of time. There will be many components involved such as hauling fee, fuel expenses, and advance payments. The fleet manager will compute all of these and complete the driver settlements accordingly.
2. Dispatch Scheduling and Tracking
Scheduling and tracking the dispatches is another primary responsibility of fleet managers.
Scheduling involves assigning drivers to loaded trucks and computing the maximum time frame needed to complete the dispatches. Once the scheduling is done, the tracking part begins.
Most consignees prefer getting real-time tracking updates. The fleet manager should be able to track and update where the trucks currently are and when the dispatches will get delivered.
3. Fleet Tracking
A fleet manager will be able to track and be aware of all fleet activity. They will keep track of:
Only then can the fleet managers plan and schedule dispatches precisely.
4. Route Planning
Finding out the shortest route for each dispatch is a key component for trucking businesses. However, while calculating the distance between the starting point and the delivery point, the fleet manager may also consider other external factors such as:
In case of any issues with the planned route, fleet managers will be able to find and suggest alternate routes.
5. Fuel Management
Managing fuel for the trucks is one of the many important responsibilities of fleet managers. Whenever they plan and schedule a dispatch, the fleet managers may identify:
If the fleet manager finds a way to manage and optimize fuel costs efficiently using this data, it can save a trucking business a lot of time and money.
6. Fleet Maintenance
When there are multiple trucks involved in a trucking business, it's difficult to monitor their working conditions regularly. The sudden unavailability of trucks due to defects can cause disruption to dispatch plans.
This is why fleet managers need to have clear-cut knowledge about the maintenance requirements of each truck. Knowing when a truck should undergo maintenance, and which trucks aren't available due to maintenance can prove to be vital in completing dispatches on time.
7. Financial Activities
While managing all of the financial operations of a trucking business, the fleet managers will come across the following tasks:
Invoice Management
Creating and tracking invoices for customers so that it is easy to find paid and unpaid invoices.
Expense Transactions management
This includes managing miscellaneous expenses such as fuel costs and maintenance costs.
Driver Settlement Management
Managing settlements for all of the drivers such as bringing in reimbursable expenses, recurring expenses, and associated payment transactions.
Payments Management
Computate and manage all of the payments received and pending payments from customers.
8. ELD Compliance
ELD refers to Electronic Logging Device. In order to streamline the hours of service, the Department of Transportation (DOT) has established ELD compliance.
ELD Compliance requires installment and proper usage of a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) - registered ELD to record hours of service in a certain list of vehicles and that includes:
The fleet managers will make sure that all of the trucks involved in the business are in accordance with ELD compliance.
9. Tax Compliance
By collecting all of the required truck and fuel data, fleet managers will be responsible for generating the International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA) report. Also, they are responsible for meeting the IRS tax compliance requirements, paying (Heavy Vehicle Use Tax Return) HVUT tax by filing Form 2290.
Challenges Faced by Truck Fleet Managers
Now, we can understand that there are many aspects needed to be taken care of in fleet management. While performing all these activities, fleet managers may face some challenges. These potential challenges include:
1. Processing Operations Manually
With multiple operations needed to be carried out in sequence, it will be difficult for the fleet managers to manage everything manually.
2. More Paperwork
Managing a trucking business involves a lot of paperwork. There will be a need to handle a large number of reports, receipts, and other data. It can be a tedious task to manage.
3. More Calculation
From determining the estimated time for dispatches to calculating driver settlements, fleet managers have to perform a lot of mathematical operations.
4. Real-Time Tracking of all of the Activities
It will be extremely difficult to manually keep track of all of the fleet activities in real-time.
5. Meeting Compliance Requirements
Since there are a lot of vehicles involved in a trucking business, it’s hard to ensure that all of the vehicles are in compliance with law and regulations.
Managing your fleet operations is a daunting process without the right software.
The wise choice of simplifying your fleet management operations is choosing the right software such as TruckLogics.com. Save more time and effort involved in
managing your fleets.
How to Simplify your Fleet operations?
In the trucking industry, getting started with all-in-one Truck Fleet Management Software like TruckLogics is easier than ever to manage your trucking fleet. See how TruckLogics can immensely improve the operations of any trucking business.
TruckLogics offers a complete solution to manage all of your fleet operations.
- Manage all of the activities related to your drivers including: assigning them to dispatches, tracking their settlements, and communication will be taken care of by the Driver Management solution.
- Track and Manage all your LTL and FTL Dispatches effectively and efficiently, and schedule dispatches perfectly by tracking the availability of trucks with the simplified Dispatch Management System
- The Account Management System lets you manage all of the income and expenses easily.
- There will be no more need for paperwork. The Digital Documentation solution allows you to store and maintain all of the documents related to your business.
- With the Fuel Optimization solution, you can easily keep the cost of fuel.
- By providing Accurate reports, TruckLogics helps business owners keep track of all of the key data regarding the business.
- With TruckLogics, you can easily be tax compliant! Generating your IFTA report has never been easier!
