Plumbing businesses can boost profitability by streamlining operations and reducing overhead costs. In an industry heavily reliant on vehicles, fuel tends to be one of the most significant expenses. Finding ways to better manage one of the largest line items in a budget is a great way to cut costs and exercise more control over cash flow. Many businesses have turned to fleet fuel cards to manage fuel, vehicles and more.
Plumbing businesses can add to their bottom lines using fleet cards for direct cost savings, control over purchases, expense management, budgeting and forecasting.
Fleet cards are often viewed as a payment method for fuel and fleet-related expenses. While they excel at consolidating fleet- or vehicle-related expenses, fuel cards offer so much more.
Using Fleet Cards as a Management Tool to Reduce Costs
Fleet cards are an ideal management tool for reducing fuel costs, gaining better control over fuel purchases and simplifying expense management. By utilizing the features provided by innovative platforms, such as the fuel cards offered by WEX, plumbing businesses can access numerous benefits that lead to cost savings and improved operational efficiency.
Plumbing businesses can add to their bottom lines using fleet cards for direct cost savings, control over purchases, expense management, budgeting and forecasting.
Direct Cost Savings
Fuel often represents one of the largest variable costs for plumbing businesses. Fleet fuel cards provide immediate and tangible cost savings beginning at fueling stations.
Fuel Rebates
It’s rare to find a fuel card provider that doesn’t offer some fuel rebates. Sometimes, these rebates are limited to a specific fueling network. With the WEX Fleet Card, plumbers can get up to 3¢ per gallon fuel rebates anywhere WEX cards are accepted. WEX fuel cards are accepted at 95% of U.S. gas stations.
These rebates directly lower operating costs for plumbing companies and contribute to a healthier bottom line.
Additional Discounts
Many fleet cards provide additional discounts on fleet-related expenses. Often, this occurs through direct partnerships with certain brands that agree to special pricing for fleet card holders. For instance, qualifying businesses can use Wex cards to access better pricing on maintenance, auto parts, services, tires, and even hotels.
Plumbing businesses can realize significant direct cost savings by taking advantage of these rebates and discounts.
Control Over Purchases
Saving on each gallon of gas or diesel is an excellent feature of fuel cards. However, when a business can place parameters on fuel purchases to reduce unapproved transactions and fraudulent activity, the potential for cost savings is even greater. Fleet fuel cards empower plumbing businesses with tools that enhance control and foster a culture of accountability.
Fleet cards, like those offered by WEX, have programmable spending limits that can help plumbing contractors save money in several ways.
Spending Limits
Spending limits are essential for ensuring fuel expenses remain within budget. Fleet cards, like those offered by WEX, have programmable spending limits that can help plumbing contractors save money in several ways.
- Customizable limits: Fleet fuel cards allow you to set daily, weekly or monthly spending limits. Parameters include purchase amount, fuel volume, fuel type, fuel grade, hours of the day, days of the week and more. These limits ensure each vehicle’s fuel consumption is monitored and controlled.
- Prevention of overspending: By enforcing spending limits, businesses can prevent accidental or fraudulent fuel purchases, keeping fuel costs predictable.
- Policy enforcement: Customized limits help align fuel expenses with your overall budget, ensuring you do not exceed your planned fuel spending. By setting purchase limits that coincide with company policies, drivers always know what is expected and can easily follow company guidelines.
This level of control helps maintain a strict budget while ensuring all vehicles have sufficient fuel to complete service calls.
Security Measures
Enhanced security measures provided by fleet fuel cards offer additional peace of mind.
- PIN protection: WEX fuel cards require a Personal Identification Number (PIN) for transactions, ensuring only authorized personnel can make purchases.
- Real-time alerts: Immediate notifications for transactions can help detect any unusual activity and enable swift intervention if unauthorized purchases occur.
- Fraud prevention: Advanced security protocols, including data encryption and continuous monitoring, reduce the risk of fraud and protect sensitive financial information.
These security measures are particularly important for plumbing businesses operating in multiple locations.
Expense Management
Managing fuel expenses manually is cumbersome and prone to errors. Fuel cards simplify this process through automated expense tracking and seamless integration with accounting systems.
Automated Fuel Expense Tracking
Automated fuel expense tracking eliminates the need to keep receipts and submit fuel expense reports. Ultimately, it gives drivers and administrative employees more time to focus on other tasks.
- Real-time data capture: Every fuel transaction is recorded in real time, allowing instant access to detailed expense reports.
- Error reduction: Automation minimizes human error, ensuring all fuel purchases are accurately recorded and reconciled.
- Efficiency gains: Automated tracking frees up valuable administrative time, enabling your team to focus on more strategic tasks, such as optimizing routes and scheduling service calls.
For a plumbing business, where fuel expenses are a significant portion of operational costs, this level of automation translates into more accurate accounting and streamlined operations.
Integration with Accounting
Integration with accounting systems is another key benefit of fleet fuel cards.
- Seamless data transfer: Transactions from your fuel card can be automatically imported into most accounting software, ensuring all expenses are accurate and up-to-date.
- Simplified reconciliation: Automated integration simplifies reconciling fuel and other fleet-related expenses.
- Real-time financial insights: With immediate access to financial data, plumbing businesses can make informed decisions regarding cash flow, budgeting and overall financial planning.
This integration is crucial for ensuring fuel expenses are accurately captured and reported, reducing the risk of discrepancies and saving valuable time during the month-end close process.
Budgeting and Forecasting
Effective budgeting and forecasting are essential for any business looking to maintain financial health and plan for the future. Fleet fuel cards offer powerful reporting tools that aid in these crucial tasks.
Standard Reports
Standard reports offer a comprehensive overview of fuel expenses:
- Monthly and annual summaries: Regularly generated reports provide detailed insights into fuel usage, mileage and costs over different time periods.
- Expense breakdown: These reports break down expenses by vehicle, driver and fuel type, allowing you to identify trends and anomalies.
- Compliance and auditing: Standard reports ensure all transactions are transparent and ready for review, simplifying compliance with internal policies and external audits.
For plumbing businesses, standard reports help track fuel consumption trends and identify potential areas for cost optimization.
Custom Reports
Beyond standard reports, custom reporting capabilities offer a tailored approach to budgeting and forecasting:
- Flexible reporting options: Custom reports allow you to select the metrics most relevant to your business, such as fuel efficiency or cost per mile.
- Actionable insights: With custom reports, you can drill down into specific data points to identify inefficiencies and develop strategies for improvement.
- Future planning: Customizable forecasting tools enable you to model future fuel expenses based on historical data, planned routes and expected growth in service demand.
These custom reporting capabilities are invaluable for plumbing businesses looking to optimize their operations. They provide the data necessary to make strategic decisions that can lead to further cost reductions and enhanced operational efficiency.
Better Financial Control and Enhanced Operational Efficiency
Plumbing businesses can reduce fuel costs and gain enhanced operational control by adopting a fleet fuel card system. Ultimately, the benefits of fleet fuel cards extend far beyond mere cost savings. They empower plumbing businesses to focus on what they do best—delivering high-quality service—while ensuring fuel expenses remain manageable, predictable and aligned with the overall business strategy. You can do all this and more with a WEX fleet card.