FLEET CARDS - NOT ONLY FOR MARKET GIANTS

Fuel cards are becoming standard among services in the energy market. In addition, smaller businesses that are new to the market are also expected to support their operations with fuel cards. Consequently, Comarch offers a flexible and complex solution that is not only for the market giants - Comarch Fuel Cards.

An eternal struggle on the market – how to survive.

We all know fleet cards like: Routex, Lotos Biznes, UTA or DKV. But fuel cards do not have to be always issued only by big market players. We are observing on the energy market sector that independent, not branded stations, are behaving in an increasingly difficult and competitive environment. It is becoming harder to survive, especially with an increased price of fuel resulting in a minimum margin. As a result, it is almost impossible to be price competitive, as well as to maintain the level of quality for services and products. The owners of independent fuel stations are behaving under the effects of limited resources and because of this, they can not be too choosy about quality. On the other hand, growing employee turnover is resulting in an inexperienced and under trained staff. Consequently, the level of services is dropping. This is why the owners of “stand-alone” stations are gathering themselves into associations which strengthen their position on the market. Because the association maintains several sites within the network, one can think how to provide customers (also corporate customers) with added value in order to attract them to their offer. The aforementioned circumstances results in the fact that it is also beneficial for smaller petrol station networks to issue fleet cards. This builds connections with the enterprise customers and convinces them to use their products and services. The business profits resulting from fleet cards are unquestionable. Let’s imagine that we have a network of fuel stations in some region or even throughout the entire country. How do we convince our customers that when traveling from north to south or from east to west, they should purchase fuel from exactly this provider? Particularly for corporate customers, the convincing argument would be in the possibility to make cashless transactions with guaranteed security and comfort. A fleet program also brings certain “soft” benefits such as attachment to the network brand name, or a kind of emotional relationship with a customer, developing their habit of visiting these stations. The role of a fleet program for corporate customers can be compared to the role of a loyalty program towards an individual customer. Fleet customers can also realize many advantages from the use of fleet cards such as cashless transactions with a delayed payment, attractive discounts and last but not least, full control over the fleet with an opportunity to detect fraud.

Nowadays, from the customer point of view, it is difficult to imagine a middle or large enterprise without an appropriate fleet of cars. Proper operation of a sales force and other commercial departments would be paralyzed without support of a fleet. For logistic companies, a fleet of cars is even more crucial for a company’s existence.

To successfully issue and operate fleet cards, it is necessary to have the support of a flexible, reliable and easy to manage IT tool. The Comarch Fuel Card is a product covering all processes included in the operation of fuels cards and fleet transaction processing. What is more, the offer includes an application for fleet managers on the customer side and furthermore, if required, a B2B application for independent and partner stations.

Survival kit – a solid IT tool

Comarch Fuel Cards is a complex system for the management and administration of fuel cards. This flexible tool enables the provider of fleet cards full control over customers, their cards, transactions and settlements. Fleet customers, their contracts, cashless transactions and settlements are saved in the Business Administration module – the core application for a fuel card operator. In Comarch Fuel Cards, it is also possible to process settlements of external fleets (like UTA, DKV) or dealer (partner) stations. On the other hand, our customers and partners also have the ability to browse data and generate reports. The administration module is supported by a B2C web portal, available to fleet managers or other authorized employees of the customer. The B2C application will help in communication and settlements with independent partner stations.

Comarch Fuel Cards supports the processes in fuel card operations. In these processes, functionalities are divided into logical blocks and are intuitive and easy to use for the customer.

The first set of functionalities would be associated with customer data management. Basically, the data is structured on three layers: fleet customer/contract/cardholder.

The beginning of the process is the initiation of the contact with the customer and the definition of his “account in the system” with the entire range of information such as: name, address and tax identification number. Optionally, other selected information can also be saved in the system. These are features or characteristics, which are assigned to the customer and create the opportunity to organize customers and target certain communication or simply just to structure the data base. Examples of these attributes could be: market sector, size of the enterprise (according to turnover), type of enterprise (wholesaler, retailer), type of fleet (personal cars, trucks, etc.) or number of cars in the fleet.

On the customer definition level, one can browse transaction history and attach comments or notifications about actions that should be taken. If the geographical reach of fleet is vast, it is possible to divide the overall area into regions and associate each contract to a particular region as well as an appropriate regional manager.

The next step would be signing the contract with the customer and its registration in the system with its validity period, payment conditions, account number and other general conditions. At this point, the commercial terms agreed upon with customers are crucial like discounts (percentage, value) and settlement schemes (invoicing periods). Another important element would be card definition for the support of its production process. In our system, this is solved by means of a cards series with attached limits and available product groups or the driver’s name and license plate number if required. The customer can determine the scope of products and services available for each card (on the basis of product codes). The products available for the president of a company can be different than those that are available for the general population of employees. Cards may be assigned limits for daily/weekly/monthly spending or limits on the value of a single transaction.

Aggregation and grouping of transactions and the creation and settlement of invoices would be the next step in the process. First of all, checking the transaction history is possible on the individual customer and contract level. Each transaction is grouped and assigned to a particular customer and settlement period and based on this information, invoices are prepared. The administration module prepares all the data necessary for the issuance of invoices and their transmission to the invoicing module. This module can be optional – invoices may be issued in the Comarch Fuel Cards system or the invoicing data can be exported to a customer’s accounting system to be processed there. Furthermore, checking settlements along with relevant details and statuses is also possible in the CFC administration module (paid, unpaid, partially paid, etc).

The generation of reports is also addressed by Comarch Fuel Cards. Definition of the format and structure of a report is possible and one is able to save a template for future use. By utilizing this valuable reporting tool an opportunity is created to summarize the overall performance of a fleet. In addition, there is also an option to define reports enabling fraud detection.

A best in class solution

Comarch Fuel Cards has already been successfully implemented and has proved to be a best–in–class solution for smaller players on the energy products market as well. In a demanding market, everyone must concentrate on their core activity. However, to achieve this goal, strong support in the form of comprehensive and quality IT tools is absolutely necessary, ensuring that transactions are processed optimally and customer data is safe and properly updated.