Benefits of OTR Fleet Cards: Win-Win for Truck Stops and Fleets

The benefits of an OTR fleet card extends to both the fleet and truck stop owners. By allowing tracking of purchases, activity and expenses, both gain valuable data into the behavior of the truck drivers. Leveraging this data can mean more profitability for everyone and better service for the drivers

Two Sides of the Same Story: Tracking Expenses for Fleet Owners, Tracking Purchasing for Truck Stop Owners

It’s Monday morning. Sometime before they go to lunch,
the management team of every fleet in the country will be reviewing their
truckers’ expenses from the previous week.

On the first of the month, they’ll be itemizing those expenses and comparing them to the prior month’s.

At the beginning of the next quarter, they’ll be looking
at what was spent using expense categories and pie charts. They’ll be assessing
if food, fuel, lodging, and other operationally critical spending categories
were within a predetermined range. At the end of the year, fleet management teams will be
looking at overall expenses. How much did their drivers spend on coffee? How
many nights, on average, does their trucking company need to pay for their
drivers to make multiple stops–for fuel, for meals, for grocery shopping, for
laundry, for rest? Trucking companies make important decisions,
such as which routes are most cost-effective and which truck stops to work
with, during this relentless and meticulous tracking and analysis process.

Money Earned Informs Where Money Should Be Spent: The Truck Stop Owner Perspective

Truck stop owners have a similarly detail-oriented
protocol for tracking earnings and product inventory. On a daily, weekly,
monthly, quarterly, and annual basis, they watch what makes their stop–how
much fuel gets purchased and which products their customers favor. From this information, the management team at truck stops
can determine which products to stock and when, which fleets are spending at
their stops, and which products and services they need to add to their
offerings in order to improve their customers’ experience.

What Can Help This Process Easier for Fleet Owners and Truck Stop Owners? An Over the Road (OTR) Fleet Card.

Like a corporate credit card for trucking companies, OTR
fleet cards allow drivers to use company-allocated funds to pay for fuel at
truck stops. Due to the expansion of products and services at truck stops, OTR
fleet cards also enable drivers to purchase things like food and showers. They also provide much-needed limits on what truckers can
spend. Truckers can’t purchase anything that’s not from a fuel stop. Nor can
they purchase products and service that are outside the scope of, or unrelated
to the day-to-day activities of their job. Because of its specific use, OTR fleet cards let truck
stop owners and trucking companies see exactly what’s spent at truck stops and
when it’s spent. It’s a win-win fintech solution for the trucking
industry.

An Important Point about POS System Integration

Without effective POS system integration, it doesn’t
matter how good the OTR card is. Your truck stop won’t be able to accept
payment, and the truck drivers who visit your stop won’t be able to purchase
any products.

Avoid this disaster by installing the Comdata POS (Smartsite, SmartAuth, or SmartDesq.) It processes every kind of OTR fleet card, ensuring your truck stop gets real-time payments and your customers don’t have to fumble with credit card acceptance.  To learn more about the benefits of OTR Fleet Cards, visit our post, Are You Losing Business?