A fleet gas card is a credit card that a business can use and only purchase gasoline or fuel with. Why would anyone want such a limited use card? The answer is simple: savings money on the gas or fuel you purchase, ease of accounting, and security on your charges. It’s not quite that simple though, because some fleet gas cards allow you to purchase more than just fuel, these are known as universal cards and the business owner can set what type of purchases each card can be used for. Virtually all fleet gas cards offer savings at the pump of some sort, this can range from as little as 2 cents a gallon to as much as 15 cents a gallon.
How this works is the fleet gas card vendors negotiate with the gas and fuel companies to get a discounted rate in exchange for driving higher volume users to their locations. The more flexible the fleet gas card typically the less you’ll save at the pumps. What this means is that for cards that allow non gas/fuel purchases, they’ll generally provide less off per gallon. While the more specific the card the more you’ll save, getting a Speedway fleet gas card will only be usable at Speedway stations, but will offer the best possible savings on your gas/fuel purchases. So the trick to saving the most is to determine which solution is best for you, can you fuel up at a single branded location or not? If you can, you can save more with a branded card, if you need more flexibility you need a card that allows fill-ups at more locations.
The ability to restrict the types of purchases you can use a fleet gas card for is the second biggest advantage. It may not sound like that big of a deal, but as a business grows the ability to reduce theft and keep your employees honest is very valuable. Fleet cards specialize on this by not allowing things like convenience store purchases, which can be tempting to employees using the companies money. Depending on your business needs and the type of card you get you can control this, for those employees who need more flexibility you can allow them to add other expenses to their fleet gas cards. This can include any purchase you can use a traditional credit card on. This control allows you to grant more trusted employees with the flexibility they need, paired with the cost savings on gas purchases, it’s a real win-win on that front.
Another great feature of fleet gas cards is it simplifies your accounting significantly by allowing you to reconcile your fuel expenses very quickly and easily. As your business grows managing your T&E (travel and entertainment) can be complicated. When you pair the restricted usage of the cards, and the fact they all roll up under a single account it makes accounting much easier and quicker, which saves your business a lot of time and money.
To review what a fleet gas card is, it’s a credit card that is used for gas or fuel purchases only, though some cards allow configurable exceptions that you can control and define. It saves you money on the gas and fuel that you pump, the savings will vary depending on the card you select. The branded store cards offer the greatest discounts on gas and fuel at the pumps, which can be as high as 15 cents a gallon. Lastly, it simplifies your accounting so you can keep your books clean and tidy without searching for all of the fuel expenses from a traditional corporate card.
If your business uses a vehicle for work purposes there is likely a fleet gas card that is right for you, whether that is 1 vehicle or 100, a fleet gas card is another tool to make your business more successful. Find the right fleet gas card for your business.