Fuel Cards For Construction

Fuel is an essential expense for your construction company. You need diesel and petrol to power the vehicles on your sites, deliver the materials you use for building and get your workers to their jobs.

But if you don’t manage and control your fuel spending then this could impact on your company’s profit margins.

In this article, we explain how fuel cards help you to run your business, highlighting how they can save you time and money and make it easier to manage your costs.

Fuel cards can help construction companies run their operations more efficiently. They make it simpler to review where money is being spent on fuel, providing the data managers need to use their cash flows and expenses more effectively.

We’ve highlighted the three key ways fuel cards can benefit your construction company.

Online reporting makes it easier to manage your costs

Cash flow issues are a main trigger of Insolvency in construction companies.

Whether you’re running a small business that works on home improvements or a much larger operation, you will know that the single most important factor is making sure customers pay you in full and on time. Even so, the smaller things add up too.

Fuel is an important expense for construction companies. With heavy tools and materials in your van, the fuel consumption will be higher even if your mileage is not so great. Fuel cards help your business keep diesel costs under control.

Fuel cards provide this benefit through online reporting. This shows you how much money you’re spending on fuel and other costs. By seeing all fuel spending consolidated into a weekly or fortnightly invoice, with a breakdown of where and when each purchase was made, you can see how to cut unnecessary expenditure by combining trips, stopping your employees carrying around more heavy tools than they need and also use fuel card security features to make sure your expenses claims are only refunding fuel used for work.

Electronic payments save time

Logging paper fuel receipts can be a time-consuming job but it’s obligatory if you need to refund drivers or reclaim VAT on business fuel. Fuel cards take this task away, as every purchase is logged automatically.

Digital invoices help you to get the correct tax refunds

The pain of going through reclaiming VAT on fuel expenses can be time-prohibitive to small construction business owners. Even larger companies don’t want to spend more time making VAT claims than they need to. Fuel cards help your construction business to streamline its VAT claims, saving you time and helping your company get the tax rebates that it’s owed.

How? It’s simple. A fuel card management system can automatically generate an HMRC-compliant invoice, detailing all the information HMRC requires. There’s no need to add up or manually log fuel receipts. Every purchase with a fuel card shows up in your management software automatically within minutes.

CLOCS stands for Construction Logistics and Community Safety Standard. FORS stands for The Fleet Operator Recognition Scheme. Achieving CLOCS and FORS compliance makes your business safer by improving all-round vision for your drivers and operators.

This will give you the chance to work on a far larger range of construction projects, whether you are the main contractor or a sub-contractor. Projects requiring CLOCS or FORS accreditation from their contractors tend to be the most profitable, and more and more companies are demanding this safety standard.

You can achieve FORS and CLOCs compliance for your vehicles by getting them fitted with cameras that are linked to a fleet telematics system. To do this you’ll need to use a CLOCS and FORS approved telematics provider, as their expertise is needed to advise your business of exactly what’s needed.

Below, we’ve given you some more key information about CLOCS and FORS.

CLOCs

CLOCS is a national construction industry standard that promotes good practice beyond basic legal compliance.

It places responsibilities and duties on the regulator, the client, the principal contractor controlling the construction site and the supply chain — including the operator of any road-going vehicles servicing that project.

The CLOCS Standard calls for the construction industry to recognise its responsibilities for vehicles and drivers delivering to (and collecting from) construction sites.

FORS

FORS is a voluntary accreditation scheme for fleet operators. Its aim is to raise the level of quality within fleet operations, by recognising efficient and safe vehicle operators. You can choose to achieve FORS accreditation at either Bronze, Silver or Gold compliance levels.

To obtain FORS silver accreditation for vehicles weighing 7.5 tonnes and over, you need to install cameras to achieve 360 degree visibility for the driver for rigid vehicles. For articulated vehicles, cameras are required on the cab but not the trailer.

You also need a left-hand audible alert and proximity sensors for the near side of the vehicle regardless of the vehicle type.

Kinesis Pro also provides you with the distance travelled, NOx and CO2 emission reports which are mandatory for FORS accreditation.

Compliance is an ongoing process for construction businesses. It’s essential your company is fully compliant with all necessary rules and regulations, failure to do so will cost you business and could lead to fines or legal penalties.

To ensure your company remains compliant in all areas, it’s a good idea to regularly review your compliance processes to ensure they’re up to standard and up to date — take charge of your compliance to save yourself the hassle of someone else forcing the issue.

iCompario can help you find the right vehicle cameras and the right telematics platform to support them, if you want to meet either of these standards.

The best fuel cards for construction companies make life simpler for you and your workers. They give your drivers access to the fuel they need and provide you with reporting information that gives you a bird’s eye view of your diesel expenses.

There are many great fuel cards available for UK businesses and some are better for those in the construction industry than others. We’ve listed five that offer the specific benefits your construction company needs.

Click on the links below to find out more about how each individual card makes it easier for you to run your business.