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When it comes to working out business mileage, most drivers have got the skill of 'guesstimation' down to a fine art. A few extra miles here and there surely won't make that much of a difference?
When it comes to working out business mileage, most drivers have got the skill of 'guesstimation' down to a fine art. A few extra miles here and there surely won't make that much of a difference?
Well according to research announced this month by GlobalExpense, the art of 'guesstimation' is costing the UK businesses over 34m a year! The research involved tracking business drivers across a number of organisations with a 'Mileage Checker' tool, which compares the distances entered by an employee with the actual distance according to Multi-Map.
According to the research, when the business drivers realised their mileage was being accurately tracked, claims went down by at least 5%. Although this might seem like a relatively low figure, when you put it into context of a sales rep that can easily drive over 20,000 miles a year, these exaggerated costs can quickly create a significant burden on the monthly figures.
It's not exactly difficult to guess the motivation behind this reliance on 'guesstimation' by business drivers. With fuel prices increasing on what seems to be a weekly basis, there is every reason to inflate figures as those odd few miles added on to a claim form can mount up to make quite a princely sum.
So how can businesses reduce the amount of exaggerated claims which land on their desks? Well, unless business drivers suddenly develop an extreme case of a guilty conscience, which is lets face it, highly unlikely. Or companies are happy to invest heavily in individual vehicle tracking systems there is really only one accurate way of tracking individual vehicle mileage, a comprehensive fuel management system.
Fuel cards offer effective management reports which can detail the amount of fuel, the type, where and when it is being purchased each time the card is used. The management report information allows businesses to accurately map out the mileage completed by a fleet. It's very difficult for a driver to balloon his mileage claims when you have not only the figures for the amount of fuel purchased but also the exact mileage travelled on each journey. It would be interesting to monitor how quickly other drivers started reporting their mileage more accurately.
So for future reference, don't take mileage reports at face value as things are clearly not always as they seem.
Until next time,
Mike
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