How One Company Automated Their IFTA Reporting and Increased Their ROI
Fleet owners that ship goods across state lines are all too familiar with the headache that is International Fuel Tax Agreement or (IFTA). Under IFTA, fleet owners must keep detailed records on total miles driven, fuel purchased, and fuel tax paid in each state that their vehicles travel in.
Julie Svedson, office manager at Drury Southwest, was spending countless hours trying to manually compile (often inaccurate) data for her IFTA reports. Julie says “When our drivers cross state lines, they’re not sitting there saying, ‘How many miles was it from Texarkana to the Louisiana state line…’, so I’d have to backtrack, recalculate, and many times their miles didn’t add up.”
Beyond Julie’s IFTA problems, her drivers found themselves bogged down trying to log their hours instead of focusing their energy on driving. Keeping up with IFTA paperwork and the constantly-changing ELD requirements is a time-consuming chore for many fleet managers besides Julie.
Ever since the ELD implementation took effect, it’s looking like inspectors aren’t playing around.
Findings from the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration (FMCSA) shows that in the first two months of 2018 alone inspectors issued 1,615 violations for failure to maintain an ELD user’s manual, compared with 288 violations in all of 2017.
Investing in fleet management software can help take the complication out of government regulations and IFTA tax forms.
Solution
Fleet management software, like Spireon’s FleetLocate, uses GPS and telematics to tracks miles driven, how many hours each driver has left in the workday, and can easily integrate into accounting systems.
Julie says the FleetLocate solution pays for itself with the return on investment she gets from simplified IFTA reporting and electronic logging, but ultimately, the greatest benefit is making her small fleet safer.
Results
“What’s the biggest benefit to Drury Southwest? Having safe drivers,” Julie said. “FleetLocate has worked smoothly the whole time we’ve had it and it’s been a very welcome addition to our tractors.”
According to a survey done by TechValidate, 62% of customers, like Julie, saw improved efficiency in business operations after implementing FleetLocate. And when it comes to having safer drivers, 74% of FleetLocate customers felt that the solution helped them pinpoint exactly “drivers who need improvement.”
Whether you use FleetLocate or another fleet management system, these solutions can greatly improve operating efficiency and help mitigate risks by identifying poor driver habits. If you currently don’t have a fleet management system in place, then it might be time to see where your business can be optimized to keep your trucks and drivers on the road longer.
Click here to learn more about how this company lowered its administrative costs and increased staff productivity by using FleetLocate to automate tasks.