Six Benefits of Investing in Fleet Management Software
For heavy equipment rental companies that want to improve the efficiency of their operation, an investment in technology plays a substantial role. For many fleet owners, choosing and implementing a fleet management software solution can develop into a complex process that can take months or even years to complete. The longer you take to make your decision, the longer you wait to start saving time, saving money and increasing efficiency across your company.
What is often overlooked is how implementing fleet management software affects the end-user experience (the employee) and the customer. Instead, discussions in boardrooms revolve around cost, scalability and ROI. Below are six benefits of investing in fleet management software that go beyond the boardroom:
1. Go Paperless
The majority of heavy equipment rental companies use some form of software, but still rely on paper-based systems for all or part of what they do. With a centralized system and mobile app, jobs flow from the first point of contact (salesperson) to the dispatch office, then to the operator in the field and back to clerical and service staff without a single piece of paper being printed.
Quotes get converted into jobs and jobs get dispatched, field personnel receive their job tickets on a smartphone or tablet where they can capture signatures and input labor hours. Finally, clerical staff receives pertinent billing information digitally in real-time.
2. Accelerate your Payment Cycle
Getting paid more quickly for the services your business provides impacts your bottom line. Investing in a tool that helps reduce the time it takes for you to get paid is common sense. With fleet management software, you can keep vital clerical processes like accounts payable, payroll and receivables running fast. Information is input to a system only once. It then flows from quote to invoice electronically with minimal additional data entry. A job, for example, can be marked as completed on a crane operator’s tablet and his hours entered prior to him arriving back at the crane yard or corporate office. Staff at the office receive data in real-time so they can quickly process invoices without delay – ultimately leading to you getting paid faster by your customers.
3. Simplify Scheduling
The dispatch department can be one of the most stressful and complicated areas of your company. It is the nerve center of most fleet-oriented companies and a place where costly mistakes can happen. Using a centralized fleet management system for scheduling provides visibility for real-time monitoring of assigned jobs as well as unit and staff availability. Additionally, centralizing the scheduling data allows for accurate job details to flow through the system for all staff to view as needed. Last minute changes become more transparent, emergency jobs are easier to fulfill and your dispatch department can move from stressful to more efficient.
4. Mobilize your Workforce while reducing risk and liability
Sometimes it can be hard for team members to collaborate while out of the office, but with a mobile app you can communicate in real-time from any job site back to your yard, branch office or corporate headquarters. Operators in the field can receive job tickets on their tablet the night before. An app allows field personnel to fill out safety checklists and quickly and easily capture digital signatures to timestamp approvals before work begins. These functions promote safety and accountability during the work day, but also serve as a digital trail to reduce risk for everyone involved. If you are not leveraging the ubiquity of smartphones or tablets, you’re missing an opportunity to increase efficiency.
5. Improve Customer Satisfaction
Happy customers are critical to the success of any business. A centralized system gives you a full view of every aspect of your business 24/7. You can easily track all of your people and fleet resources throughout the day. Easily adjust to customer changes, always have the correct personnel and equipment on the job, invoice quickly and keep your customers happy with consistent reliable output made easy because of your fleet management software.
6. Understand your business (and bottom line) better
Get real-time intelligence that lets you see patterns and trends that can negatively affect your business. Allow fleet management software to streamline every step so information only needs to be input once. Once information is properly put in a wealth of data and analytics can be examined. Equipment utilization reports, service history, labor, job profitability and much more.While it is certainly encouraging to know your equipment is in the field performing work, fleet management software provides crucial information about the profitability of individual jobs as well as the cost of maintaining the equipment including labor, parts and overhead. This information is vital to a sustainable long-term business model in an environment of ever-increasing competition and thinner margins.
When you make the decision to invest and implement fleet management software you are investing in your company’s future. Some benefits come quickly and others take time, but the longer you wait the farther ahead your competitors will be.
For a more in-depth consultation regarding how your company can streamline operations, please contact us to get in touch with an analyst.
I like how fleet software allows you to spot patterns that can be improved for your business. Everyone should be looking to become more efficient and this is an easy way to see how. If I were an owner this is something that would be really useful.
I like how you talked about using fleet management to give you a centralized system and see your business in full 24/7. My uncle is a trucker and being able to see everything he and his fellows are doing would be a big help to make sure they are efficient. Thank you for the information about how it helps to adjust to customer changed and have the right equipment and people on the job.
That is really great that trucking software can really help simplify scheduling. I know that my workplace is having a hard time sending out trucks at the right times. I think trucking software would be a huge help.
Excellent points,Interesting stuff to read. Keep it up.
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I came across your article about the benefits of having fleet management software and my favorite part was when you mentioned that it can help provide visibility in monitoring jobs and staff movements. Another way to improve one’s fleet, in my opinion, is to tie up with a company to provide fleet maintenance. Not only will this increase the fleet’s operation efficiency, but also be able to satisfy more clients at the same time.
Good point Tim! Thank you for your interest in our blog
Wow, I had no idea you could get fleet management software to simplify the scheduling of your fleet. My husband is looking to open his own trucking company and wants to make sure he starts with good management and organization since that could make or break him. What you said about how centralizing the scheduling data will allow for accurate job details to flow through the system for all staff to view as needed was very interesting to me.
Hi Matt, Brian here from SpotnRides.
Interesting tips for business owners before investing in fleet management software. Every business owners must clearly define their business and revenue models before starting a business plan.
You can also find a lot of management software in the market. You need to evaluate as much providers as possible and choose the right company for developing a solution.
You can check our product features here https://www.spotnrides.com/taxi-dispatch-software and also check other companies as well.
Thanks
Brian
Excellent article on Fleet management software, thanks for sharing. I came across your website after a lot of search about benefits of a fleet management software. I got the exact information in this article. Highly valuable information for business owners who seek to improve their business standard.
Very interesting and useful stuffs. Thanks for sharing such an informative post that covers all the essential informations about a fleet management software.
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Thanks for the info! I think the fleet management softwares are the perfect software solutions to easily manage a large number of vehicles and for their on-demand work scheduling. Before starting up such a business you need to be aware about what kind of business model or revenue model, you want to deploy. Then you need to check in with your developers regarding the possible functionalities you need to implement in the app. Take a look at the features in this on-demand app, https://www.appdupe.com/uber-for-x-clone-script
Awesome information about fleet management software. Fleet management software (FMS) is a solution that helps companies and organizations to manage, organize, and coordinate their work vehicles from a central data platform.
“Great post admin. Thanks a lot for sharing such an informative post.
Indeed, dispatcher software is a great boon to operate certain actions in logistics such as manage your first mile deliveries with easy import and route optimizations features, etc.”
Thanks a lot for sharing such an informative article. I own a courier business and searching for a good logistics software. Can you advise some?