Of the millions of fleet vehicles on the roads every day, only a small percentage of them are managed by paperless operations. However, leading fleet operators are shifting away from paper and toward automated routing, mobile and telematics solutions. In the past, many companies relied on paper; paper logs, paper fuel tickets, paper receipts, paper invoices, etc. Completing these paper forms took large amounts of time for remote workers filling them out and also for the office staff entering and filing them. Paper logs can contain errors or get misplaced, and drivers on the road don’t turn in invoices and logs for extending periods of time.
Know more about the future of managing fleet and its effectiveness.
Here we will discuss about 8 of the most surprising benefits to switching to a paperless work environment, and offers practical advice to organizations looking to reduce their dependence on paper, eliminate wastefulness and consider an investment in paperless fleet management, but before that let us understand the meaning of fleet management.
1. Save Time: The amount of time that is spent in paper work is detrimental to businesses. It’s difficult to show clear results to an officer through paper works; even a small mistake could lead drivers for a long process of inspection to make sure everything is perfect. But going paperless truck drivers can zip right through those inspections, getting back on the road fast. Also Drivers will no longer have to browse through handwritten paper driver logs trying to find errors or HOS violations. ELDs can be a best option for drivers to avoid violations and mistakes. That’s because ELDs automate the HOS compliance process. Just log into the ELD and get rolling. Going paperless means that you can conduct document searches quickly, and find what you need in seconds. Store all your documents in an organized manner and retrieve them easily. Information is now at your fingertips. Learn more about the different ways of optimizing your fleet life cycle.
2. Save Money: There are many way to save money when you choose paperless, with regards to reduce labor & optimize productivity. As drivers spend less time on daily inspection reports, drivers and fleet managers can optimize this time on other aspects of the fleet, potentially with more value add. Here are 7 ways how geofencing can help you save money and your fleet.
As every business owner knows, the labour costs of administration, as well as the cost of office supplies, paper based inspection forms, service records, and compliance forms can add up significantly over the years and seriously impact on financial performance. Over one third of Canada’s waste are paper and paper products, and North American companies spend billions of dollars per year managing paper. Think about it: you’re spending money on ink, paper, printers, and copiers, and the physical space to hold the documents. The Paperless Project estimates that every 12 filing cabinets require one full-time employee to maintain them. Now consider that the information in those 12 cabinets can today be stored in a device that fits in the palm of your hand, and will free up time previously spent manually searching for files.
One of the key benefits of fleet management software is its ability to remove paperwork and unnecessary administration. It has been designed to be a paperless solution that automates the processes associated with fleet management and maintenance as much as possible to reduce these costs and supply decision makers with crucial insights that can help drive further business gains Discover how the field service industry is benefiting by going paperless.
3. Reduce Errors: When you choose paperless in fleet management, you have the ability to automate your system. Automatically filling out the forms of vehicle inspection, HOS, ELDs, Service records, etc., will eliminate or at least minimize the chances of human error that occurs and helps protect your business from costly paperwork mistakes. For example, ELDs have ability to calculate the total hours of driving, idle time and off duty time during the day. This saves your fleet manager’s time on finding corrections. Discover how telematics insurance is going paperless with driver scoring.
4. Effective & More Accurate Data: When you have to pull data from many different sources to build a report or manually re-enter data multiple times, integrity decreases. It’s very possible that someone will make a mistake along the way. Going paperless can reduce the chances of data integrity issues. If your drivers are documenting in paper files, it’s basically impossible for fleet manager to compile the information and reports on time. However, by storing data online in a program that automatically runs analytics, will make it easy for fleet manager to check order status, vehicle status, vehicle inspection reports, and compliance reports, through our cloud based fleet management software which gives access to accurate data in real time to simplify fleet operation and helps to take what actions can be put in place to stop further repetitive (and possible preventable) losses. Understand better by reading how fleet management helps lone workers in Australia.
5. Simplify Your Fleet Management Work Flow: Going paperless in the workplace leads to increases in productivity. Automated routing and scheduling improves performance while decreasing transportation costs. Fleet management technology moves the ability to plan deliveries, schedule appointments, optimize routes, dispatch orders and communicate with drivers to a completely paperless environment. This is possibly one of the most compelling benefits of going paperless in the workplace. Electronic documents are instantly and simultaneously available to everyone even for compliance and audit guidelines. By providing the necessary information for maintaining a vehicle including repair history and warranties, right at their fingertips will eliminates the need for technicians to waste time trying to track down paperwork. Instead they can access important vehicle records in real-time via the software. Discover more about the different ways of retrieving reports using a fleet management system.
6. Security: You may be worried about the safety of your documents and confidential information, but electronic documents are more secure than printed ones. A digital record stored online allows you to encrypt your data through unreadable encryption so that no one can access it without permission, and makes it difficult for an important document to be lost or incorrectly filed. They can also be secured against printing, copying and sharing. You can also have multiple backups, so that if anything happens to your physical office, the data that keeps your organization alive will be secure. Here are also 3 ways to prevent vehicle theft using a fleet management software.
7. Accessibility: Drivers and fleet managers in paper-intensive businesses spend up to 40% of their time looking for reports and documents, and 7% of reports & documents are lost or misfiled. Multiply that by your payroll and compare it to the cost of implementing paperless system you passed on last year because it was so expensive. The amount of time that is wasted simply searching for reports is detrimental to businesses. Our fleet management solutions is cloud based software, so electronic documents are instantly and simultaneously available to everyone who needs them. Going paperless you can access reports quickly, and find what you need in seconds. Store all your documents, reports and data in an organized manner and retrieve them easily will helps to improve teamwork because multiple people like drivers, fleet manager and organization can access data & reports at the same time from anywhere. Information is now at your fingertips. Here is how field service management software can help you better with accessibility.
8. Reduce Impact on Environment: Whether you are a green fleet or not, reducing your impact on the environment is a beneficial move for your business. North America uses approximately 68 million trees a year; the average American goes through 700 pounds of paper annually. And 45% of paper in offices ends up in the garbage by the end of the day. These numbers are out of control, and even a small business can have an impact by reducing their paper usage. Going paperless save the amount of time office workers spend shredding documents before trashing them. So while your business looks more eco-friendly, you are also reducing the expenses of using an old fashioned paper system. Going paperless means saving trees! Read more about the top 5 responsibilities of a fleet manager.
To get first hand consultancy on lowering the usage of paper to manage your fleet, give us a call or send us a message. We will also provide you a free 14 day trial to test it out your self with real connected devices. Contact Team Traxroot today.