Companies are paying the price for not controlling employee fuel expenses

At midnight tonight, fuel duty and VAT on petrol and diesel rises 2.12 pence per litre. At such a time benefits of implementing a fuel card policy are highlighted. The main benefit is that it allows the employer to monitor driver mileage and reimburse drivers the correct amount for their fuel expenditure; something that according to a national survey is crucial, especially in the current economic climate.The research from expense management provider GlobalExpense shows that a fifth of expense claiming employees admit to having exaggerated their expense claims. For fleet managers, the telling statistic from the survey is that out of all expenses, business mileage is the most likely to be exaggerated, with 60 per cent of claim-cheats embellishing on the amount of fuel that they are using.Meryl Gilbert, Business Development Director - Fuel at Arval comments; “When it comes to reimbursing employees for fuel expenses it is important to have controls in place to protect both the employer and the claimant. This survey highlights that the temptation to exaggerate fuel expenses is strong for some employees. Because fuel usage can be difficult for an employer to monitor it may provide an easy target for some business drivers.”“As a consequence fleet managers must have processes in place to mitigate against this kind of behaviour. The best thing that they can do is to implement a fuel card policy which takes any uncertainty out of fuel claims.”“Managing costs has never been more important so companies can’t afford to take a laissez-faire attitude. The mileage capture system and subsequent management reporting that fuel cards provide means that the company has full visibility of the business mileage that their drivers are clocking up, not to mention reducing time and effort spent on administration.”With 76 per cent of people surveyed stating that exaggerating expense claims was acceptable when the mileage rate paid by the employer doesn’t cover the actual car and fuel costs the will to falsify claims clearly exists and comment from the Managing Director of GlobalExpense, David Vine, suggests that this isn’t going to go away in the near future:“The further the country falls into recession and people feel the pinch, the more employees are being tempted to fiddle their expenses.”Meryl Gilbert adds;“It is essential for any company to reimburse employee expenses fairly but without paying out money that they are not entitled to. With fuel making up a major cost in vehicle ownership it is a crucial cost to control, especially in the current economic climate.”

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