The Top “Must-Haves” in Fleet Management Software
March 22, 2021 by FASTER
A true robust Fleet Management Information System (FMIS) is designed around fleet best practices and allows other departments across the organization to use the data from the fleet to drive business decisions across the entire enterprise. The system should be designed around the workflow processes of fleet, be easy to implement, easy to use and maintain, and be flexible enough to allow for easy integrations and minimal customizations.
Below is a list of the top must-haves to look for when selecting an FMIS:
- Architecture that permits full integration with other vendor solutions throughout the enterprise
- Asset Management
- Asset acquisition and disposal
- Multi-department access
- Forecasting capital replacement cost for budgeting
- Parts Management
- Provide comprehensive inventory management and parts tracking, which encompasses the entire procurement process from order and receipt through issues including warranty replacements, core tracking/ returns, and vendor credits through the accounting system
- Maintenance Management
- Maintenance costs calculating available for budget planning to all departments
- Track Preventive Maintenance (PM’s) per asset
- Vehicle downtime reporting
- Fuel Management
- Fuel usage costs calculating available for budget planning to all departments
- Accounting
- Billing integration including multi-department access to billing data
- Vendor Management
- Full integration with any partner vendor you choose through a variety of methods including web services
- Notifications to your partner vendors for stock reorders
- Risk Management
- Accident reporting for operators from any part of the organization
- Accident information accessible for risk management as well as to other departments
- Information Management/Business Intelligence
- Reports
- Standard reports based on fleet and business best practices
- Powerful, comprehensive onscreen searching capability
- Quick exporting of any search results data to Microsoft Excel
- Ability to create custom reports
- Native web deployment of reports
- Dashboard providing at-a-glance overview of the key performance indicators of your fleet
- Communications
- Any organization employee should be able to request a service appointment online
- Any employee should be able to check on the status of vehicle repairs during the repair process
- Provide email notifications for scheduling upcoming preventive maintenance
- Fully integrateable with any internal systems you choose through a variety of methods including web services for things like finance, fuel, purchasing, HR functions such as payroll, and others
Helpful Tip:
A major pitfall that customers fall into is the added cost and time for customizations. If the fleet management software requires customizations to meet the majority of your fleet software needs be sure that it is identified in your initial pricing to avoid overages in the time and budget of your project.