Can GPS Vehicle Tracking Save Your Small Business Money?

Find out how a GPS fleet tracking solution can reduce labor costs, fuel costs and lower insurance premiums.
Can GPS Vehicle Tracking Save Your Small Business Money?
Reduce unproductive labor costs, decrease fuel costs and potentially lower insurance premiums by monitoring safe driving habits.

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As a small business owner who operates a range of service vehicles, perhaps you write off certain overhead costs as expenses for regular operations. However, GPS tracking software can help you better manage those unnecessary expenses and reduce labor costs, fuel costs and lower insurance premiums. 

To understand how a tracking solution can save you money, you first need to know where you’re losing money. There are two types of labor costs — costs you pay employees for their productivity and unproductive labor costs. Monitoring hours worked, scheduling jobs efficiently, identifying drivers that pad hours, and reducing vehicle downtime can minimize your unproductive labor costs. 

The best way to start is by creating an accurate payroll. A GPS monitoring system can help you track employees’ hours using a daily work report. This advanced reporting lets you view exact hours worked including stops, duration and date. You can do away with traditional employee time cards that can be inaccurate and add unnecessary labor costs.

You can schedule jobs more efficiently with a dispatching dashboard within a fleet tracking interface. Dispatchers can create optimized routes for fleets that are sent straight to drivers. If your vehicles are equipped with personal navigation devices, you can send new stops straight to workers’ daily routes. 

For instance, if a customer’s septic tank collapses, real-time location information lets you send the closest service truck to the job site. And route efficiency reports let you see if drivers are taking the most efficient routes to jobs — a great way to identify if drivers are padding hours to increase their paycheck.

Reducing vehicle downtime can also cut labor costs. Stop paying employees for time spent not working due to broke-down vehicles sitting in the shop. Without vehicle maintenance you spend more on labor and even more if you have to purchase new vehicles. Keep your vehicles in better condition for longer by staying on top of preventive maintenance before problems arise. 

Insurance discounts

Another overhead cost for small business owners with a fleet is insurance. You need insurance, but you might be paying more than necessary. Insurance premiums increase as the number of accidents and speeding tickets increase. You can reduce extra expenses of insuring a fleet due to unsafe drivers. 

GPS tracking reports let you see which drivers are not driving safely by monitoring speeding, harsh braking and rapid acceleration. Identifying the offenders will help you significantly lower insurance premiums. You can also set alerts that are sent to drivers when they’re speeding. The result? Fewer accidents and fewer speeding tickets. 

Another bonus? Some insurance companies give business owners discounts for using GPS tracking technology. Insurance agencies know that monitoring a fleet’s driving habits can increase overall safety. 

Of course, you’re going to have to invest some money to run your business smoothly. But implementing a GPS fleet tracking solution can minimize some of those costs. Take control of your fleet’s unnecessary overhead costs: Reduce unproductive labor costs, decrease fuel costs and potentially lower insurance premiums by monitoring safe driving habits. 

About the Author
Jenny Malcolm is the marketing administrator for GPS Insight. She graduated from Arizona State University with a bachelor’s degree in communications and is responsible for external marketing communication for all business segments that GPS Insight targets. For more information, call 480/663-9463 or visit www.gpsinsight.com.



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