Whether trucks, buses or classic company cars - managing a fleet of vehicles is a varied and responsible task for companies and the self-employed. With a template for your own fleet management, you can plan the use of your vehicles precisely. Below we explain how you can manage bookings, returns, repairs and inspection appointments conveniently and easily.
What exactly is fleet management?
Fleet management covers the complete organization of your vehicle fleet from acquisition to disposal. Smooth fleet management also ensures the profitability and maintenance of your business. To do this, you need to look after existing vehicles, maintain them and have them repaired if necessary. To ensure that your vehicle fleet stands still as little as possible, you should manage your fleet efficiently and establish a fixed process for deployment planning.
Every company that owns company vehicles should have a fleet management system. It doesn't matter whether you use the vehicles to transport goods or as company cars for business trips. Commercial vehicles such as ambulances, buses, excavators and tractors are also among the use cases.
Tasks in fleet management
How much effort is required for your fleet management depends entirely on how large your fleet is and what you use the vehicles for in your company. Freight forwarders and transport companies that coordinate hundreds of vehicles every day and depend on smooth operations for their business success will certainly organize their fleet management differently than companies that only need their fleet for their employees' business trips.
The purpose of fleet management is to make all processes involving vehicles as efficient and cost-effective as possible. This applies to acquisition costs, operating costs, but also maintenance and repairs. Another important task is the smooth and uncomplicated allocation and reservation of vehicles. You can use digital booking systems, for example, to facilitate the handover and document it seamlessly.
Important aspects of fleet management
- Needs assessment and acquisition of vehicles
- Booking and distribution of vehicles
- Returning and refueling the vehicles
- Commissioning and monitoring repairs and inspections
- Strategic guidelines
Another important aspect of fleet management is the image you want to project. Using environmentally friendly vehicles instead of gas guzzlers in your fleet is not only a financial aspect in view of the mobility transition, but also a strategic one. E-mobility and CO₂ emissions are issues that are highly valued by the public as a result of social and political discourse and create expectations among employees and customers. You should therefore keep the environment and sustainability in mind when managing your fleet. For short journeys, for example, you can also use smaller electric vehicles to protect the environment and conserve resources.
Systems for your fleet management
You have various options to choose from for managing your vehicle fleet. The software solution should meet several requirements: Firstly, it should be flexible and therefore applicable to your individual scenarios. It should also be able to record different types of information (e.g. files, images and GPS data) while remaining easy to use.
The requirements for such software vary depending on the size of the company. Large companies such as transport companies or haulage firms can fall back on special industry solutions, but these are often expensive. Smaller companies with a manageable fleet, however, do not have to go to the expense of an expensive fleet management system.
The SeaTable database software is ideal for managing small to medium-sized fleets, for example for craft businesses or other companies that have employees in the field. We explain below how you can use SeaTable efficiently for your fleet management.
Manage your fleet with SeaTable
Keep track of your entire fleet! With our free template, you can catalog your vehicles and make them available to your employees for booking. Document handovers and returns as well as repairs and appointments for your vehicles.
The first step is to compile an overview of your vehicles: You can enter any information that is important to you. With different column types and views, you can create your very own picture of your fleet. We have stored photos for this purpose, which are displayed directly in the gallery plugin. Add further data such as make, model, registration number and mileage to describe your vehicles.
Manage bookings and reservations
Manage all your vehicle bookings in one table. Interested employees use a web form based on the columns in this table to make bookings. They enter their contact details, select the desired vehicle and specify the period of use.
After sending, the request appears immediately in your table and you can process it. As the tables are linked to each other, you can assign each request to an employee and the desired vehicle. You can then check whether the vehicle is available at the desired time or whether it is already booked for that period. Use the timeline plug-in for this, which clearly displays overlapping bookings.
As in our example, you can reject the request that arrives later. SeaTable allows you to use buttons to automate certain processes in fleet management and trigger them with just one click. This allows you to easily process requests and reject or confirm the vehicle booking at the touch of a button. A preset e-mail is then sent to the applicant with the relevant information.
Keeping an eye on maintenance
As you should always document the current condition of your vehicles, handover logs are essential in fleet management. You can directly record damage or other signs of wear and tear. Again, use a web form for this, which appears directly in the table after submission. If repairs are required, you can document the repair progress in the table.
In order to keep all vehicles ready for use, you should keep regular appointments such as inspections and tire changes on your radar. The main inspection at the TÜV, which is due every two years in Germany, is also obligatory so that the vehicles in your fleet can continue to participate safely in traffic. You can use preset notifications to inform everyone involved of upcoming appointments in good time. This means you don't have to check your fleet management calendar every day - SeaTable automatically sends you reminders at the right time.
Use this advantage for your fleet management
SeaTable offers you simple and intuitive management of your fleet and incoming booking requests. This means you always have an overview of which vehicles are available at what time and what the status of your fleet is.
Register for free and try SeaTable and the flexibly customizable template for your fleet management today!