The statement nobody really checks
Every week a fuel card statement arrives with hundreds of lines: site, time, litres, card number, registration if the driver typed it. The accounts team posts the total. Somebody is supposed to scan it for anything odd, and on a quiet week they do. On a busy week it gets filed.
Meanwhile the bunkered fuel at the yard is recorded on a sheet by the pump, and the truck that card 14 belongs to has been off the road for a week while card 14 kept filling up.
Why checking it is so slow
A fuel transaction only makes sense next to other information: which truck it went into, who was driving, how far that truck had gone since the last fill, and how big the tank is. None of that is on the statement.
- Cards are allocated to vehicles, but drivers change vehicles and take cards with them.
- Registrations typed at the pump are often wrong or missing.
- Mileage is in telematics or tachograph data, not in the fuel system.
- Yard bunker fills are recorded separately, on paper or in a different spreadsheet.
- AdBlue, oils and shop purchases on the same card muddy the totals.
What an unchecked statement costs
Fuel is one of your largest costs, so small leaks add up, whether they come from a misused card, a fill going into the wrong vehicle, or a pump site overcharging. Without per-vehicle fuel figures you also cannot tell which trucks are thirsty, which is the information you need to decide on replacements or driver training. And cost per load is wrong if fuel is allocated on averages.
The reconciliation we build
- We import fuel card transactions from your card provider's file or data feed, and bunker records from the yard pump system or a simple entry form that replaces the paper sheet.
- Each fill is matched to the vehicle it went into, using the registration where it is reliable, and otherwise the vehicle the driver was on at that time from your tachograph or planning data.
- The system compares each fill with the mileage since the last one and the tank capacity you give it, and flags fills that do not fit: too many litres, fills close together, fills while the vehicle was parked or in the workshop.
- Non-fuel purchases are separated so fuel figures are clean.
- Flagged lines go to a queue for someone to check and note. Everything else is reconciled without being touched.
- Fuel per vehicle, per driver and per load is calculated from the matched data and made available to your costing and reporting.
| Check | By hand | Automated |
|---|---|---|
| Which truck got the fuel | Guess from the card | Matched to the vehicle the driver was on |
| Does the fill make sense | Not checked | Compared with mileage and tank size |
| Bunker fuel | Paper sheet | Recorded and matched the same way |
| Fuel per truck | Estimated | Calculated from matched fills |
What you can see afterwards
The statement stops being a filed document and becomes data. Accounts deal with the handful of flagged fills each week, with the reason for the flag shown. Managers can compare vehicles on the same kind of work and see which ones stand out. Drivers know fills are matched properly, which tends to be enough on its own. What you do about a flagged fill is always your decision; the system just shows it.
Is your fuel card statement like this?
- The statement is posted as a total and filed.
- You cannot say how much fuel each truck used last month.
- Bunker fuel is logged on paper at the pump.
- Drivers take cards between vehicles.
- Fuel in your load costing is an average.