Quantifying fleet charging administration: A business case for finance

You quantify the administration effort involved in fleet charging by measuring recurring tasks, their frequency and actual processing time. Then compare today's workflow with the proposed process, including new fees and remaining exceptions. Separate freed-up working capacity from genuinely avoided expenditure. This creates a business case that can clearly justify an investment in charging billing and fleet administration.

Define the process being assessed

Start when a charging session occurs and end with the reconciled month-end close. In between, there may be receipt collection, data transfer, vehicle assignment, approval, invoice checking and correction. Include all roles involved: drivers, fleet management, finance and, where relevant, HR for home charging reimbursements.

Limit the case to the change you want to assess. A new fleet billing process does not automatically affect maintenance, lease administration or vehicle procurement. Include those tasks only if the new process demonstrably changes them.

The existing StromNow article From receipts to consolidated invoices describes the basic workflow. For the business case, assign volumes and times to that workflow. A reduced number of invoice files is only one possible driver, not yet a financial result.

Measure tasks rather than broad estimates of effort

Have the people involved keep short activity logs over a representative period. Record active processing time, activity type and the number of cases handled. Document waiting time for a receipt separately. Ten days until a response is not ten days of work, but it may delay closing.

Separate routine work from exceptions. A normal transaction may require only a few steps, while a missing vehicle assignment triggers several queries. If you measure both only as an average, it will later be unclear whether the benefit comes from less manual work or fewer errors.

Do not double-count an exception by including its total effort and also the complete normal case. Decide whether exception time includes or supplements the basic effort. Label this logic in the spreadsheet.

Use realistic volumes

Use charging and receipt counts from your own operations. One invoice may contain many transactions; conversely, one charging session can produce several queries. Vehicle count alone therefore describes administration effort only partially.

Record seasonal differences and planned fleet growth. If you expect more vehicles, first calculate the current process at this higher volume, then calculate the new process at the same volume. Otherwise, growth effects become confused with process improvement.

Finance uses an appropriate internal cost rate to value working time. This may differ by role. It should have a clear definition rather than come from an arbitrary provider calculator. A business calculation may use valued time, but it must make clear how that differs from an actual payment.

Create a transparent example month

The following example uses illustrative assumptions, not StromNow terms or measured customer results. All fees are considered net; the internal hourly rate is an imputed value. Energy costs remain unchanged and are therefore not counted as a benefit.

Assume there are 600 charging cases each month. Today's normal process needs three minutes per case. For 60 cases, there are an additional ten minutes of query handling. The fixed month-end close takes four hours. The total is 30 + 10 + 4 = 44 hours.

In the assumed new process, routine time falls to one minute. For 30 exceptions, an additional eight minutes are needed; closing takes two hours. The total is 10 + 4 + 2 = 16 hours. The difference is 28 hours per month.

At an assumed €42 per hour, the 28 hours represent capacity valued at €1,176 per month. If an additional monthly provider fee of €350 is included, a calculated benefit of €826 remains. This does not automatically reduce cash expenditure on salaries.

Separate capacity, avoided costs and cash savings

Freed-up capacity means employees have time for other tasks. A budget effect arises only if, for example, paid external support, overtime or an otherwise necessary additional position is actually avoided. Such effects must be agreed with the responsible managers.

The specialist service offered by Flottenwerk for cost and resource analysis also distinguishes freed-up time from realised savings. For your business case, the key is to substantiate these categories through your own decisions.

Show at least two results: valued working capacity and the cash effect. If only capacity is demonstrated, this may still justify the investment, for example because month-end closing becomes more reliable or growth becomes possible without additional routine work. State that precise benefit.

Include implementation and remaining work

A new process creates work for master data, setup, training and possibly data migration. One-off provider fees and temporary parallel operation may also arise. Compare these costs with the ongoing benefit.

Also calculate a cautious scenario. If only 16 rather than 28 hours per month are freed up in the example, the valued benefit is €672. After the €350 fee, €322 remains. With assumed implementation effort valued at €2,400, that equates to around 7.5 months to offset it on this calculated basis. It is not a promised financial payback.

Check which tasks remain: approvals, new cost centres, unusual charging sessions and queries may still be necessary with a central solution. An automatic export only saves time if its format and content fit the next process. Have finance work through a real sample file.

Define success monitoring before approval

Set out when you will measure again after implementation and which process volumes need to be comparable. Check routine time, exception rate, closing duration and open cases. Keep implementation problems separate from stable operations without removing them from total project costs.

Use the same definitions as in the baseline measurement. If queries handled by drivers are no longer recorded in the new process, the time saving will appear larger than it actually is. Check total work across all the roles involved.

StromNow Business offers central billing and exports of invoices and cost reports. A sample month-end close can be used to check specifically which steps become shorter in your business.

For a process analysis with StromNow, bring monthly charging and receipt volumes, measured processing times and typical exception cases. Finance can then compare the potential benefit with the specific offer and make a verifiable investment decision.