Vehicles, fleet and fuel

It failed its MOT
three weeks ago.

Every van on one register, with the dates counted down a month early and the walk-round done on a phone.

A gang arriving on site, the people a fleet exists to move

In plain terms

Fleet management software keeps a register of the vehicles a business runs, watches the dates that make them legal to drive, records the checks drivers are supposed to do, and separates what the fleet costs from everything else in the accounts.

In Unibuild every van, truck and car is a record with an assigned operative and three dates on it: MOT due, road tax due and service due. Those dates are watched independently and shown as counted-down warnings a month in advance, the daily walk-round is done on the phone, and fuel spend is separated out rather than disappearing into a line called motor expenses.

How a fleet is usually run

The MOT date lives in a spreadsheet, updated when somebody remembers.

And she is on annual leave, so the van has been going out every morning for three weeks.

A cracked mirror

Mentioned to a supervisor who was on the phone. Mentioned again three months later.

By a different driver

After a collision

The insurer asks for evidence the vehicle was being checked. There is none.

Resting on recollection

A missed service

By four thousand miles. The cambelt goes. The interval was known by nobody in particular.

A week off the road

Fuel

A company card and three fuel cards, reconciled into one line called motor expenses.

No van has a cost

Road tax

The renewal goes to an old registered address, or nowhere at all.

Found out by a fine

A van and a leaver

Assigned to somebody who left four months ago. Nobody is sure who has the keys.

Unaccounted for

The underlying issue A date nobody owns is a date that is discovered by a fine or a breakdown Never in advance

One registerRegistrationAssigned operativeMOT dueRoad tax dueService dueCounted downA month in advanceDaily walk-roundEleven itemsDefects recordedPhotographsMileage readingsFuel separated outCost per vehicleOn the phone One registerRegistrationAssigned operativeMOT dueRoad tax dueService dueCounted downA month in advanceDaily walk-roundEleven itemsDefects recordedPhotographsMileage readingsFuel separated outCost per vehicleOn the phone

What the module does

Six things a spreadsheet of registrations cannot.

One record
per vehicle

Registration, the operative it is assigned to, chosen from the live staff list, and the three dates that decide whether it is legal to take out this morning.

MOT due, road tax due and service due
Assigned from the staff list, so a leaver's van is visible
Rather than a row in a workbook one person maintains
Nine vehicles or ninety, the same register

Owned, not maintainedLive

Dates counted
down, not stored

Each of the three dates is watched independently and shown as a warning a month before it lands, so a renewal is something you do rather than something you discover.

A month is enough to book a service or an MOT
It does not depend on post reaching an old address
Or on one person being at their desk
Three separate dates, three separate warnings

Before, not afterLive

The walk-round,
on the phone

Eleven items, checked by the driver on the app before the van goes out, rather than a paper book in the glovebox that stopped being filled in during the first fortnight.

Done where the driver already is
A defect is recorded rather than mentioned in a yard
With a photograph, so the supervisor can see it
And a date, which is what the insurer wants

Evidence a check happenedLive

Defects that
do not evaporate

A cracked mirror reported on a Tuesday is a record with a date rather than a remark to somebody who was on the phone at the time.

So it is not reported again three months later by somebody else
The same defect is not fixed twice, or never
The history sits on the vehicle, not in a conversation
Which is also what an insurer asks to see

Raised once, and trackedLive

Fuel, separated
out

Fuel is ordered and recorded as its own type of spend rather than being reconciled by a bookkeeper into a single line nobody can break down afterwards.

So a director can ask what a van costs to run
And get a figure rather than a total for the fleet
Ordered the same way as any other spend
Which means it is captured rather than absorbed

Motor expenses, itemisedLive

Mileage, where
it is recorded

Current readings held against the vehicle, which is what turns a service interval from a date somebody wrote down into something related to how hard the van has actually worked.

Recorded by the person driving it
So a service is due when it is due
Rather than four thousand miles later
Not every firm captures it, and it is worth doing

The interval that means somethingLive

Ask which of your vehicles is closest to its MOT.

If the answer involves opening a spreadsheet and someone being back from leave, that is the whole case for this module in one question.

Book a demo → 30 minutes. The demo runs on our own data.

The detail that matters

Six things worth knowing before you move a fleet onto anything.

Fleet software fails in predictable ways, and most of them are about whether drivers actually use it.

The walk-round has to be on the phone

A paper defect book in the glovebox stops being filled in within a fortnight, every time, in every firm. Putting the check on the device the driver already carries is not a convenience feature; it is the difference between having a record and having a book with three entries in it from 2023.

The insurer's question is the real one

After a collision an insurer asks for evidence the vehicle was being checked. A dated check with a photograph is an answer. A supervisor's recollection is not, and the firm's position rests on it. This is the argument that usually persuades a director, rather than the MOT dates.

Three dates, watched separately

MOT, road tax and service run on different clocks and fail in different ways. Holding them as one renewal date is how a van ends up taxed, serviced and untested. They are watched independently for that reason.

Assignment is the audit

Vehicles assigned from the live staff list means a van attached to somebody who left four months ago is visible rather than forgotten. It is a small link between two records and it answers the question nobody wants to ask out loud, which is who has the keys.

Fuel is where the cost hides

A company card and three fuel cards reconciled into a single ledger line called motor expenses is the normal arrangement, and it makes cost per vehicle impossible. Capturing fuel as its own spend type is what lets a director ask what one van costs and get an answer.

Mileage is the honest gap

Capturing current readings is what makes a service interval mean something, and in practice not every vehicle carries one. It depends on drivers entering it, and the useful version of this conversation is deciding at implementation how you are going to make that happen rather than assuming the software will.

Vans are one register. Plant is another.

If the yard is the bigger problem, the plant, tools and stores side is the conversation, and the two work the same way.

See plant and stores → Or call the office on UK hours

Questions

Asked by whoever
runs the yard.

How does it stop an MOT being missed?+

Each vehicle carries three dates, MOT due, road tax due and service due, and each is watched independently and shown as a counted-down warning a month before it lands. A month is enough time to book something. The reason firms miss these is not that nobody cares, it is that the date lives in a spreadsheet one person maintains and that person takes annual leave like everybody else.

Do drivers actually do the walk-round?+

More reliably than with a paper book, because the check is eleven items on the phone they already carry rather than a pad in the glovebox. Every firm we have seen with a paper defect book has three entries in it from two years ago. Putting it on the device is not a convenience feature, it is the difference between having a record and not.

What happens when a defect is reported?+

It becomes a record on the vehicle with a date and, where the driver adds one, a photograph, rather than a remark to a supervisor who was on the phone at the time. That is what stops the same cracked mirror being reported again three months later by a different driver, and it is what an insurer is asking for after a collision.

Can we find out what a single van costs to run?+

Yes, because fuel is captured as its own type of spend rather than being reconciled into one ledger line called motor expenses. The usual arrangement, a company card plus two or three fuel cards, makes cost per vehicle impossible to produce, which is why almost no director can answer this question about their own fleet.

Does it track where the vehicle is?+

Live location tracking is a telematics question and it is worth being precise about rather than implying. What this module holds is the register, the legal dates, the daily check, the defect history, mileage readings and the fuel spend. If real-time vehicle location matters to you, raise it at implementation as an integration rather than assuming it is included.

How do we know who has which van?+

Each vehicle is assigned to an operative chosen from the live staff list, so the link is to a real personnel record rather than a name typed in a cell. That means a van still assigned to somebody who left four months ago shows up as exactly that, which answers the question most firms would rather not ask out loud.

Is mileage captured automatically?+

No, it depends on the reading being entered, and in practice not every vehicle on a live fleet carries a current one. We would rather say that than pretend otherwise. It is worth deciding at implementation how you intend to make it happen, because a service interval based on real mileage is considerably more useful than one based on a date somebody wrote down last year.

Assets and compliance