“Fueling slippage never happens to anyone in the US and only occurs in remote areas like Australia.” Look let’s face the facts, fleet fuel theft is EVERYWHERE! It is a problem not only facing corporate America but also government as well. If you have an open pump connected to a 10,000 gallon fueling tank, you better believe that with diesel fuel prices these days, you are going to have fuel theft. It happens in many ways. An employee pulls up for fueling the fleet companies truck and fills 5 gallons into a can that he puts into his personal truck every month. That’s 5 gallons per month x 12 months totals 60 gallons. If you have 100 employees who have access to your fleet fuel cards and only 10% of them take advantage of the bulk fuel, you’re talking 600 gallons of slippage by the end of the year. Multiply that by $3 per gallon in diesel fuel prices and you have $1,800 in stolen fleet fueling each year! Take that same example on a municipality with 2000 vehicles and a monthly fueling bill of $300,000 and you have a problem! Sokolis Group, being your companies out sourced fuel management team will be able to help you manage your fuel fleet card program, fleet management system or fuel cards. With our reporting we will be able to ensure that the fleet fuel that was purchased goes where you want and not someplace else. We have many reports and exceptions that will target these matters and allow your fleet manager to take the necessary actions. Additionally, we have special controls for fleet cards, mobile fueling, fuel credit cards so your fleet management is always in your control providing you fuel savings.  For more information on Sokolis Group’s services please contact us at 267-482-6155 or www.sokolisgroup.com.

AAA can change your flat tire, unlock your car when you’ve left your keys inside or tell you where the cheapest diesel fuel prices are. But the agency is not a fueling expert.
So when it came to managing the fleet fuel consumed by its own 250-vehicle fleet, AAA Mid-Atlantic turned to the Sokolis Group, a Warrington-based fuel management company.

Since signing up with Sokolis in 2006, AAA Mid-Atlantic has saved an average of $12,000 a month on mobile fueling, diesel fuel prices, diesel fuel additives, fuel cards and labor, said John Poholsky, the club’s fleet director. The program’s been so successful that the national automobile club has made Sokolis a recommended vendor for all of its clubs in the U.S. and Canada. These clubs have been able to get a fleet card, fuel card programs or in some areas mobile fueling that has allowed them to realize fuel savings that other fleet companies don’t get.

AAA Mid-Atlantic serves Delaware, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. “We buy a lot of fleet fuel each month,” Poholsky said. “We buy it in seven different locations in five different states. We realized we needed some help, or we needed to do something different. We know we’re not experts in the fuel industry. So we went to look for one.”

That someone was Glen Sokolis, who started the Sokolis Group, fuel management and fuel consulting comapny eight years ago after 14 years of owning a few different fleet fueling, mobile fueling, fuel card companies that provided fleet refueling services or also known as mobile fueling.
“A lot of companies … really didn’t understand what they’re being charged and what their true costs of fuel were,” Sokolis said. “There were a lot of clients that didn’t know the true dynamics behind the cost of fuel and diesel fuel prices”

 
Most consumers, for instance, see a 30-cent jump at the pump and think that’s how much the price of the gasoline rose. What they don’t know is how much goes into the price of a gallon of gas, including fuel delivery charges, taxes, the station’s profit and the cost of the fuel, Sokolis said. The Sokolis Group uses the Oil Price Information Service, OPIS an online pricing service, to track gasoline costs and diesel fuel prices around the country. From there, it helps clients negotiate prices with fueling companies.

“Oil is a dirty business,” Sokolis said. “Dirty not just in the sense of the word ‘oil.’ It’s a ‘pennies’ business. If someone can scratch out an extra penny, it could be worth tens of thousands of dollars to their fueling companies business.” You really need to make sure someone with the right knowledge is watching your fleet management and fleet companies pricing.
Most of the company’s clients have commercial vehicles that require diesel fuel. They don’t often use conventional gas stations to refuel, instead relying on mobile fueling stations that fill the trucks overnight, truck stops or “card locks,” which are unattended fueling stations located around the country. Drivers use access fuel cards, fleet cards or fleet credit cards to activate pumps and pay for the gas or diesel fuel.

For AAA Mid-Atlantic, the Sokolis Group set up different fuel-buying programs for each of the club’s seven fleet locations. In Philadelphia, the largest location, a company refuels vehicles overnight with mobile fueling. That not only saves on diesel fuel prices – the club had bought fuel at retail prices and now negotiates a discount – but on labor, because drivers don’t have to wait at gas pumps to fuel up, Poholsky said.
AAA Mid-Atlantic now uses card locks with its fleet card, fuel cards and has its own fuel management solution with a station in at least one location. The Sokolis Group tracks the club’s spending and generates reports to help it better manage the fleet management.
As gas prices have risen, Sokolis said his company has gotten busier. The client base has increased by about 10 percent over the past year, he said. Clients typically save between 10 cents and 14 cents a gallon, he said. For Sokolis, rising gas prices are a supply-and-demand issue. The world’s oil consumption is growing faster than the supply.  It doesn’t appear to look like that right now but it will again soon.

“As a country, everybody wants to point blame: ‘It’s all speculation,’ ” he said. “I don’t believe that. There’s a little bit of speculation. But there’s good reason to speculate. You have a supply and demand issue that’s real.”

“I think they’ll go up,” he said. “Sometime in the first quarter.  You can’t hold diesel fuel prices down for long.”

According to the Federal Government light to medium trucking fleet management operations are going to be expected to improve their fueling economy up to 10% for gasoline engines, and 15% for diesel engines by 2018.  It also entails for large heavy duty tractor trailer fleets to reduce CO2 emissions and fueling consumption up to 20%.  It’s nothing for fleet manager or fuel management companies such as us to fret over yet.  The rules wouldn’t be brought into affect until 2014 with the new model trucks.  Hopefully diesel fuel prices will be low and how consistent fuel with be will be better than today so diesel fuel additives won’t be needed as much in your fleet companies diet.

 These regulations could cost fleet companies almost $8 billion, so there goes some fuel savings but the benefits are supposed to outweigh the costs as $41 billion would be saved for the 2014 to 2018 to vehicles.  These changes would be another effort to go greener.  They could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by almost 250 million metric tons and save somewhere around 500 million barrels of oil.

 Regardless of what changes in the future, whether diesel fuel prices go up or down, Sokolis Group has the ability to save you money on fleet fueling, fuel credit cards, mobile fueling, diesel fuel additives we can help improve your fuel savings.  With our fuel management system and relationships with fuel companies across the country, you’re guaranteed to pay a lower price then you’re paying now.  With changes like these that can cost your company now, why not use us as your fuel management team to reduce your costs today.  Call me at 267-482-6159 to discuss what Sokolis Group can do for you.

Fleet management it is essential to have auditing of fueling purchases

Your company has worked hard to get the right fleet fuel program in place. You have picked the right fleet fuel card provider, and you may have negotiated and set up some fueling discounts with your fuel card provider, mobile fueling company or truck stop provider. However, the fuel management task has only just begun to be able to maximize on lower diesel fuel prices.

Companies often neglect to monitor their fleet management programs following the original set-up. Some companies do review fleet fuel transactions or exception reports. However, do they review all reports, check for duplicate transactions, or confirm discounts are applied properly? Many companies cannot perform this level of scrutiny because they lack the time or tools to check. How should companies audit fleet fuel invoices?

Anyone that is reading this article who is in the fleet management solutions department clearly knows that your company:

• Won’t pay for fueling data because it appears expensive. 
• You have other jobs so nobody is 100% dedicated to your fuel management system
• You’re in a job with fueling that you don’t have a strong background or no background
• The field operations people have less time or experience then you do about diesel fuel prices
• No time, no communication, poor data and you have a bad situation in fueling department

Audits Require Time & Data

Staff time and access to relevant fueling data are the first elements in a successful fuel purchase & auditing fuel management system for your company.

A few tips to facilitate this process include:

■ Subscribe to a fuel price service.

■ Have a “sense” of the fueling market.

■ Hire an outside service to review your fuel management program.

Fuel price data is available through Oil Price Information Service (OPIS), Data Transmission Service (DTN), or other diesel fuel prices published daily at a local level. Broader-range indices, such as the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), Department of Energy (DOE), and the Automobile Club (AAA), provide national fuel pricing. While these national services offer a big picture view of fuel prices, they can also obscure the various price differentials distinguishing one area from another. Local indices provide more accurate fueling price data.

These services are not cheap to purchase, but they are essential to a successful fuel management program.

Calculating Vendor Margins

 The basic data required for a fuel program review is price per gallon for each fueling whether it is mobile fueling, fleet cards, bulk fuel, truck stop fueling or fuel card fuel transactions. Next, the federal, state, county, and local taxes are subtracted from the price per gallon numbers. A fuel tax guide can provide a resource for such data.

The price per gallon less taxes calculation provides fueling cost only. Comprising that fuel cost are the fuel itself and vendor-charged margins. To determine the vendor margin, fleet fuel transaction costs are compared with same-day OPIS or DTN pricing for the relevant geographic area. Fleet managers can monitor fuel margin numbers to determine if they match or closely approach vendor-negotiated fleet fuel price deals. If the numbers do not agree, it’s time to investigate.  There lays most of the issue for companies who want fuel savings but lack time and resources to accomplish fleet management goals.

Detecting Duplicates

Duplicate transactions are another fuel management program invoicing issue to track. These errors occur more frequently than commonly realized. When hundreds of thousands of fueling transactions are produced each day, mistakes happen. If invoices are not monitored carefully, a fleet manager can miss duplicate transactions, and there’s a good chance the fleet fuel card provider won’t catch the mistakes as well or the fuel card company made the mistake.  With fueling transactions being processed in ‘real time”, batched, file delays and other ways that would only make you scared, you bet there are mistakes all of the time.

Guidelines in monitoring fleet fuel reports include:

■ Develop a good “feel” for the monthly volume and transaction count.

■ If purchased volume or transactions are higher than normal, dig deeper into reports.

■ Randomly sample 5 percent of monthly fleet invoices and closely review the selected transactions.

Again, it is all about time, resources, experience we do fuel analysis and fuel audits on all fueling transactions. With diesel fuel prices always changing and mistakes that can be made, it’s the best way to go with our fuel management solutions. 

Implement Checks & Balances

Fuel is among fleet’s top five expenses, and hundreds to tens of thousands of transactions happen each month as part of a fuel program. Successful programs require a good checks-and-balances system. One of the best checks is performing monthly fleet fuel audits of the fleet management operation.

A fleet might have trucks fueling off-road equipment or reefer units, putting all that volume on the same transaction. One fleet fuel card for each truck, equipment, reefer, small tank, etc, is recommended to accurately capture every drop of fuel and where it went.  A few fuel card providers will allow for another transaction to be attached to the on road diesel fuel.

 Accurate records of where the fuel is used are critical. If on-road fuel is used in an off-road application, as much as 50 cents per gallon or more in extra, unnecessary taxes could be spent. In other words, fuel tax should be paid when fuel is purchased, but accurate recordkeeping allows fleets to file for a tax refund with the federal and stategovernment. Those 50 cents per gallon can add up quickly. You don’t want to give up that kind of money anymore than you don’t want to buy diesel fuel additives.

Another critical benefit of accurate recordkeeping is the ability to spot incidents of fuel theft. Most companies would downplay the possibility employees would steal from them. However, the national rate for fuel theft is 1.5 percent ofa company’s fuel budget on overall fuel purchases. That rate rises to more than 3 percent when dealing with a fleet of gasoline-powered vehicles. The more controls in place, the greater the control over one of fleet’s top expenses.

Giving Money Away

An old expression holds that what isn’t inspected is not respected. By neglecting to perform daily fuel management audits on fleet fuel purchases, companies could be literally giving money away.  It would not be surprising for someone like myself to see thousands of dollars a day go away from a company in fuel savings because it has been stolen.  Companies think they have good diesel fuel prices or there fuel cards are protecting them.  Don’t be so naïve, it could be costing your fuel management department or I should say company a lot of money.

Most often, fuel invoice errors are not the result of unethical business practices or nefarious individual actions.

Generally, errors are the result of an incorrect account set-up or account change. If invoice numbers are not audited, they look like what they are — simple numbers. However, when fleet managers “peel back” the first “layer” and take a deeper look, comparing the numbers to a benchmark, the figures become numbers with a purpose.

If you think your business is simply put, “just to sell your product or service”, then you’re mistaken.  Your real business is to serve and keep customers.  For large fleet companies, for mobile fueling companies, and even for our own fuel management company it’s important to keep current customers while potentially bringing on new clients that need fleet management solutions.

For most companies 80% of sales come from just 20% of customers; which is why customer retention is a big deal.  The best way to keep your clients happy is with exceptional customer service.  There are certain things you should remember and use if not already for your company to succeed in this ever important category. 

People, not the company serve your customers.  For us our customers want fleet cards, diesel fuel additive, mobile fueling, fleet management, fuel cards to lower their diesel fuel prices and have fuel savings.  It is very important that we train them well.  Your employees are only as good as you’ve trained them, but their personalities and outlook on their jobs need to be high also.  Their interaction with your clients is the main source of your customer service.  Keep it personal by calling the client by their name when you speak to them so they know you recognize them and value their business.  Use kindness and provide additional ideas and thoughts.  Since our clients might not always be thinking about fleet fuel, we make sure we alert them that winter is coming and diesel fuel additive might be a good idea or their fleet management programs internally aren’t as good as what we have seen from other clients.  Something to live and die by for your company is “the customer is always right”.  If not now more than ever in this economy it’s important to give your customers the benefit of the doubt to keep their business.  Lastly make sure you understand the customer’s opinions.  You can do this by having cards at your register for them to fill out with a few questions such as: what do you like about us or how could we improve or make a change? Or even by including a short questionnaire with their next statement.

 Our company is small and unique.  We help fleet managers of small to large trucking companies control their diesel fuel prices.   We provide fuel analysis and monitor all of their fleet fuel cards purchases, while assuring they’re paying the lowest prices possible to get fuel savings.  Being a small company with a unique service makes customer service even more important.  To lose one or two clients in the same year could be drastic and give my boss white hair fast.  Luckily so far we’ve prided ourselves in not only our services, but also our customers.

Having your cell phone at work can be useful but it can also be very disruptive. Your friends and family can reach you anytime, anywhere, which can be annoying.

When you’re on your own time, the choice to turn off your cell phone is entirely yours. When it comes to using your cell phone at work, however, you have to be mindful of your co-workers and your boss, not to mention your own ability to get your job done. Here are some rules you should follow if you have your cell phone at work.

• Turn Your Cell Phone Ringer Off During Work Hours 
  • If you have your cell phone at work, it shouldn’t ring. If you don’t want to turn off your cell phone completely, at least set it to vibrate! The sounds of different ring tones going off all the time can be very annoying to others. In addition, you don’t want your boss to know how often you get calls.
•  Use Your Cell Phone Only for Important Calls  
  • If you have your cell phone at work, you should only use it for important calls. What should you classify as an important call? The school nurse calling to say your child is ill, your child calling to say he’s arrived home from school safely, and family emergencies that you must deal with immediately are important. Your friend calling to chat, your child calling to say the dog had an accident, or your mom calling to tell you your cousin Tilly is engaged should NOT be considered important.
• Let Your Cell Phone Calls Go to Voice Mail
  • While you are at work if you are in doubt about whether an incoming call is important, let voice mail pick it up. It will take much less time to check your messages than it will to answer the call and then tell the caller you can’t talk.
•  Find a Private Place to Make Cell Phone Calls  
  • While it’s okay to use your cell phone at work for private calls during breaks, don’t stay at your desk. Find somewhere else to talk, where your conversation can’t be overheard, even if what you’re discussing isn’t personal. You may be on a break but your co-workers have a job to do! It is distracting to hear loud personal calls from another room while trying to concentrate
• Don’t Bring Your Cell Phone Into the Restroom … Ever
  • This rule should apply to using your cell phone at work or anywhere. Why? Well, if you must ask — you never know who’s in there; the person on the other end of the line will hear bathroom sounds, e.g., toilets flushing; it is an invasion of your co-workers’ privacy.
• Don’t Bring Your Cell Phone to Meetings
  • Even if you have your cell phone set to vibrate, if you receive a call you will be tempted to see who it’s from. This is not only rude, it is a clear signal to your boss that your mind isn’t 100 percent on your job. All calls can wait until your meeting is over or until there is a break. Remember, there was a time before we had cell phones.

You may remember a time before there was email…a time when communications within most organizations were more formal and followed strict lines of protocol. Email has done wonders to break down some of the communications bureaucracy and hierarchy within organizations; today virtually anyone can speak to anyone else within an organization with the click of a mouse. Email has brought with it a new informality to business communications – but it didn’t come with instructions. 

Your Signature

• Use your email program to create an email signature block that will automatically attach to all of your outgoing messages. It saves you the effort of including your contact information every time you send a message and brings a professional touch to your communications.
• You might simply include your name, business name, contact details and website or you might also include a sentence or two about your business or even a favorite funny or inspirational quote.  

Reply Quickly

• Because of its immediacy, people expect fast replies to emails. A response within 24 hours is probably as long as most people would consider appropriate. Your email practices will educate others about what to expect from you in email communications; if you respond quickly, people will expect that you’ll always respond quickly; if you set a 24 hour or less benchmark, likewise people will learn what to expect from you – but of course there will always be those emails that do require your immediate attention.

Spell Check

• Always, always re-read your emails before you send them to make sure they make sense and to fix any spelling or grammatical errors. Set your email to automatically spell-check for clarity, tone or correctness, as a colleague to look over the content for you. It might be inconsequential to you, but a poorly worded email that conveys the wrong tone and is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors can destroy your credibility.

As summer is just around the corner and the weather is heating up we turn to the AC to keep us cool.   Here are 7 simple ways to save energy without having to cut back on air conditioning, courtesy of Smartpower.org

• Air Dry Beach Towels
  • Using a beach towel to dry off after a refreshing swim does not mean the towel is dirty.  Instead of throwing it into the laundry, toss the towel over the porch railing to air dry.  Beach towels are much thicker than regular towels and therefore require more energy to dry.
• Take Shorter Showers
  •  We have all heard this one a million times but it really does work.  Taking a shorter shower means less hot water you will be using which means less energy used to heat the water for an extended period of time. 
• Unplug Your TV
  • All plugged in electronics constantly suck energy even when they are turned off.  A simple solution is to plug all electronics into power strips and turn off the power strip when not being used.
• Get Rid of Old Refrigerators
  • Refrigerators each year keep getting more energy efficient, which is great!!  The problem is instead of recycling the old refrigerator we tend to move them to the garage or basement; this is now using twice the energy. 
• Turn Off Your Computers
  • Sleep mode does not mean your computer is turned off.  If your computer is plugged in it is using energy no matter what mode the computer is in. Turn off and unplug your computer completely!!
• Weather Strip Your Doors
  • If you want to keep your air conditioning inside your house make sure that all windows and doors have the proper seal.  More important, keep all windows and door closed when the air is turned on.
• Get Your Water Heater Checked
  • Have your water heater set to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. (Most homes are set at 140)  Lowering your water heater by 10 degrees can save you 3 to 5 percent in energy cost.

Contact Sokolis Group and let us know what you are doing to save energy. www.Sokolisgoup.com or 267-482-6155.