How to reduce your fleet operating costs

Figure 1: The typical life cycle costs of a fleet vehicle(2).

Optimising your fleet

There are three main things to consider when optimising your fleet management costs: finance plans, insurance costs and tax.

Choose the right finance plan

The decision to buy, lease or rent your fleet will depend on many factors, including your fleet requirements, your fleet size, your budget and your available capital.

Buying outright will give you total control over acquisition, maintenance and disposal. It can be a good option for fleets that have low turnovers. Renting and leasing have the benefit of providing access to new vehicles while preserving capital. But they don’t always unlock certain tax depreciation benefits or lead to ownership at the end of the term.

Related reading: Business vehicle finance explained

Whether you’re building a new fleet or you’re looking to add another vehicle to your business, Toyota Finance has a range of fleet plans and special pricing programs available. Our dealers can work with you to set up the right financial strategy from the outset.

Get better insurance premiums

It’s wise to consider a comprehensive insurance policy that covers your whole fleet, rather than insuring each vehicle individually. This offers better scope for reduced premiums, and there’ll be less ongoing admin time to manage.

To access better insurance premiums, make sure to keep a thorough safety record of your fleet – think distance travelled, maintenance, repairs, accidents, and fines. Tools such as dash cams are helpful here to comprehensively and effortlessly track accidents and responsibility(3)

Manage your taxes

Lowering your fleet’s tax liabilities may lead to large savings, but many small businesses and new fleet operators are unclear about what vehicle-related expenses are tax deductible. The ATO (Australian Taxation Office) provides guidelines for what you can and can’t claim, along with easy-to-use tools to calculate deductions.

Related reading: A guide for keeping track of tax expenses for business vehicles

Your local fleet dealer is also available for free consultations and can talk you through the tax options that best suit you.

Improve your fleet operations

Your fleet’s day-to-day activities are a great opportunity to not only reduce operational costs, but to increase fleet efficiencies in the process.

Let’s explore some tactics.

Stay on top of preventative maintenance

Creating and managing a fleet maintenance program is a must. Because staying one step ahead of potential repairs can help you better control the costs while avoiding vehicle downtime and extra admin. Across industries, unplanned maintenance can cost three to nine times more than preventative maintenance(4), so it’s best not to let small things like oil changes turn into big issues like engine problems.