TAKE THE CHEVIN ROUTE TO REDUCE FALSE MILEAGE CLAIMS

Recent research by hotel chain Travelodge has shown that British workers are cheating employers out of GBP 1 billion a year through their expenses claims. The research showed that 46 per cent of Britain's workforce thinks that over-claiming for things like mobile phone bills, train tickets and petrol is an acceptable money-making scheme. Chevin Fleet Solutions' new route verification and mapping module has been introduced to counter this. The new module uses an on-line routing and mileage service to generate the 'best routing' for a particular journey, and then returns a highly accurate mileage for the trip. This value is then presented to the driver as a default, although they can override if necessary. This approach generally leads to a noticeable drop in business mileage claims, and the potential cost savings are huge. For example, if drivers typically 'round-up' or overstate their business mileage claims by as little as 10 miles per day, multiplied into an annual figure and then across a fleet of, say, 100 vehicles, the excess claim is more than a quarter of a million miles. Considering that the standard whole life cost of a typical fleet car is 40 pence per mile, the potential cost saving would be over GBP 100,000 - significantly more than the cost of any investment that may be needed, and significantly less than a black-box approach. Ashley Sowerby, Managing Director of Chevin Fleet Solutions added: "The research clearly shows that false business mileage claims are an increasing and expensive problem for organisations. However, with the extended capability of FleetWave®, the route verification module can help make false mileage claims a thing of the past. The Return on Investment of setting up such a system is immediately visible, and by avoiding a black-box 'spy in the cab' approach a more positive relationship is maintained with the workforce."