Notes for owners · Industry-Specific Software Guides
Where a Fleet Leasing Company Loses Money Between Rental Invoices
A fleet leasing company loses money in four places. Charges are never passed to the lessee, renewals lapse, workshop bills carry no contract reference, and return damage has no proof. Each leak shows up once every vehicle and contract has one record. Lease contracts need a custom build, since no standard product covers them.
Ganesh HS, Strategy and Technology, GullySystem · · 3 min read
Recoverable charges that reach the invoice late
The monthly rental is easy to bill. The extras are not. Excess kilometres, challans, toll charges and damage are incurred on a date and billed months later, if at all.
Record each extra against the vehicle on the day it is known. Then the invoice picks it up. A lessee who sees the date and the proof argues less.
- Excess kilometres read from the odometer
- Challans tied to the vehicle and date
- Toll and fuel card charges passed on
- Damage charges with photos
Renewals that lapse
Every vehicle has insurance, fitness and permit dates. They fall due at different times, and the person who remembers them changes jobs.
A dated list, ranked by what falls due soonest and assigned to a name, is the simplest fix. The cost of a lapse is a vehicle off the road and a lessee who wants a replacement.
Workshop bills with no home
A repair invoice arrives from an approved workshop. If it carries no job reference, accounts cannot say which vehicle or contract bears it. Some are paid twice.
Open a job for each service or repair before the vehicle goes in. The bill is then matched to the job. Scheduled service is planned by kilometre or date, so the workshop gets the vehicle at the right time.
Accident cases need their own log. The claim, the repair and any replacement vehicle sit together.
- A job opened before the vehicle enters the workshop
- Bill matched to the job and the contract
- Scheduled service planned by kilometre or date
- Replacement vehicle shown against the lessee
Damage found at return, with no proof
At the end of a term the vehicle is inspected. If the handover photos are on one phone and the return photos on another, the argument has no referee.
Complete the same checklist at handover and at return, with photos, and keep both on the vehicle record. The comparison shows what changed.
Seeing the leaks every month
Four short reports expose most of this: extras raised against extras billed, renewals due, workshop bills without a job, and returns with open damage.
GST and e-invoice treatment of rentals and recoveries is for your chartered accountant. Accounting for the lease itself is also theirs. The system keeps contract and invoice records they can work from.
Start with one report. The first one usually shows which record is missing.
Fleet leak review sheet
A monthly sheet with four sections: extras incurred and billed, renewals due, workshop bills without a job, and returns with damage open. Fill it by hand for a month. The gaps show which record to build first.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Is there a ready product for fleet leasing companies?
No. Lease contracts with service, renewals and recoveries are a custom build. A logistics product follows trips, and a loan product follows repayments, so neither fits.
Can the system read kilometres from GPS trackers?
Possibly, if the tracker provider opens its data, which is checked during scoping. Odometer readings entered at service and inspection are the fallback.
Does it do the lease accounting?
Not on its own. It keeps contract and invoice records. How a lease is treated in your books is for your chartered accountant to advise.