Frequently Asked Questions - FAQ

CORPORATE CAR SHARING

1. What is Corporate Car Sharing?

A company provides vehicles for their employees. The cars are managed by a smart software. In contrast to traditional solutions, each user books for himself. Keys are managed by reception or a fully automated key box. Even keyless solutions using RFID technology are possible. This system can be operated automatically 100%, helps to improve efficiency and save cost.

2. What is the difference between Corporate Car Sharing and Management of pool Cars?

Corporate Car Sharing puts pool cars to the next level. On the one hand it is still a car that is used by several users. Corporate Car Sharing greatly expands the usage by making extra capacity available to employees or even third parties. The system allows to expand utilization to 24/7 – like any expensive piece of equipment should have.

3. Where are the Vehicles for a Corporate Car Sharing from?

4. Why do I need fleetster? Outlook and Excel can do the same...

That’s not true! Maybe if you have very few vehicles and users you are able to manage the pool with these tools. But in the same time you share the Excel file with all of your employees, you can easily set up a fleetster account as well. And actually fleetster can provide you much more than Outlook or Excel can: export of costs centers, key management, analysis, utilization optimization, bookings made by the user, private trips, and many other tools, which can’t be offered by a simple calendar or a spreadsheet.

5. From how many Vehicles is Corporate Car Sharing reasonable?

Corporate Car Sharing is worthy even if the company has only one vehicle which is shared by several employees. fleetster can simplify the requests and provide many other advantages, such as the automatic logbook and the ability of using the vehicle for private reasons after the working hours.

6. What happens to the Company Cars?

You may keep the company cars. The classical company car (distribution cars, service cars, or incentive cars) is not so interesting for fleetster. If the users come to the idea that the company car is relatively expensive due to the 1-percent rule, fleetster has an interesting alternative.

7. What is essential for a Corporate Car Sharing Solution?

The following vehicles are especially suitable for Corporate Car Sharing: department vehicles, workshop vehicles, and the company cars which temporarily do not have an owner, as their previous one has left the company and the new owner has not been chosen. The cars often stay unused for a longer period of time, because the user group is too small or the process is too complex. The above mentioned vehicles are particularly good because they are already available and they can be integrated into fleetster immediately.

PRIVATE TRIPS WITH CORPORATE CAR SHARING VEHICLES

8. Why should a Company enable private Trips?

9. Who has to pay the Taxes for the Benefits of Pool Vehicles?

Regarding private trips there are many tax issues to be considered. The big advantage is that fleetster provides the necessary framework to help you handle every tax problems that can occur. This is ensured by the fact, that employees pay a little amount of money for private trips, so this opportunity is not a monetary advantage for them. With fleetster the company and the employees are on the safe side.

OTHER QUESTIONS

10. How secure is the data?

We communicate exclusively via secure SSL connections. To provide the highest degree of data security we host all data on servers in Germany! Customers such as Tennet or the University of Kaiserslautern have conducted extensive testing with us for data security before giving us their orders. You can find a detailed description about the security of data in fleetster in our Privacy Policy.

11. How can you most easily create about 1000 users? What about the data security?

You can send us an excel file (can be password protected) and we can upload the data via a secure connection. This process worked flawlessly for Tennet with 1.200 users as well.

12. Can users create bookings on their own, so with a minimum effort for a fleet manager?

Yes – this is possible. But you need all users’ email addresses for this. Once these are inserted at the appropriate place in fleetster, all users will get an invitation email. This email contains a link, through which the user can register himself in the system. You can turn on a supervisor in the frame of a vehicle booking, who can release the business trips (so far there is always a request to the supervisor). Yes - this feature is available and can be used in the Pro version.

13. Can a car be given by the system, so the employees can’t always choose just the most beautiful car?

In fleetster there is a function that prevents this “picnic attitude”. The system administrator only has to activate the so-called automatic booking (or communicate his wish to the fleetster team during the setting up process of the system). Then, the user can only specify which vehicle category he needs for his journey, and cannot book an explicit vehicle. fleetster then decides on the basis of costs, which vehicle is the most sensible for the user at that moment. But we will soon implement a function, where also the relevant leasing agreement or CO2 emissions can be used as a basis for the decision.

14. If all station wagons are already booked, will an equivalent vehicle be automatically rebooked in the system?

The user is noted during the booking process if all cars in the certain vehicle category are already booked. In this case the user can choose another category or simply doesn’t make any booking in fleetster. If a vehicle is late and the following booking cannot take place, the next sensible and available vehicle is automatically rebooked or an alarm via email is raised.

15. Is a cost center specified for each kilometer driven?

In fleetster, the cost center can be set as required field. This means, that no booking (so no trip with a pool vehicle) can be done without specifying a cost center. Then the total cost center calculation can be exported as an excel file.

16. Can, for example, a key return take place at 22.00 with a doorman as key manager, with only this function?

We have solved the exact same case at a company the following way. In terms of key returns outside the opening hours, first, the amount of kilometers driven is assumed to be the same as given during the booking process. Then the user receives an email with a request to give correct amount. If he fails to do that, he and his fleet manager receive a reminder email. But the vehicle remains bookable in any case. And, of course, hardware can be integrated. Using a key cabinet can completely automate the key issue. From 4,200 € with the fleetster data box, you can automatically transmit the mileages at the key return (no driving profiles!) From 180 € per vehicle there is also a possibility of a box to obstruct the opening of the doors – around 1000 € per vehicle.

17. Can the "local hero“ of the car rental companies, so your local car rental company be integrated to increase the number of the vehicles?

Our local hero is currently called Europcar – the lessor with the most stations in Germany. However, it would be possible to send an email to a predefined address, in which the booking details are stored. But we would have to adapt individually to the needs of the local provider.

18. How does the range management of e-cars work? Through the OEMs?