15 May 2015

Are you overpaying for your company car operations?

Our recent attendance at the ACFO Spring National Seminar highlighted that whole life cost (WLC) fleet management should be embedded in every company, to avoid excessive expenditure on company cars.

The sense amongst fleet managers that WLC is complicated means that companies, in particular SMEs, are in many cases overpaying for their company car operations by basing choice lists on rental price alone. It is often forgotten that the ‘cheaper’ car is not always the cheapest to run.

WLC helps build a list of company car options by taking into account the full cost of a vehicle over the term of leasing, and includes the total calculation of:

• Rental
• Servicing, maintenance and repair costs
• Irrecoverable VAT
• Class 1a NIC
• Corporation tax relief 
• Fuel expenditure

Undoubtedly, the greatest benefit of WLC is the savings it may provide to a company; however, amending company car lists to potentially include ‘higher status’ cars through WLC can also improve staff motivation and morale.

Activa offers the most comprehensive and transparent WLC calculation tool within our industry. To find out more information about this, please contact one of our sales team on 01908 288400 or speak to your area manager.