Chargecloud Partner Forum: New Processes for Company Car Billing

Despite increased environmental bonuses, ambitious environmental goals, and various tax advantages, many fleet and company car users or operators are still uncertain about legal details. Especially accurately accounting for the employee's company car – which is uniformly regulated and well-known for internal combustion engines – still raises new questions for electric vehicles. This conclusion was also reached at the 2020 Partner Forum of Chargecloud GmbH, a provider of cloud-based software solutions for managing charging infrastructure.

94 participants, including representatives from various industries, engaged in a four-day virtual exchange. In addition to complex topics such as e-roaming or load management, current challenges in company car accounting were also analyzed. The results illustrate what other companies can learn from the pioneers, how challenges in company car accounting can be overcome with intelligent solutions, and also, which crucial adjustments need to be made by legislators to make the transition more attractive for companies.

This often involved basic questions: How do payment and billing processes work when the employee charges at home, at the employer, or in public spaces? How do companies differentiate when employees charge their private vehicles? Furthermore, what role do the different electricity tariffs play in each scenario? In addition to technical hurdles and new process models, numerous bureaucratic obstacles especially confront companies. This is also a central problem according to Matthias Canisius, Business Development Manager at MVV Enamic GmbH and participant of the Partner Forum. He is familiar with the practice and states:

“The transformation of a fleet only becomes attractive when the complex charging process for company cars becomes a straightforward product for the company, its employees, and ultimately, its accounting.”

The various voices at the Partner Forum indicated that there are disadvantages particularly in the tax processing for companies that want to advance electromobility. For example, if the employer receives a receipt from the employee as proof of the consumed kWh amount at a private home charging station with the requested reimbursement amount, there is no official invoice confirming the employer as the service recipient. The problem: The company cannot claim the input tax deduction.

“Even in other models of company car accounting, our customers lack this crucial opportunity,” describes Christopher Kirschbaum, Team Lead Sales at chargecloud. And he knows:

“The questions on the customer side are similar, but a unified guideline cannot be offered yet. What we can do, however, is to present various user stories and best practices to support as best as possible with legal queries.”

Templates for corresponding contracts are also initial concrete approaches for which a foundation was laid at the Partner Forum.

The mobility transition will also raise many other questions in the immediate future. The fact that companies are largely left alone to answer these questions seems to be hindering the ambitious goals of the federal government.

The modernization of the Condominium Act coming in December will make it even easier for private individuals to have a home charging station installed. The fact that from then on, the landlord's or homeowners' association’s approval will no longer be required for an installation, offers the chance to make the complete package of charging station, electricity tariff, and billing even more attractive. "In order to actually utilize the potential new synergies between employees and employers, uniform regulatory frameworks in tax law must be created," says Axel Lauterborn, co-founder and managing director of chargecloud. And he therefore demands:

"Politicians are called upon here to send a strong signal for the necessary fleet transformation in Germany. Only in this way can we ensure that the five million commercially registered vehicles on German roads do not become five million missed opportunities."

What does that mean?

We need to talk! The conversion of fleets still often fails due to details such as exact bookings, too many different tariffs, or missing and consistent billing systems. Chargecloud is trying to shed light on precisely these many small issues.