Charging and Billing for Electric Company Cars: Trust is Good, Automation is Better

For electric company vehicles, billing is often still done manually, employees are compensated with a flat rate for charging at home, and different charging cards are needed on the go. There is still significant room for improvement in many fleets.

"The charging infrastructure in the fleet needs to be made more user-friendly in many cases, and that applies to both sides - both the drivers and the fleet managers," says Christian Kurtenbach, Director of Strategic Sales at the Danish start-up Monta.

Manual billing is too time-consuming

According to most companies and those responsible, the biggest challenge in the electric fleet lies in billing for the charging processes. Charging at the workplace, at home, on the go, and at other locations – there are many use cases that need to be managed and consolidated simultaneously.

"We still see fleets equipped with only rudimentary charging software, and therefore the billing is done manually," Kurtenbach points to the need for intelligent systems.

Without such systems, fleet managers, e-drivers, and even other departments are faced with additional effort.

"Otherwise, at the end of the month, fleet managers download the charging sessions of their employees from multiple systems and instances as a CSV file. The file is manually processed and data problems are corrected," says Kurtenbach.

The charging sessions must then be assigned to the correct user - this requires up-to-date data mapping of charging cards to the respective users and cost groups. Additionally, to correctly attribute charging sessions done by employees at home, the home wallbox must be correctly mapped. Recording charging sessions done on the go and at different prices also means significant additional effort.

"All these charging sessions are fed into an internal billing system and processed there by the finance and HR departments - and ultimately, for example, taken into account in the payroll," says Kurtenbach.

If you pay the flat rate, you have to trust 

According to Kurtenbach, depending on the size of the fleet, several days may be required for manual billing. For this reason, and also because many companies cannot implement precise billing due to lack of resources, businesses often decide to pay their employees the legally stipulated tax-free flat rates for charging at home - regardless of the actual charging processes and costs.

“Those responsible often choose the flat rate because they fear their employees might exploit a per kWh billing and, for example, charge a second car at home or report higher electricity prices,” explains Kurtenbach.

As a result, a flat rate can lead either to a shift in charging to the more expensive public space via a charging card or to injustice among employees.

In this regard, Kurtenbach notes: “The employer must trust their employees to be honest. Many of course do. But employees also want to be able to trust that they are fairly compensated and that not all private charging processes are monitored.”

Especially employees who have been with the company for decades are often met with greater trust than temporary employees who take home fleet service vehicles. Using intelligent charging software is intended to make the flat rate obsolete and ensure fairness in billing.

“With our software or app, we allow for precise billing with minimal effort - both for drivers and fleet management. Through our app, for example, we directly ask employees what their electricity costs are at home. Fleet management can then review and approve this,” Kurtenbach explains.