Fleet fine control: how to build the spreadsheet

Using a fine control spreadsheet in your fleet can bring several benefits to your operation.

Some goals of traffic fine management include reducing these incidents, lowering financial costs and also increasing visibility into how drivers behave on the road.

And you get all of this through your fine spreadsheet. Here is a closer look:

• Why use a fine control spreadsheet;
• What information needs to go into the spreadsheet;
• How to build a fine control spreadsheet.

Why use a fine control spreadsheet?

Reduce financial costs

Controlling the fines received in a transport operation can greatly reduce your financial costs. Even a smaller fleet, with about 50 license plates, can reach a very high amount over a year.

In Brazil, if each vehicle receives, on average, one minor fine per month, at the end of a year the operation will have a cost of R$ 1,060.56 (12 x the minor fine amount of R$ 88.38).

Now, if you consider that some infractions fall into the medium, serious and very serious categories, costs start to rise. The scenario gets even worse when we account for the possibility of two to three traffic fines (in Portuguese) per plate in the same month.

In other words: traffic fine management in the fleet is essential to avoid the costs generated by infractions.

Increase traffic safety

Another point that makes using a fine control spreadsheet important is increasing traffic safety. After all, fewer incidents represent more conscious and safer driving on the part of drivers.

Among other fleet management tools that help increase safety in transport operations, the fine spreadsheet is an accessible and effective option.

Understand driver behavior

Keeping track of incidents and of the reason for each fine received makes it possible to understand how drivers behave on the road. For example, fines for speeding or for running a red light indicate reckless driving.

In these cases, defensive driving training needs to be reinforced to achieve more responsible conduct in traffic.

Avoid receiving an NIC fine

Fleet fine control also helps avoid the fine for not identifying the driver, known in Brazil as NIC. In Brazil, when a company vehicle receives a fine and the driver has not been identified, the company has up to 30 days, counted from the notification of the citation, to present the driver.

Otherwise, the NIC is received, in addition to the fine for the infraction committed while driving the vehicle.

In this situation, the fine control spreadsheet makes it easier and faster to identify who was responsible for the vehicle on the date of the infraction.

Ensure the availability of fleet vehicles

When you manage traffic infractions, you also end up encouraging good driving practices and keeping better control over vehicle upkeep.

This way, you avoid vehicle unavailability, whether because of the asset being impounded when certain infractions are committed or to keep the vehicle in good condition for longer.

What should be in your fine control spreadsheet?

Some of the most important information to keep track of in your fine control spreadsheet is the date of the infraction, the amount of each fine, the responsible driver, the plate involved in the infraction and the payment date.

Beyond this data, the spreadsheet can contain automations that generate rankings, such as the drivers with the most fines and the fines that recur most often in the fleet.

How to build a fine control spreadsheet?

Define your structure

For some functions of your spreadsheet to work properly, you need a few tabs dedicated to registering information:

• Tab 1: Vehicle registry.
• Tab 2: Driver registry.
• Tab 3: Fine registry.

Besides these, you need a dashboard where you will actually control the fines, and a view of the information in a "report" format:

• Tab 4: Fine log.
• Tab 5: Incident report.
• Tab 6: Fine and driver ranking.

Identify the information you need

With the basic structure in place, you need to understand what information will be needed at each stage. In the vehicle registry, for example, is it important to have the make, model and year of manufacture of each asset? Or is recording the plate alone enough?

Figure out what data you need to gather to complete each registry and have this information on hand to enter into your spreadsheet.

Also, figure out which information is most useful to see in your fine log. Some suggestions we gave above and repeat here: date of the infraction, amount of each fine, the responsible driver, plate involved in the infraction and payment date.

Apply the calculations and automations

Once everything is defined, all that is left is to program the automations needed for your report and ranking to work correctly.

A simple and quick alternative is to use a ready-made fine control spreadsheet template. We offer a version with all the features mentioned above that you can download for free.

Download our traffic fine management spreadsheet now (in Portuguese).