Location: Barcelona, Spain
Event: Phocuswright Europe 2026
Roundtable Synopsis: 鈥淢anaging Travel Payments in an Era of Volatility鈥�
Industry experts: Carolina Castillo, 糖心VlogGeneral Manager, EMEA – Jorge Tamayo
Payments Director, eDreams ODIGEO – Kasia Pankowska CEO, Hotel Treats
Moderator: Mark Frary, Contributing Journalist, PhocusWire

Executive Overview

The traditional answer for some intermediaries has been to restrict volume. If a carrier, route or region appears risky, an intermediary may stop selling, cap booking volumes or delay payment. Each option may  reduce exposure, but each also introduces commercial trade-offs.

Leading payments professionals recently convened for a pivotal roundtable at Phocuswright
Europe 2026 in Barcelona. Hosted against a backdrop of evolving consumer behaviors and
macroeconomic shifts, the session, titled 鈥淢anaging Travel Payments in an Era of Volatility,鈥�
brought together senior executives from across the global travel, hospitality, OTAs, corporate
travel management, and financial technology landscapes to discuss the intersection of
macroeconomic pressure, changing consumer behavior, and supplier dynamics.

The roundtable panel featured expert perspectives from organisations including the
Phocuswright insights team, eDreams ODIGEO, and Hotel Treats, alongside event sponsor
WEX, represented by its General Manager, EMEA, Carolina Castillo.

The discussion, conducted under the Chatham House Rule, focused on how travel companies are leveraging their payment strategies to transform market friction into financial opportunity. Participants explored the delicate balance between managing operational risk, catering to fragmented consumer payment preferences, and mitigating supplier volatility.

Key Themes and Discussion Insights

1. The Reality of Volatility: Shrinking Booking Windows and Capital

The roundtable opened with an analysis of current market dynamics. Travel anxiety driven by macroeconomic pressures and systemic disruptions has shifted consumer booking behaviour. Industry research shared during the session and panelists feedback highlighted that travelers are increasingly booking closer to their departure dates.

• Last-Minute Demand Spikes: A participant observed intense compression in booking windows. In Western markets, standard summer booking patterns have evolved into immediate, last-minute decisions. One panelist noted a distinct trend of travelers making holiday bookings on Saturday mornings for immediate travel.
• The liquidity Bottleneck: The discussion revolved around severe operational challenges for travel intermediaries regarding working capital management during times of volatility. When systemic disruptions trigger mass travel cancellations, intermediaries face severe operational risk regarding how to refund clients efficiently without depleting their own working capital. The room agreed that handling multi-layered refund processes while waiting for supplier-side settlement represents a major threat to agency liquidity. Simultaneously, consumer demand for “peace of mind” has skyrocketed, prompting leading intermediaries to embed travel protection and flexible subscription benefits directly into their core offerings to build customer reassurance.

2. Strategic Flexibility: Scaling the Merchant of Record Model

To counter supply-side volatility, a significant portion of the debate centered on the structural design of B2B payment flows and the strategic advantages of the Merchant of Record (MoR) model.

For startups and scale-ups, establishing an MoR framework requires substantial upfront legal, operational, and contractual investment. However, a panelist highlighted that the modern travel ecosystem views this model as essential for scaling operations. By acting as the Merchant of Record, intermediaries capture complete control over the customer lifecycle, driving deeper brand loyalty and enabling the packaging of flexible subscription benefits. The panelist highlighted that the MoR model gives you the critical ability to manage refunds, cancellations, and disputes directly. The end-user experience remains tied to your brand standards rather than being subjected to the constraints, policies, or delays of individual third-party suppliers.

3. The Checkout Options and Local Feasibility

As digital wallets and alternative payment methods proliferate globally, travel intermediaries
face a continuous optimisation challenge at the checkout screen

The consensus among participants was clear: over-enabling payment methods creates as much friction as under-enabling them.

• Demographic & Regional Nuances: Looking at consumer trends, younger generations are increasingly pivoting toward Buy Now, Pay Later structures and alternative platforms, with direct credit card usage hovering around 8% to 13% for certain younger demographics. Conversely, traditional credit cards remain dominant among older and luxury travel segments, which historically yield significantly higher average basket sizes.
• Mobile vs. Wallet Adoption: Data shared from the hospitality sector underscored a
  stark gap between hardware capability and payment method adoption. While up to 70% of transactions on certain lodging platforms are executed via mobile devices, only 17% of those shoppers utilise integrated mobile wallets like Google Pay or Apple Pay.
• Market-by-Market Feasibility: From a corporate standpoint, a OTA representative
  emphasised that payment orchestration cannot simply be a global blanket policy.
  Companies must evaluate partnerships on a market-by-market basis, assessing whether an alternative method truly supports the underlying transaction infrastructure, chargeback defence, and overall business feasibility before implementation.

4. Overcoming the B2B Supplier Divide: The Value of Virtual Cards

A core point of friction within the travel value chain remains the relationship between travel
intermediaries and major suppliers, particularly commercial airlines. The audience actively
addressed the ongoing resistance from certain airlines regarding the adoption of Virtual Card Numbers, a tension primarily rooted in transaction interchange pricing.

However, experts in the room countered that focusing strictly on nominal transaction costs
misses the broader strategic value. It was discussed that once an organisation gets past the
initial price barrier, virtual cards can emerge as an ultimate tool for corporate cash management

One of the panelists noted that VCNs allow treasurers to actively lock in foreign exchange (FX) rates at the exact moment of booking, removing currency volatility from cross-border
settlements. Additionally, they provide a powerful mechanism to mitigate supplier insolvency
risks. By replacing legacy cash settlement engines with transaction-specific, programmatic
parameters, virtual cards can turn payment workflows into a cost-effective funding opportunity that helps stabilize relationships between intermediaries and suppliers.

5. Practical AI: Optimising Efficiency Over Hype

The roundtable concluded with a pragmatic assessment of Artificial Intelligence within the travel payments ecosystem. While the broader tech industry remains focused on generative or agentic AI for search and booking recommendations, payment leaders are looking inward at control and optimisation.

A participant summarised that from a payment perspective, AI is fundamentally about control and optimisation rather than rewriting the checkout interface. Multiple attendees noted that keeping the checkout page completely frictionless is vastly more important than any front-end AI experience. Ultimately, a smooth, reliable transaction journey is what drives consumer peace of mind, repeat business, and positive word-of-mouth recommendations.

Panelists agreed that the checkout interface must remain completely frictionless, as customer peace of mind is what ultimately drives repeat business and word-of-mouth recommendations

Top Strategic Takeaways

• Payments as Risk Management: In a volatile economy, payment strategy must focus heavily on capital protection and hedging against supplier default.
• Dismantle the Cost Barrier: While B2B virtual cards face occasional supplier pushback over transaction fees, their ability to eliminate FX exposure and automate reconciliation can offer a net financial benefit to corporate treasuries.
• Curated Checkout Experiences: Avoid payment method bloat. Travel operators must
  analyze regional, demographic, and device-specific trends to offer a highly tailored
  selection of payment methods.

_{This summary reflects the key themes discussed during a Phocuswright Europe 2026 Industry Roundtable. The session was held under the Chatham House Rule. Accordingly, the views and opinions expressed in this document are synthesized to protect the anonymity and institutional affiliation of all participants.}

_{Copyright 漏2026 糖心Vlog. All rights reserved.}

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Using the latest in edge computing technology, dash cams serve as vigilant guardians of the road and your drivers. While continuously capturing video, these cameras are designed to alert you to high impact vehicular incidents. Dash cams help you prioritize and address the most significant events quickly and effectively.

Learn how telematics boosts safety and performance

Telematics paired with a dash camera will bring added benefits to your business. Download our report to learn more.

View now

Why are dash cameras good for business?

Dash cams are invaluable to your business. This is because the captured footage safeguards your two most precious resources: your drivers and your vehicles. These advanced tools offer operational insights, enhancing the protection of your drivers, and protect your business from risk.

reports that 87% of commercial crashes in the U.S. are caused by either avoidable driver error or risky driving behavior. With a dash camera installed, you can track driver performance, recognize distracted driving, and capture a record of what happened both at the front of the vehicle and in the cab. These records give you reliable insights and help you identify and put efficiency and safety rules into practice.

Read on to learn five ways dash cam technology is good for your business and will save you money.

What are the operational benefits to telematics

Download our infographic to learn the ways a telematics program can improve your commercial fleet operations.

Download

5 reasons to install a dash camera

1. Coupled with a telematics program dash cams increase your data value

Dash cameras come with a variety of bells and whistles. Integrate them into an existing telematics solution and you鈥檙e automatically enriching your data. This is because with telematics, a dash camera gives a view into both critical driving events and risky driver behaviors. Paired with a telematics tool, you get more video evidence and better oversight of your daily operations. With a dash cam more vital operational data can be plugged into your telematics application.

Dash cameras enhance telematics by adding video to existing track and trace functionality

One benefit of pairing a dash camera with telematics is the visibility you get into a driver鈥檚 activities as he travels his daily route. A fleet manager can select instances during a driver鈥檚 day where critical moments have occurred on the road and then review video of those moments within the application. If a driver is on their phone or not paying attention to the road, distracted driving can be detected by the in-cab camera. Distracted driving or a driver mistake resulting in a collision become easier to solve for with a dash cam. A fleet manager will have more evidence to determine fault, liability, and make decisions on how to reduce the possibility of another accident. A dash camera coupled with a telematics tool will help your business avoid costly accidents while increasing driver safety.

2. Dash cameras help improve driver performance

In-vehicle cameras help businesses decrease risk. By gathering footage of drivers in action on the road, fleet managers can then show drivers real-life examples of where they went wrong. They can then use the captured footage to coach their staff. Additionally, in-cab cameras used with telematics offer real-time alerts to your drivers allowing them to recognize risky behavior as it occurs and make necessary corrections in the moment.

There are a variety of dash camera solutions on the market, the best of which use positive reinforcement throughout the driver experience. Positive reinforcement builds driver confidence and improves performance.聽

A high quality system will also produce a driver scorecard to encourage driver improvement through gamification. Based on performance, a driver can see the improvements they are making over time. These scorecards act as a powerful incentive for drivers to improve their driving skills. Fleet managers can share each driver鈥檚 score with the whole crew to encourage a safety-conscious culture on the team. These simple scorecards help drivers understand where they rank compared to other drivers and encourage them to improve to catch up to peers.

3. Add dash cameras for insurance savings

Dash cameras are a great tool for any business operating commercial vehicles: their installation alone means you’ll likely experience a reduction in insurance premiums. With driver monitoring and increased accountability when accidents occur, some insurers even require them. They see dash cameras as a precautionary measure for fleets.聽

Dash cam use continues to gain momentum in the commercial space. There鈥檚 a reason for the trend: dash cameras benefit both fleet owners and insurance companies. If you don鈥檛 see a benefit to installing dash cameras for your entire fleet, you can also single out at-risk drivers for dash camera installation.

4. Operational benefits of dash cameras: How tracking can reduce business costs

states that businesses that have implemented a dash cam solution with driver feedback have seen an 86% reduction in the cost of vehicle crashes.

states that businesses pay an average of $90K per incident involving their drivers. The good news is that dash camera video footage can be used as evidence in the case of a crash or accident. 

On-board cameras typically have two camera views. One view shows the inside of the vehicle and the other shows the road from the driver鈥檚 perspective. Proving who is at fault in a collision can be extremely valuable and can be used to protect good drivers when they鈥檙e not the cause of an accident.

In the case of a critical event or accident, your fleet management software ideally collects all the data from the vehicle at the time of the incident. When in-cab video is paired with a quality telematics application the insights surrounding that accident expand. Precise vehicle routes, diagnostics, and operator behavior are readily available to the fleet manager with these combined tools. Additionally, dash cameras enhance your telematics data set with 30-second video before and after the incident. The video includes both points of view (inside the cab and driver view of the road) and footage is automatically uploaded to your cloud-based telematics application.

5. Dash cams help protect against fraud

Drivers responsible for operating a company vehicle are aware that an accident could happen at any moment. If an accident occurs and the driver is not responsible, they can be confident knowing their dash camera will provide accurate evidence of what occurred during the collision and support their innocence. 

According to the , commercial vehicles are often targeted in insurance fraud. Perpetrators prey on what they perceive to be new vehicles, rental cars, or commercial vehicles because those classes of vehicles tend to be well-insured. Dash cameras are useful in these situations because they provide evidence of what occurred on the road and in the cab at the time. Capturing video evidence to protect high performing drivers places accountability on the party at fault and exonerates your driver when they’re not to blame.

How do I find the best dash camera for my business?

There are many dash camera solutions in the marketplace today. When conducting your research, you’d ideally work with your fleet card provider. They can help you navigate what can be a complicated process. It鈥檚 important to start the discussion outlining the challenges you鈥檙e currently facing. Your fleet card provider can then review the options with you, weigh the pros and cons, and offer demonstrations of different cameras before you make a purchase. As a subject matter expert, your fleet card partner can help you understand every aspect of the solution before you make a decision on which camera to purchase. This includes camera functionality, integration options, vehicle installation options, and pricing.

Find a trusted partner for your fuel cards, telematics, and dash cams

To find the right fuel card provider for integrating dash cams and telematics into your fleet management tech stack, we recommend exploring the different ways each potential fleet card provider approaches customer support and ongoing terms of service. 糖心Vloghas a team providing customer support and educational services on how to use dash cams and telematics together. 糖心Vlogwants you to have a great experience with easy-to-use, reliable tools.

Adding dash cameras to your fleet will help you save money on incident-related costs and reduce overall operating expenses. This technology comes with a significant return on investment and can be seamlessly integrated into your existing fleet management toolkit. 糖心Vlogprioritizes helping customers find top tier dash cameras with the best features at competitive prices. Work with 糖心Vlogto adopt these tools.

It starts with applying for a fleet card.

To learn more about WEX, a dynamic and nimble global organization, please visit our About 糖心Vlogpage.

Apply for a fleet card today!

Editorial note: This article was originally published on June 7, 2023, and has been updated for this publication.

Resources:
Samsara

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Check out our other compliance blog posts on HSAs, HRAs, LSAs, and voluntary benefits.

Employee eligibility

Employee eligibility for FSAs typically requires enrollment during your company’s open enrollment period, or at the time of hire or a qualifying event. Employees must be eligible for your company鈥檚 health insurance plan to participate in an FSA. The four common types of FSAs are:

Medical FSA: Allows employees to use pre-tax dollars to cover eligible medical expenses not covered by insurance, such as copays, deductibles, and certain over-the-counter medications.

Limited medical FSA: Similar to a medical FSA, but can be paired with high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) and health savings accounts (HSAs), covering dental and vision expenses.

Combination FSA: A limited FSA that converts into a medical FSA once the IRS deductible is met.

Dependent care FSA: Lets employees use pre-tax funds for qualified dependent care expenses, including daycare, preschool, and after-school care. Only employees with a legitimate tax-dependent status can use FSAs to cover dependent care expenses.

Contribution rules

on the amount that can be contributed to an employee鈥檚 FSA. The 2026 medical FSA contribution limit (including limited and combination FSAs) is $3,400 per year. While you have the option to contribute to your employees鈥� FSAs, it is not mandatory. The funds your employees choose to contribute will be deducted from their paychecks before tax deductions and then placed into their FSA.

The use-it-or-lose-it rule

The FSA use-or-lose rule means that any funds remaining in an employee鈥檚 FSA at the end of the plan year are forfeited. In other words, they lose those funds if they don’t spend the money they contributed to their FSA on eligible expenses by the end of the plan year. However, there are two exceptions to this rule:

• Carryover: You can offer your employees a carryover option, allowing them to carry over a limited amount of unused funds (up to $680 per year in 2026) into the next plan year.
• Grace period: Or you can include a grace period (usually up to 2 陆 months after the plan year ends) during which participants can use the remaining funds for eligible expenses.

FSA eligible expenses

FSA eligible expenses vary depending on the type of FSA. Here are some common categories of eligible expenses for different types of FSAs:

Medical FSA:

• Doctor visits
• Prescription medications
• Dental care
• Vision care
• Over-the-counter medical supplies
• Certain medical equipment

Limited medical FSA:

• Eligible dental expenses
• Eligible vision expenses
• Preventative care services

Dependent care FSA:

• Child care
• Day camp, not primarily for educational purposes
• Before or after school programs
• Babysitting
• Adult day care center
• Elder care

Discover more about how :

FSA fund purchases

When your employees spend their FSA funds, they should follow this general guideline:

Use a benefits card: Some FSAs offer a benefits card that can be used for eligible purchases directly at the point of sale. Swipe the card at the point of purchase, and the funds will be deducted from the FSA account.

Save receipts for FSA-eligible purchases: Documentation is crucial for substantiating expenses, especially in case of an audit or verification. Even some benefits card purchases will require receipts for substantiation. 

Submit claims: For purchases made out-of-pocket, participants will most likely need to submit a claim for reimbursement. Depending on the FSA provider, this might involve filling out a claim form and providing documentation.

Designing an FSA

Here are some important considerations when designing an FSA at your company:

• Conduct surveys or gather feedback to understand the specific healthcare and dependent care needs of your employees. 
• Consider offering different types of FSAs to provide employees with flexibility based on their circumstances.
• Decide whether to include a carryover or grace period. Keep in mind this can improve employees鈥� willingness to participate in an FSA.
• Consider providing a benefits card for easy point-of-sale transactions.
• Clearly communicate the FSA plan details, including eligibility criteria, contribution limits, and a comprehensive list of eligible expenses. Share educational materials with your employees to help them understand how to use and maximize their FSA.

Learn more about FSAs and other employee benefits by subscribing to our blog!

The information in this blog post is for educational purposes only. It is not legal or tax advice. For legal or tax advice, you should consult your own legal counsel, tax and investment advisers. 

糖心Vlogreceives compensation from some of the merchants identified in its blog posts. By linking to these products, 糖心Vlogis not endorsing these products.

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But what actually drives those relationships? One factor often overlooked is payment security. Suppliers don鈥檛 just care about getting paid. They care about how they get paid. Secure, timely, and transparent payments play a direct role in building trust and long-term collaboration.

TL;DR: If your payments are slow, error-prone, or feel risky, suppliers notice and it affects how they work with you. Secure, reliable payments build trust, reduce friction, and can lead to better terms and stronger long-term partnerships.

Using secure and fast payment processes can help to reduce uncertainty in managing transactions and build trusting supplier relationships. When suppliers know that they will be paid securely and promptly, they are more likely to be willing to work with you on favorable terms.

The , sponsored by WEX, revealed a key finding: The way you pay matters. Secure, fast, and flexible payment processes are a cornerstone of building trust and collaboration with suppliers. Here’s how:

Why does payment security matter to suppliers?

It’s simple: Trust. There are a number of ways that secure payments can help to build trust with suppliers.

Timeliness: From the heads of payments surveyed, 88% said that using faster payments options enabled business growth. One of the most important ways that secure payments can build trust is by ensuring that suppliers are paid on time. When suppliers know that they can rely on you to pay your bills on time, they are more likely to be willing to work with you in the future.

Accuracy: Secure payments can also help to ensure that suppliers are paid accurately. This means that you are less likely to have disputes with suppliers over invoices.

Transparency: Secure payments can help to improve transparency in your business relationships with suppliers. When suppliers can see that you are using a secure payment system, they know that their payments are being handled properly.

Reduced risk: Given the ongoing risks of fraud and theft, businesses across all industries must prioritize security. Secure payments can help to reduce the risk of fraud and human error. This can give suppliers peace of mind knowing that their payments are safe.

Want to get more suppliers on board with virtual cards?

The gives you practical tools to drive adoption and build stronger vendor relationships.

Do virtual payments improve supplier visibility and control?

Yes, and this is a major advantage.

Virtual payments, like virtual cards, give suppliers real-time visibility into transactions. They can track payments more easily and reconcile them faster.

For buyers, this also means better control over spending, with the ability to set limits and track payments at a detailed level.

Compared to checks or manual processes, virtual payments simplify workflows on both sides and reduce administrative overhead.

How do secure payments help reduce fraud risk?

Fraud is a growing concern for businesses of all sizes. By using secure payment solutions like virtual cards, businesses can reduce the risk of fraud and protect their sensitive financial information. Virtual cards offer enhanced security features such as tokenization 鈥� using a single-use virtual card number that can be controlled through predetermined spending limits. This makes them a safer option compared to traditional payment methods.

Flexible payment options for broader acceptance

Around 1 in 5 heads of payment identified payment method flexibility as a key driver of business growth. Flexibility is important to allow firms to adapt to changes in the industry and in the needs of their suppliers. 

Suppliers appreciate flexibility in payment options. Offering a variety of payment methods can help meet the needs of different suppliers and strengthen the buyer-supplier relationship.

Reduce payment friction with AI-driven accounts payable

From the heads of payment surveyed, 90% experienced frictions in paying their suppliers in the last year. 

Friction like late payments or errors in invoices can disrupt business relationships. The report highlights that companies using AI-powered accounts payable (AP) processes are more likely to experience fewer payment problems. 

By automating payment processes, businesses can reduce the risk of human error, improve accuracy, and ensure timely payments. This not only strengthens supplier relationships but also improves cash flow and reduces administrative costs.

What do businesses prioritize in secure payment solutions?

Ultimately, heads of payment prioritized three main concerns when choosing payment options for their business: 

• Flexibility in payment terms
• A simple payment process
• Enhanced security features

Is payment security enough to build strong supplier relationships?

Not on its own. Secure payments are just one piece of the puzzle. Building strong supplier relationships requires open communication, mutual respect, and a commitment to collaboration. Here are some additional tips:

• Establish clear communication channels: Regularly communicate with your suppliers to understand their needs and concerns.

• Develop a collaborative approach: Work with your suppliers to optimize supply chains and find mutually beneficial solutions.

• Invest in long-term partnerships: Look beyond short-term cost savings and prioritize building trust over time.

• Provide timely feedback: Share feedback on supplier performance to help them improve their services.

• Involve suppliers in process improvement: Collaborate with suppliers to identify and implement process improvements that benefit both parties.

WEX: A leading provider of secure payment solutions

糖心Vlogoffers a comprehensive suite of secure payment solutions that can help businesses strengthen supplier relationships and improve their financial performance. WEX’s solutions include:

Virtual cards: 糖心Vlogvirtual cards provide a secure and flexible way to make payments, reducing the risk of fraud and improving cash flow.

Supplier enablement: WEX鈥檚 supplier enablement can help you onboard and educate your suppliers about the advantages of virtual card payments, making the transition smoother and more beneficial for both parties.

Corporate cards: 糖心Vlogcorporate cards offer a range of features and benefits, including spending controls and real time reporting to give you better insights into your business expenses.

Fleet cards: 糖心Vlogfleet cards can help businesses manage their fleet expenses and track fuel consumption.

AP automation: 糖心VlogAP automation solutions can streamline the accounts payable process, reducing errors and improving efficiency.

Secure payments are an essential part of building strong supplier relationships. By implementing secure payments, you can reduce uncertainty, improve cash flow, enhance efficiency, and build stronger relationships with your suppliers.

For more insights and updates on corporate payments, check out:

• Virtual card rebates
• Current trends in finance
• Accounts payables: Terms you need to know

Learn more about how 糖心Vlogpayment solutions can be tailored to your business, so you can accelerate and streamline operations while creating lasting growth and success for your organization.

The information in this blog post is for educational purposes only. It is not legal or tax advice. For legal or tax advice, you should consult your own legal counsel, tax, and investment advisers.

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The good news? Payment technology has come a long way. And for businesses that are ready to modernize, the timing has never been better.

Why are manual payment processes still causing problems?

Here’s a stat worth sitting with: nearly reported experiencing payment fraud in 2024. The biggest culprit? Paper checks. Despite being one of the oldest payment methods in the book, checks are still hanging around in many businesses 鈥� and they’re a prime target for fraudsters.

Manual processes are another drag. still handle up to half of their payment operations manually 鈥� leading to delays, errors, and frustrated AP teams.

And then there’s the visibility problem. When a check goes out the door (or a manual wire transfer is processed), tracking it down isn’t always easy. Did it arrive? Was it applied correctly? That uncertainty creates headaches on both sides of a supplier relationship.

The bottom line: legacy payment processes cost your business time, money, and peace of mind.

Want help choosing the right payment solution for your business?

to compare options and find the best fit for your accounts receivable and payable workflow

Why are CFOs moving away from traditional payment methods?

The appetite for smarter, faster, more secure payments is also clear at the leadership level. Around and treasurers plan to increase their use of external working capital tools, with virtual card usage projected to double in the near term. 

So what exactly should you be looking at? Let’s talk about one of the most practical innovations in the B2B payments space right now.

What is a virtual card and how does it work for B2B payments?

If you haven’t explored virtual cards for your supplier payments, here’s your introduction.

A virtual card is a single-use, digitally generated card number 鈥� created specifically for one transaction. There’s no physical plastic. You issue it, use it, and it’s done. Simple.

But the simplicity on the surface hides a lot of value underneath. Here’s what you actually get:

How fast do suppliers get paid with virtual cards?

Suppliers get paid fast 鈥� often faster than ACH or check. No waiting for a check to arrive in the mail, no multi-day bank processing windows. The payment moves quickly, and your supplier knows it’s on its way.

How do virtual cards protect your business from payment fraud?

Because each card number is generated for one specific transaction and then expires, the risk of fraud is dramatically reduced. There’s nothing to intercept, nothing to reuse. You’re not exposing your company’s main card details, and you’re not relying on a paper trail that can be tampered with.

How do virtual cards give you better control over accounts payable?

Every virtual card transaction comes with rich data attached 鈥� who was paid, how much, when, and why. Your team gets a clear, real-time view into what’s going out the door, without chasing down receipts or manually reconciling spreadsheets. That kind of transparency is genuinely useful when you’re managing supplier relationships or closing the books at month end.

Can your accounts payable process actually make you money?

Here’s the part that tends to get people’s attention: every time you pay a supplier with a 糖心Vlogvirtual card, you earn a rebate on that transaction.

When you pay with a virtual card, the issuing bank usually returns a portion of the interchange fee to your business. Interchange fees are what merchants pay banks each time a customer uses a credit or debit card.

For instance, if you earn 1 percent cash back on virtual card payments, spending $1 million on invoices would return $10,000 to your business.

You’re turning a cost center 鈥� accounts payable 鈥� into a source of revenue. It adds up.

How quickly is virtual card adoption growing?

Virtual card adoption is accelerating fast. The global virtual card market was valued at $358 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach 鈥� a compound annual growth rate of more than 20%. And within B2B specifically, single-use virtual cards held nearly in 2024.

For businesses already using them, the feedback speaks for itself: plan to expand their use in the next year. That’s not a group of early adopters hedging their bets 鈥� that’s a group that has seen real results.

What this means for your team

Modernizing your payment processes doesn’t have to mean a massive overhaul. Virtual cards slot into your existing accounts payable workflow without requiring you to rip everything out and start over.

• For your AP team, it means fewer manual steps, less time spent on reconciliation, and fewer fraud headaches.
• For your finance leaders, it means better data, better control, and a way to turn payment activity into tangible savings.
• For your suppliers, it means getting paid faster and more reliably 鈥� which tends to make for stronger relationships.

And for your business as a whole? It means being ready for what comes next. Payment expectations from suppliers and partners are shifting. Businesses that modernize now will find themselves ahead of the curve rather than scrambling to catch up.

Is your business ready to modernize its payment process?

糖心Vlogvirtual cards are built for businesses that want to pay their suppliers smarter 鈥� faster payments, built-in security, full transaction visibility, and rebates on every purchase. It’s a straightforward upgrade with real, measurable impact.

If your payment process still relies heavily on checks or manual approvals, this year is a great time to take a closer look at what a more modern approach could do for you.

For more insights and updates on corporate payments, check out:

• Is the secret to better cash flow management AI?
• Traditional vs. virtual payments
• 2026 business payment trends

The information in this blog post is for educational purposes only. It is not legal, tax or investment advice. For legal, tax or investment advice, you should consult your own legal counsel, tax, and investment advisers.

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We sat down recently for interviews with Fred Rozell, President, and Denton Cinquegrana, Chief Oil Analyst, with and Michael Parr, a senior advisor to to discuss the year behind us, and to take stock of the state of the fleet industry from both a fuel pricing and legislative perspective. 

This report examines the defining trends of 2025, and provides a practical, data-driven outlook for 2026, so fleet leaders can plan with greater confidence in an uncertain market.

In our discussions we learned that while fuel prices were stable in 2025, the volume data on a same-store basis showed that the volume of fuel retailers sell is still down 25% when compared to 2019. The biggest pain points from a fleet management perspective were overall economic uncertainty, supply chain disruption, and rising vehicle costs.

Rozell described 2025 as a 鈥渞elatively mild year in terms of fuel pricing compared to years past.” Cinquegrana agreed, saying, 鈥淧rices were remarkably stable despite a lot of intra-day volatility.鈥� OPIS data showed that the difference between the highest day of the year in 2025 and the lowest day of the year was 35 cents. Cinquegrana couldn鈥檛 recall a year where it was so narrow. In 2025, he explained, there were plenty of events that spiked prices but the spikes and price drops were fleeting. 

The year was filled with events that could affect the cost of fuel, for instance, yanked-up tariff rates, the U.S. bombing of Iran, the U.S. bombing of ships off the coast of Venezuela and imposed regime change in that country, and Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. Strangely, oil price fluctuations did not affect the street cost of fuel in 2025 much at all. Cinquegrana painted the picture for us: 鈥淭he perfect example of that stability but also the intra-day volatility was in the last week of June when the U.S. attacked Iran鈥檚 nuclear facilities. It was on a Sunday and I knew I needed to be at my desk when the market opened at 6 AM. As expected, the market jumped. Gas was up ten cents, oil was up $3-4 dollars and these ended up being some of the highest numbers for the year. But by the end of the day, the numbers were down significantly lower than they鈥檇 been before the attack.鈥� The market no longer retains high fuel prices for long periods. The spikes don鈥檛 have the same kind of staying power that they formerly had. What may be the cause? As we continued our conversation, possible causes were drawn to light.

Stay at home orders dating back to COVID have a shadow impact on fuel prices

During the COVID-19 lockdown, much of the workforce worked from home, and as a result fuel volume went down as did price. Because working from home became the 鈥渘ew normal鈥� for a lot of businesses, demand stayed low, and lower prices barely budged. Remember how we said same-store basis fuel prices are still down 25% when compared to 2019? In that figure alone you can see the lasting effect of the pandemic. But that鈥檚 not the whole story. Read on to learn how vehicle efficiency played arguably a larger role in lower fuel prices.

Vehicle efficiency improvements keep fuel prices low

Beyond the workforce staying home there has also been a marked increase in vehicle efficiency in recent years. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) were building ICE vehicles to be more fuel efficient. This is due in part to President Biden鈥檚 corporate average fuel economy standards, referred to as  

CAFE standards are U.S. federal regulations requiring that an entire fleet of vehicles sold by any given automaker get more fuel-efficient over time. OEMs who fell short needed to either pay hefty fines, or buy credits from a company that over-performs on efficiency. Increased vehicle efficiency contributed to the reduction in fuel demand and the corresponding reduction in fuel prices. According to Rozell, while electric vehicle and hybrid vehicle adoption also played a role in fuel price stagnation, it was not as significant a role as vehicle efficiency played. Additionally, oil supplies in the U.S. remain strong. The U.S. has a robust enough oil capacity to avoid a supply vs. demand impact. The price will remain steady because there is enough supply to meet U.S. fueling demands.

Cinquegrana added, 鈥淭he reason for reduced fuel demand in 2025 can be directly attributed to OEM improvements in vehicle efficiency. When you look at all the factors involved in fuel price including people working from home, increases in hybrid and EV adoption, and improvements in vehicle efficiency, 90% of the impact on the price of fuel is from vehicle efficiency.鈥� 

While 2025 saw an increase in vehicle efficiency, the current administration began pulling back on fuel efficiency incentives last year. With the Trump administration dialing back CAFE standards, further vehicle efficiency advancements may shrink in 2026. 

Operations in California as the outlier

California is a legislative outlier when compared to the rest of the United States with some of the most stringent environmental protection laws in the country, making its standards more complicated to uphold for fleet managers. As far back as 1970, California started enacting strong legislation to improve environmental sustainability. An example of this type of legislation is California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), managed by the California Air Resources Board This policy is designed to reduce the carbon intensity (CI) of transportation fuels by 30% below 2010 levels by 2030, and 90% by 2045. This impacts fleets in California because they have to be more strategic and thoughtful about what vehicles they have in their fleet as a result. Cinquegrana described an additional policy, called cap and trade, which keeps corporate fuel standards high. 鈥淐ap and trade is a market-based policy that reduces pollution by setting a decreasing, legally binding cap on total greenhouse gas emissions, requiring companies to hold permits for every ton they emit.鈥�  Fleets need to be aware of and in compliance with these policies if they are operating in California which is an additional administrative burden on fleet managers.

The oil industry is no stranger to California鈥檚 strong sustainability rules. And yet, 2025 saw dramatic changes to the list of major oil companies operating in the state. Cinquegrana elaborated, 鈥淰alero is in the process of closing their Benicia refinery in the San Francisco Bay area. Phillips 66 closed their Wilmington refinery in Q4 2025 so that鈥檚 two refineries that are coming offline and it鈥檚 not like they鈥檙e going to sell them, so they are permanently closed.鈥� Valero and Phillips 66 aren’t likely to sell their refineries because California has the toughest specifications in the world for gasoline, so there are not that many oil refineries equipped to make gas the way California demands. Rozell said, 鈥淚f you just look at prices, the refining margin in California should be quite strong. But when you consider natural gas to run the refinery and electricity to run the refinery, it gets expensive. Paying workers in California is very expensive. The tax burden in California is expensive. If that margin is $40/barrel, probably almost half of it is going to paying people, paying taxes, and paying utilities, not to mention environmental legislative costs. So I think Valero and Phillips 66 both said enough is enough.鈥�

Closing refineries in California will likely impact the price of oil in the U.S. in 2026. More barrels will have to come from the Gulf Coast and other places around the world when that arbitrage opens up. Arbitrage in oil refining involves exploiting price differences between crude oil input, shipping costs, and refined product output (gasoline, diesel) to maximize refining margins.

As a result of these two refineries closing, California will become more reliant on imports. Cinquegrana described a few projects in the works to address the shortage. One is reversing direction on a pipeline that runs from Los Angeles County to Phoenix, Arizona. 鈥淭his could be done in relatively short order鈥攎aybe by the end of 2026 this could happen.鈥� Pumping more oil into California will help prevent prices from increasing as a result of a reduction in supply. He also described another pipeline from El Paso, Texas to Tucson, Arizona. In this case there鈥檚 talk of extending that oil pipeline to Los Angeles. Another plan is to build a pipeline from the Texas panhandle down to Phoenix, which totals about 1,200 miles and will take longer to build than the other two options mentioned. 鈥淏y 2029 or 2030 that pipeline will probably start bringing fuel to California,鈥� estimates Cinquegrana.

Alternatively, Cinquegrana anticipates legislative changes on California鈥檚 horizon that may solve some of the state鈥檚 refinery closure issues. The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, knows how onerous state rules and regulations are and has heard from his constituency about high prices and the difficulty of running a business in his state. As a result, 2026 may bring shifts in favor of refineries in the coming year. While California won鈥檛 likely back away from their environmental programs or their zero emission vehicles goals, Newsom appears a little more receptive of late to not imposing penalties for high refining margins. 

A concern in 2026: Cost and availability of diesel

The week of January 26, 2026 brought extreme cold across large swaths of the United States. Diesel prices increased dramatically as a result, by about 14 cents per barrel. When colder temperatures occur, utilities use more natural gas because long periods of cold require higher levels of energy for providing heat. Sometimes during cold snaps utilities run out of natural gas and switch to diesel as a back-up energy source. Larger facilities like hospitals often use diesel as a back-up to natural gas as well. These out-of-the-ordinary diesel uses cause a bigger diesel demand, which in turn spikes fuel prices.

Larger industrial facilities and casinos are often heated with natural gas. Some of these larger operations get a price break for the natural gas to run their facilities which comes with an 鈥渋nterruptible clause鈥� in their contract. They get sweetheart deals on natural gas during times when demand is low with a trade-off that when demand spikes, their gas supply will be shut off. This ensures natural gas suppliers have enough to supply hospitals, schools, and residential customers during extreme weather. During such interruptions in supply, those large industrial facilities customers use diesel in place of natural gas. This is when diesel supply is stretched thin. Cinquegrana shares, 鈥淭hese facilities can sometimes run on 20,000 gallons of diesel an hour. This is where there鈥檚 concern about our current state of diesel supply in the U.S.鈥�

Prior to 2022, the U.S. imported a fair amount of diesel from Russia. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S.鈥檚 importing relationship with Russia was compromised which impacted diesel supply. The U.S. also imported 鈥渦nfinished oils鈥� from Russia. Unfinished oils鈥攃oal and refinery feed stocks鈥攁re distillate-heavy, and are used to produce diesel. Since we don鈥檛 get unfinished oils from Russia anymore, procuring the amount of diesel we need here in the U.S. has been difficult.

As Cinquegrana shared, 鈥淏eyond losing our diesel and unfinished oils supply from Russia, another impact to diesel supplies in the U.S. was the 2019 closure of the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery.鈥� That refinery had been providing about 30% of diesel to the Northeast. They closed after experiencing a fire on site which caused severe damage to the facility. They never reopened. All of these factors together cause concern for Cinquegrana and Rozell about diesel supply in 2026.

Oil price fluctuation: Past, present, and future

Fuel pricing typically follows a predictable pattern, and has done so for 20 of the last 25 years. There are two different types of fuel produced, summer fuel and winter fuel. Winter fuel has a higher Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) with more volatile components like butane for easier cold starts, while summer fuel has a lower RVP and special additives to reduce smog and evaporation in hot weather, making it slightly less efficient but cleaner. Essentially, winter gas helps engines ignite in the cold, and summer gas prevents pollution in the heat. Summer blends typically cost more due to complex production. 

Typically, at the beginning of January there is a decline in crude oil prices as businesses try to offload their winter fuel. Gas stations switch blends automatically as the seasons change. 

As part of the predictable pattern, toward the end of Q1 fuel prices start to ramp up. This is because businesses have started the switch to summer fuel and there鈥檚 always a fear that there鈥檚 not going to be enough supply on hand. This makes fuel prices go up. The prices sometimes peak in April in anticipation of that summer fuel being brought to market. Usually after Memorial Day, you see an ebb tide of that price because at this point oil companies can see that they do have enough supply to get through the year. At this point prices come down. Then toward the middle to end of summer there is higher demand so prices start to shoot up again. This lasts until September 15th when companies switch back to winter fuel and prices again decline. There may be spikes from storm warnings in those fall and winter months, but in Q4 there is traditionally a decline in fuel pricing. As Rozell shared, 鈥淧rices typically bottom out in Q4 and then have a steady upward trend until hitting the summer driving season.鈥� 

For the last five years, starting in 2020, those traditional patterns were thrown out the window and fuel prices were less predictable. The impact COVID lockdowns had on fuel prices in 2020 has been much discussed (even in this report!). Then two years later, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threw patterns out of whack once again. As Cinquegrana describes 2022, 鈥淎ll of the really high gasoline prices happened in the summer that year with retail going above $5 a gallon. For crude oil there was a spike in mid-March where Brent got to almost $140 a barrel.鈥� 鈥楤rent鈥� refers to Brent Crude, one of the world’s most important benchmarks for pricing crude oil. 

During the early days of the war there was concern that Russian sanctions would profoundly affect the oil industry. Russia was producing upwards of 9.5 million barrels a day at the time. The market reacted to that concern by prophesying that 9-9.5 million barrels would be lost every day Russia was in conflict with Ukraine. Russian production dropped, but it didn鈥檛 completely fall off. Cinquegrana described what happened next, 鈥淭hen the oil market collapsed, refining margins shot up, and retail prices followed.”  By the end of 2022, fuel prices were very low, not as low as they were during COVID lockdowns, but the change was significant.  

2024 and 2025 were also both anomalies in fuel pricing trends. Cinquegrana said, 鈥淭he highest oil price in 2024 for WTI and Brent Futures was in the first two weeks of the year, inconsistent with traditional forecasting trends. The same was true in 2025.鈥� 鈥榃est Texas Intermediate鈥� (WTI) oil is another benchmark used by oil markets, solely focused on U.S. oil production. When fuel pricing trends are not consistent with expectations fleet managers face challenges with budgetary planning.

Forecast: in 2026 fuel prices will revert to traditional patterns. 

More traditional fuel price patterns have returned in early 2026 according to Rozell and Cinquegrana. 鈥淕asoline and crude oil prices bottomed out in Q4 of 2025 and very early in the new year and have already slowly started to ramp up as we progress through Q1 of 2026,鈥� said Cinquegrana. Some early impacts to price came with political unrest in Venezuela and a military build-up in the Middle East surrounding Israel’s attacks on Iran in June of 2025. Venezuela typically produces between 8 to 9 hundred thousand barrels of oil a day. Iran produces about four times that amount. The United States’s removal of the Venezuelan president, Nicol谩s Maduro, and bombing of ships in the region, as well as the twelve day war in June 2025 have impacted oil prices in 2026. Despite these factors, Cinquegrana and Rozell believe 2026 will see a return to historical fuel price patterns. 

However, with the U.S. attack on Iran, Iran鈥檚 threatened retaliation was closing the Strait of Hormuz to international trade, which has happened. The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway located between Iran and Oman through which 25% of all the crude oil produced in the world is transported. The Strait’s closure immediately impacted crude oil prices, and has thrown 2026 off course for a return to historical fuel fluctuation trends. 

As Cinquegrana puts it, 鈥淲hile fuel prices have recently increased because of disruption in Iran, I don鈥檛 think the market takes that next step higher until you see a disruption in supply. The markets are falling into traditional patterns in 2026, but as soon as there is a supply chain disruption, all bets are off.鈥� Inter-country stability makes for stable prices, while the inverse also holds. The war in Iran has caused just that disruption in supply and prices reflect that.

What did 2025 look like from a policy standpoint?

In 2025 fleets experienced a challenging policy environment. 鈥淭he hallmark of 2025 from a policy standpoint was rapid, unexpected change, and uncertainty,鈥� NAFA鈥檚 Michael Parr said. The legislative and Administrative policy changes in 2025 came at a rapid-fire pace, many of them abrupt. A number of funding streams relevant to alternative fuels stopped suddenly. The introduction of a variety of tariffs to the marketplace had a dramatic impact on fleets as well. The current U.S. government’s aggressive foreign policy stance also impacted fuel prices which of course impacted fleets. 

Another difficulty for fleet companies came via changes in energy policy. The Biden administration had enacted a range of policies to make it easier for state governments and companies to transition to electric vehicles and also sought to transition the broader vehicle market to EVs, and some states took aggressive steps to transition. Most of those energy transition incentives disappeared (the incentives for battery manufacturing were retained) with the passage of the reconciliation bill, often referred to as “. Another incentive, (NEVI) funding, was ended abruptly when Trump took office. As Parr put it, 鈥淔rom there, the Trump administration used its administrative authority to end programs, and withhold and claw back funding, even when that funding was congressionally appropriated and previously allocated.鈥�

How did tariffs impact fleets in 2025?

While fuel prices remained relatively stable, tariffs introduced a different kind of volatility for fleets in 2025鈥攐ne that directly affected capital planning, procurement timelines, and total vehicle costs. Rapid shifts in trade policy, layered tariffs on raw materials and finished goods, and retaliatory actions from key trading partners created ripple effects across the automotive supply chain. For fleet operators already managing tight budgets and long replacement cycles, the unpredictability of input costs鈥攆rom steel and aluminum to semiconductors and rare earth minerals鈥攎ade forecasting far more complex. Even when market demand was steady, the cost structure behind vehicles, parts, and infrastructure projects was anything but.

Tariffs impact on capital planning

Constantly fluctuating tariffs made capital planning difficult for fleets in 2025. Tariffs affect the pricing of goods necessary for operations, and when tariffs are not predictable (and change from one day to the next), companies of all kinds struggle to make big decisions about their physical plants. Parr described the phenomenon, 鈥淔or fleets doing facility work or expanding an existing depot, tariffs broadly impacted goods across the economy needed for that kind of construction such as steel and cement. Prices also increased in reaction to the volatility of the marketplace. Tariffs were coming and going in a chaotic way that was difficult to follow and not programmatic.鈥� Businesses didn’t know what something ordered today for delivery in six months was going to cost when it eventually arrived.

There are a number of ways supply chains were impacted by tariffs as well. First there were basic tariffs put into place on raw materials like steel and aluminum. Then additional tariffs were layered on top of that for vehicles and parts. All of these tariffs impacted fleets.

Tariffs causing retaliatory action in the marketplace

There was also retaliatory action by trading partners like China that impacted the marketplace. As Parr described it, 鈥淎ll of a sudden access to rare earth minerals or access to certain kinds of chips disappeared. There was frantic scrambling in response.鈥� Modern vehicles require a large number of specialized magnets made from rare earth minerals. When China stopped supplying those materials the lead time on a vehicle increased dramatically. This was because OEMs couldn’t get some of the basic supplies they needed to construct a vehicle.

What is the economic forecast for 2026

Unpredictable policy leads to uncertainty about the cost of doing business in the year ahead.  According to Parr, 鈥淲e now know where the policy sits in terms of the EV incentives, for example, but there is still a lack of clarity on things like EV infrastructure grants.鈥� The current administration stopped NEVI funding cold. Less than 5% of NEVI funds were distributed during the Biden administration, so there was a good deal of money yet to be dispersed from that legislation. The Department of Energy (DOE) continued to get NEVI grants out the door at the beginning of the Trump administration, but then funding stopped altogether. A coalition of 17 states and various environmental groups filed a lawsuit aimed at forcing the administration to start distributing NEVI money again, and a federal judge recently ruled that the NEVI funding must be released. But at the same time, appropriations bills recently passed by Congress cut $900 million from NEVI funding. With all the uncertainty, it’s hard to know as a fleet manager if it makes sense to adopt EVs when you don鈥檛 have clarity on how to budget for that adoption. 

Market corrections for irrational exuberance are partly to blame for a reduction on EV speed-to-market

One of the rescinded credits that hit fleets hardest was the end of the commercial vehicle EV credit. Vehicle costs are still quite high for EVs when compared to ICE vehicles, particularly for medium and heavy duty vehicles. Parr believes that there was some unfounded market exuberance surrounding the rate of EV transition during the Biden administration, citing former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan鈥檚 reference to irrational exuberance during the bubble. 鈥淓V related regulations, particularly the CAFE and the federal greenhouse gas tailpipe rules, reflected high exuberance about the EV path. Ford and others were saying we’re going to be all EV by 2035 but statements like this were out of sync with how the market actually developed.鈥� The gap between policy goals and market development in part drove the Trump Administration鈥檚 approach to EV policies.

Parr cites California as an example of this irrational exuberance in full color. 鈥淲ith the advanced clean fleet rule, the gap between the expectations laid out by the rule and what the market was actually capable of delivering was increasingly untenable. Their rules were almost impossible for fleets to comply with because of the slow growth in EV availability, particularly medium and heavy duty.鈥� Some of the dialing back of EV related policies is allowing EV development to operate in a more market based way, according to Parr. 鈥淣ow people are starting to buy EVs for fleets where they make total cost of ownership (TCO) sense, and at the same time help with emission reductions goals. It’s been a painful transition, but I do think in some ways we’re now seeing a more sustainable approach to EVs in the fleet industry rather than one where fleet managers are trying to chase subsidies or meet artificially high programmatic goals.鈥�

A surprising high note for a mixed-energy fleet future

Some lawmakers are quietly moving sustainability transportation policies forward regardless of current administration support. 鈥淲e are in a very strange period of American politics.” Parr said, “Congress has become increasingly partisan, but there is legislation being made in the background where we continue to see support for EVs and EV infrastructure.鈥� While these actions don’t get a lot of attention, the signal at the state and federal level is that legislators recognize the benefits of EVs, and they recognize that their constituents see the value of converting to mixed-energy fleets. OEMs also continue to be interested in producing EVs. Parr predicts we’ll continue to see quiet beneficial policy development for cleaner transportation in the coming years.

How fleet advisory councils will impact fleets in 2026

One of NAFA鈥檚 missions is educating lawmakers on the importance of fleets to public safety and the U.S. economy, as well as continuing professional education for the fleet management community. NAFA employs many methods of education for policy makers, including bringing fleet managers to DC to talk to members of Congress, and organizing visits of elected officials to fleet facilities. These site visits show lawmakers what fleets do and how they operate. 

To further institutionalize lawmaker education, NAFA is working with a cross section of fleet stakeholders to legislate fleet advisory councils across the U.S. There are a handful of states actively planning to legislatively enact fleet advisory councils in 2026. These advisory councils are made up of fleet-related stakeholders including fleet managers, utilities representatives, OEMs, and New Old Stock companies (NOSCs). 鈥淭he idea is that state legislators and regulators could turn to these councils for guidance and insight as they think about transportation and fleet policy.鈥� 

Parr provided an example of how this would work. One goal in the fleet sector is to drive down emissions. A state fleet advisory council would provide lawmakers with the insight and real world knowledge that would allow them to craft policy that worked for all stakeholders. 鈥淥ne of the things we saw in California was that while they conducted extensive outreach when they developed their fleet electrification regulations they didn’t really take fleet manager input into consideration. As a result, rules were developed that didn’t work for the very entities for whom they were created.鈥� NAFA spent the last several years working with California legislators and regulators to adapt the advanced clean fleet rule to improve compliance pathways. Fleet advisory councils will give policy makers and regulators access to stakeholders with expertise in vehicle production, alternative fuel production and fleet operations to help policy makers develop practical and effective policies. 

Advisory council as lawmaking resource

The is a body that tracks the health of the power grid. In January 2026 they released a report showing that by 2030 large sections of the U.S. grid will be unstable. This is due to the rapid rate of rising power demand outstripping the rate of additional generation. There is not enough energy being generated in the U.S. to meet predicted future demand. Artificial intelligence data centers and the digital economy account for most of the projected demand, but the report also identifies large industrial facilities, electrified transportation, cryptomining, and heat pump deployments as drivers as well. If you’re running a mixed-energy fleet and either your power prices surge, or you can’t get enough power because power is rationed, your business will be impacted. The advisory council will let your needs be heard as regulators and legislators develop policy.

NAFA is working with legislators on fleet advisory council bills in several states. Their goal is to get three or four of these bills passed in 2026. 鈥淥nce these advisory councils are running in a few states, the hope is that word will spread and other states will want to adopt the same system. There is also some interest in performing this activity on a federal level,鈥� Parr shared.

How are OEMs adapting to the change in administration?

OEMs have reduced their investment in vehicle electrification because of the slowdown in EV sales and changes to policy. 鈥淲ith direction from the administration, OEMs have pulled back on EV investments and pivoted to making big pickups and SUVs because that’s where the biggest margins are. They are also emphasizing hybrids over pure EVs, even as they continue to invest in pure play EV platforms that will allow them to produce EVs at lower cost. While the US EV market has cooled it continues to grow in the rest of the world and U.S. OEMs recognize the need to compete in those markets.鈥� 

While CAFE standards were clawed back in 2025 and EV incentives ended, the DOE did not defund U.S. battery manufacturing incentives. OEMs are continuing their battery programs, and those federal production incentives for batteries are instrumental in keeping production going. Parr sees that as a positive sign and believes that lawmakers intentionally kept battery incentives active. 

2026 may see some movement on data access for fleets from OEMs

With the adoption of Event Data Recorders (EDRs or “black boxes”) and the rise of “connected” car technologies, OEMs saw an opportunity to make more money: they could sell the data these technologies were capturing. Fleet managers have long sought access to the data that their vehicles generate, and with NAFA鈥檚 help, in 2026 there might be legislative breakthroughs. This data is critical for fleet management, allowing improvements to fleet efficiency and cost effectiveness, vehicle maintenance, and operational safety.

鈥淲e have been working this issue pretty hard for the last couple of years, and there are now several bipartisan bills working their way through Congress to give fleets and consumers access to the data that their vehicles generate without having to pay OEMs for that data,鈥� shares Parr.

2026 may see some movement on catalytic converter theft protections

Catalytic converter or 鈥渃at鈥� theft has been a rapidly increasing problem for fleets since 2020. The issue is largely driven by soaring precious metal prices: a major component of catalytic converters is platinum. Reports thefts of cats increased by 325% between 2019 and 2020. Then there were huge spikes of over 1,200% by the end of 2022.

鈥淲ith a battery-powered angle grinder, you can take the cat out of a car in under five minutes, throw it in your trunk and drive away, take it to a scrapyard and get the value. It’s been difficult to nab perpetrators because the cats don’t bear any identifying marks connecting them to a particular vehicle. Fleets report the same vehicle can be hit multiple times.鈥� This kind of theft puts fleet vehicles out of service, sometimes in the middle of a workday, and adds to the budget, replacing an expensive line item unexpectedly. Cats can cost thousands of dollars depending on the make and model of the vehicle. NAFA has supported legislation that would require cats to bear vehicle identification numbers and placing record-keeping requirements on scrap dealers, that would make cats more traceable, giving police the ability to associate a cat to a particular vehicle, and therefore be able to charge for the theft. Parr is hopeful there will be significant movement on this legislation in 2026.

The electric grid will see some attention in 2026

In response to the slow rollout in public EV charging infrastructure and the Trump administration鈥檚 policy changes, automotive manufacturers have become more active in deploying charging infrastructure. 鈥淥ne of the things that is quite notable is that OEMs jumped in, looked at what was going on with NEVI and public charging and realized that infrastructure planning wasn’t happening fast enough. They saw that the lack of public charging was a barrier to selling EVs.鈥� A number of OEMs now have major charging infrastructure programs they鈥檙e managing and they’re rolling out charging stations across the U.S. Charging solutions are being developed without government funding, which Parr sees as a positive for fleets. Parr predicts that in 2026 there will be an even more rapid expansion of public charging by private sector companies.聽

Additionally, OEMs are taking the infrastructure they鈥檝e built for battery production and using it to build Ford announced in December they鈥檇 be building batteries for data centers and utilities, and Tesla is doing the same at a new factory they鈥檝e built in Texas. On a small scale they can be attached to solar panels, store energy from the sun during the day and use the battery at night for power. Grid-scale batteries can be used to help power the grid as well. On a larger scale, shipping-container-sized batteries can build up energy during the day when the grid鈥檚 pricing is low and then can be used at night for power during higher electricity demand and higher prices.

OEMs will continue pivoting to producing hybrids instead of EVs in 2026

In 2026 NAFA is working with lawmakers to adapt vehicle purchasing incentives to include more vehicle types so fleets have more purchasing flexibility. OEMs are increasingly producing hybrids, long-range hybrids, and plug-in hybrids. Some existing federal and state fleet policies focus on the use of zero-emission vehicles and don’t provide incentives for hybrids. 鈥淭hese policies risk the perfect being the enemy of the good. If fleets can’t cost-effectively source EVs for a particular application, but can get used hybrids which provide a reduction in emissions, we should be encouraging that,鈥� says Parr. NAFA is working to modify some of these programs to credit the emissions reductions available from battery-powered hybrid and other lower emitting vehicle technologies.

An example is a fleet alternative fuel vehicle (AFV) purchase requirement established in the Energy Policy Act of 2009. That bill created a program requiring public fleets to steadily increase the percentage of their fleet vehicles that were alternative fuel vehicles. It involves a points system by which fleets demonstrate compliance. Parr explains: 鈥淵ou get a full point for an E85 vehicle, a full point for a battery electric vehicle, etc. As the market has changed, some of those vehicle types are just not available. Nobody’s selling E85 anymore. So fleet managers still have this big compliance obligation, but they can’t get any points out of E85 vehicles anymore. Hybrids are given only a half a point within this policy for state and university fleets, while federal fleets get a full point. With fleets struggling to comply with these standards given that the market isn鈥檛 giving them the tools to do so, harmonizing the federal and state/university fleet requirements would give fleets more compliance tools.鈥�

Advice to fleets for navigating uncertainty in 2026 

Uncertainty is the worst thing to navigate when running a business or a public fleet. For one thing, you’ve got long-term capital planning to consider. As Parr puts it, 鈥淵ou’re making plans for five to 10 years out and when the policy environment is just flip-flopping like a fish in a boat, that鈥檚 very hard to do.鈥� NAFA advises fleet managers to focus on the things that at the moment seem clear and predictable. And with business decisions that are tied to factors which are less predictable, their advice is to set those decisions on the back burner for now. 鈥淚f you have an electrification program that isn’t purely driven by economics, maybe take a pause on that until you better understand how the market’s adapting. On the other hand, if you’ve got an electrification program designed and mapped out to lower your total operating cost, and lower your emissions profile, do it.鈥� The advice is to stick to the bread and butter, and to manage the risk of your business decisions. Where there’s too much uncertainty to make a decision, stand down and let the administrative and market developments play out a little bit longer. 

The second piece of advice from NAFA is for fleet managers to get involved in the policy process. 鈥淒evelop a relationship with your constituent legislators. Invite them to your facility. Every House member and every Senate member has staff in the state and in your district, as do your local elected officials. Get to know them. Talk to them once a month. Let them know who you are, what you do, and why it’s important.鈥� Parr also recommends engaging with an association like NAFA that tracks policy so you have access to the latest policy developments and can engage with experts in the process.

NAFA has a government affairs committee with a diverse selection of fleet managers from across the country. This includes both public and private sector fleets. These businesses guide NAFA鈥檚 advocacy program. In turn, committee members then serve as ambassadors back to the rest of the NAFA membership to both keep them apprised of what NAFA鈥檚 doing and also to take input to help shape organizational priorities. NAFA also brings its members to Congress to engage with policy-makers and their staff. Improving elected officials鈥� understanding of the critical services fleets provide and how policy affects fleets allows lawmakers and business leaders to develop a shared vision of the future and improve policy development.

Conclusion:

In many ways, 2025 proved that stability on the surface can still mask deep underlying structural strife. Fuel prices held within a narrow band, yet demand patterns shifted, vehicle costs rose, supply chains remained fragile, and policy direction changed rapidly. As insights from OPIS economists and NAFA experts make clear, fleets are entering 2026 in an environment defined less by a single dominant trend and more by overlapping forces鈥攇eopolitical risk, evolving emissions rules, infrastructure constraints, and continued pressure on capital planning. The year ahead may bring a return to more traditional fuel price patterns, but uncertainty will continue to shape fleet decisions. For operators, the path forward is pragmatic: focus on total cost of ownership, invest where the economics are steady, stay engaged in the policy process, and build flexibility into long-term plans. In a market where conditions can shift quickly, the fleets that combine data-driven planning with operational agility will be best positioned to control costs and stay competitive as 2026 unfolds.

Sources:

糖心Vlogis a leading, global fintech solutions provider, simplifying payments and back-end business processes in the fleet management, benefits management, and corporate payments areas. To learn more, please visit the company鈥檚 About 糖心Vlogpage.

Copyright 漏2026 糖心Vlog. All rights reserved. The information in this document is subject to change without notice.

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Thankfully, there are plenty of great tools out there to help. In this article we’ll cover how to keep your drivers safe and the best tools available.

Learn the 8 risk management essentials and protect your fleet today!

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Risky driving behaviors that threaten your fleet safety

There are an array of poor driving habits, some more common than others. Typically, the following behaviors are the ones most likely to cause accidents or injury:

• Speeding: Driving over the speed limit or too fast for road conditions (wet, low visibility, etc.) can reduce drivers鈥� reaction time. according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA).
• Aggressive driving: This includes behaviors like tailgating, weaving in and out of traffic, and aggressive overtaking, all of which can lead to accidents.
• Distracted driving: Using mobile phones, eating, or engaging in other distractions while driving diverts attention from the road, jeopardizing the safety of your driver and others out on the road.
• Fatigue: Driving for extended periods without adequate rest can lead to fatigue, impairing reaction times and decision-making skills. If worse comes to worst, drivers may even fall asleep at the wheel.
• Ignoring traffic signals: Running red lights, disregarding stop signs, or failing to yield the right of way can lead to collisions.

If poor driving behavior is left unchecked, accidents, injuries, and damage to your vehicles can increase operational costs significantly.

The importance of fleet risk management on operational costs

Before exploring the best ways to recognize and reduce risky driving behavior, it鈥檚 important to understand the business impacts of drivers making poor decisions while on the road.

Impacts to safety

• Accidents and injuries: Risky driving increases the likelihood of accidents, leading to injuries or fatalities among drivers and potentially others on the road. According to the latest statistics from the more than 14,500 employees were involved in fatal occupational roadway accidents between 2011 and 2022.
• Vehicle damage: Aggressive driving, speeding, and other risky behaviors contribute to increased wear and tear on vehicles, making them less safe to drive over time.

Impacts to business

• Maintenance expenses: With increased wear and tear comes more frequent vehicle maintenance and repairs to keep fleet vehicles in good working (and safe) order. 
• Downtime: Accidents that leave vehicles dormant in a shop impact operational efficiency. This can affect delivery schedules and overall productivity across your business.
• Legal consequences: Traffic violations and collisions due to risky driving behavior can result in legal consequences, such as fines and penalties, for your drivers and your business. This can lead to additional costs for legal fees and increased insurance premiums.

All of these safety and business impacts can add up. According to the most recent data from the traffic accidents cost U.S. employers $72.2 billion annually.

Luckily, technology that augments fleet management, such as telematics, GPS, dash cams, and vehicle diagnostics, can help you reduce risky driving behaviors.

How to reduce risky driving behavior with fleet risk management

Telematics plays a crucial role in mitigating risky driving behaviors by providing fleet managers with near real-time data and insights into driver performance and vehicle operations on the road.

Driver monitoring and real-time tracking with telematics

Telematics systems track and monitor driver behavior, including speed, acceleration, braking, and even adherence to traffic rules. Using premium GPS tracking technology, fleet managers can identify risky driving patterns such as harsh braking, sudden acceleration, or speeding to coach better behavior.

Additionally, you can track drivers鈥� locations and activities, including time spent with customers. To take it a step further, consider integrating telematics and fuel card data for a clearer picture of driver activity.

With 糖心Vlogtelematics, you can even reward drivers for their safe driving 鈥� further incentivizing good driving habits.

Fleet safety cameras provide visual evidence

Dash cams help protect drivers when accidents or harmful scenarios happen by collecting visual evidence to reduce the chance of unwanted outcomes. Footage can, in turn, be used in court to prove innocence and help keep insurance costs down.

Fleet driver safety training

Using the data collected through 糖心Vlogtelematics, dash cams, and fleet fuel cards, fleet managers can build constructive training, feedback, and coaching sessions based on actual driver data to reinforce best practices and encourage safer driving.

Data across your fleet is organized into one easily digestible dashboard that makes it easy to access and understand.

Increase driver safety using telematics

Risky driving behavior shouldn鈥檛 be an expected business expense. Unsafe road habits put drivers at risk of serious injury 鈥� and increase your operational costs across the board, from insurance premiums to unscheduled maintenance.

Learn more about how 糖心Vlogtelematics and GPS tracking solutions can help keep your drivers safe 鈥� and your budget intact.

糖心Vlogspeaks the language of small business operators. Whether you鈥檙e looking to modernize your insight and reporting efforts, save on fuel costs or take advantage of the latest GPS tracking technologies, 糖心Vlogoffers solutions to simplify the business of running a business. To learn more about WEX, a dynamic and nimble global organization, please visit our About 糖心Vlogpage.

Learn more on how to better manage your small business:

• Marketing tips
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• Sustainability
• Artificial intelligence

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What are the most important things for an Accounts Payable (AP) department to achieve?

The accounts payable department鈥檚 three biggest areas of responsibility are:

• Keeping track of what a company owes to suppliers
• Ensuring payments to those suppliers are approved
• Processing those payments

Documenting and disseminating accurate information within the accounts payable function is a requirement to producing an accurate balance sheet. This is why accuracy, efficiency, and adaptability are all essential to the success of your AP organization.

The AP function is central to how every business operates. If an AP department is running with a high level of functionality, it will:

• Develop and maintain good relationships with suppliers by keeping accurate and up-to-date supplier information in the company鈥檚 systems
• Pay suppliers on time and develop collaborative and positive relationships with suppliers to gain favorable payment terms and discounts
• Keep accurate books, ensuring that cash forecasts are accurate and that working capital can be optimized
• Help prevent mistakes and fraud

How do we set the right goals to achieve AP departmental success?

One way to shape your AP department to operational excellence is through goal-setting and the performance review process. In fact, according to Forbes, 鈥�89% of HR leaders agree that are key for successful outcomes.鈥澛�

Start with your organization鈥檚 goals to build your AP department goals

To set goals for your department, first look at what overarching company goals have been put in place. You will want to set up your departmental goals in alignment with and cascading down from overall organizational goals. If every department in your organization has those top level goals in mind and maps back to them, there is increased likelihood overall company goals will be achieved.

Host a brainstorming session with your AP team to develop team goals

Consider hosting a goals brainstorming session with your AP team. Many tools can enhance your brainstorming sessions. These tools offer fun, engaging interfaces and allow full team participation. Remote team members can also join in easily. Gather with your team and encourage a free flow of ideas. Pare down your ideas to a reasonable number then create a shared document as a reference point throughout the year.

Consider using the SMART goals framework when setting your AP department goals

After you鈥檝e completed your brainstorming session, look at your list of goals and see if they fall under the SMART guidelines. Consider eliminating goals that do not comply.

The SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely) framework is most often attributed to Peter Drucker鈥檚 鈥淢anagement by Objectives鈥� concept, and the term was first used in a public forum in the November 1981 issue of Management Review by George T. Doran. While SMART has been around for over three decades, it maintains relevance in goal-setting today.

When using a SMART framework, work with your AP team to make sure your goals are clear and reachable. Each goal should be:

• Specific (simple, sensible, significant)
• Measurable (meaningful, motivating)
• Achievable (agreed, attainable)
• Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based)
• Time bound (time-based, time limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive)

Make the goals meaningful to each AP team member responsible for achieving them

It鈥檚 important when you set goals for your team that they are meaningful to those who will be responsible for executing on them. This is where the brainstorming and team activity of goal setting will be of use. If your team is involved in shaping AP department goals, you will all have greater success accomplishing the things you鈥檝e set out to do.

Keep your AP team鈥檚 goals top of mind

One fatal error commonly made in organizations is when teams set performance goals and then forget about them until the performance review time comes around. This is an ineffective use of goal creation. Your team鈥檚 goals should be front and center in everything you do as a department.

Break down goals into attainable steps

One way to keep your goals living and breathing within your organization is to break them down into small, attainable steps that you can tackle all year long. If you have KPIs you鈥檙e trying to reach, break them into smaller chunks. Instead of focusing on year over year (YoY) goals, set weekly KPI goals that will help you stay focused and allow you to take baby steps toward each larger accomplishment.

Post your goals in a visible location. If you鈥檙e working remotely, post them on a communications portal, or read them at the beginning of each team meeting. Find a way that best works for your AP group to remain focused and not lose sight of team goals.

Use the SMART framework for measurable success

Make sure your goals are measurable. Go back to the SMART framework and look at it from a goal measurement perspective:

• Specific: Make certain it鈥檚 clear to everyone on the team what the goal is, this way your team won鈥檛 struggle to get there
• Measurable: Map out how your progress will be measured. It can be in dollar signs, in number of projects completed, whatever works best for your team
• Attainable: Make sure each goal you set is within reach. If you can鈥檛 possibly achieve a goal, it鈥檚 just a dream that will not likely become a reality
• Relevant: Ensure your goal maps to business objectives 鈥� this goes back to tying AP team goals back to your organization鈥檚 overarching goals
• Time-based: Set a reasonable timeline to achieve your goals

Don’t wait until the end of the year to discuss team members’ goals. Regular check-ins help track progress and offer support. Ongoing dialogue throughout the year increases employees’ chances of success. They will be happier, more engaged, and highly motivated team members.

Real-time feedback is the most impactful work you can do as a manager. Given during the action, it provides clear guidance. It helps employees improve immediately and leaves a lasting impression for future tasks.

Once you鈥檝e set AP goals how do you measure performance?

The best way to measure the performance of your AP staff is to formalize a performance appraisal process. Performance reviews are a necessary component of measuring your team鈥檚 AP work, both individually and collectively. While performance appraisals can cause unnecessary anxiety to surface for both managers and their employees, focusing on a few key, high level, attainable goals can help keep the process clear and less anxiety-provoking.

To set up a performance review process, consider using the following guide:

• Develop an evaluation form
• Identify performance measures coming from your AP department goals
• Set guidelines for two-way feedback
• Create clear follow-up procedures if an individual is having difficulty achieving goals
• Set an evaluation schedule

Your AP department鈥檚 focus on accuracy, efficiency, and adaptability

When developing goals and measuring performance for your Accounts Payable team members, shape your strategy around these three aforementioned key elements:

• Accuracy
• Efficiency
• Adaptability

Ground your thinking and actions in these three areas to achieve organizational excellence for your AP team.

Why is accuracy important for an AP team?

Making payments is the core of Accounts Payable, so accuracy is the team’s most important goal. Accuracy is essential in error-free data entry, contract-aligned payments, prompt filing, and clear communication.

Attention to detail is key to accuracy. Promoting guidelines that reinforce attention to detail will keep your team focused.

How does efficiency help make for an excellent AP team?

Improving your Accounts Payable team鈥檚 efficiency can help you reach your department goals, and the goals of your organization. Saving time will eventually lead to saving money.

Improve AP efficiency by finding tools that reduce tedious manual tasks. Efficiency goals depend on your current system setup. Potential goals include adopting automated AP solutions or switching from traditional payments to virtual payments. Consider mapping out all the time-consuming tasks your AP department has and determining which ones might be automated or eliminated.

For AP department managers, taking a high-level view at the beginning of the goal-setting process will quickly show that there are attainable ways to support your team in their goal of increased efficiency. A shift away from manual processes and towards virtual payments will build efficiencies and reap rewards for your organization. With digital payments technology, your company鈥檚 AP systems can be streamlined, allow for more efficiency, and introduce new cost-savings measures for your business.

How will adaptability amongst AP team members contribute to your organization鈥檚 overall success?

Change is a natural part of working for a business, and because of this, adaptability is key to any team member鈥檚 success. Because the work of an AP department is essential to the success of the business, fostering adaptability in your team members will be immensely useful to your organization. An adaptable team member remains calm under stressful situations sometimes brought about by change. When faced with change, an adaptable person is more likely to continue to accomplish tasks and meet deadlines in the same manner they always have, regardless of what change brings.

When assessing your AP team鈥檚 performance when it comes to adaptability, this can be measured by how readily your team members adjust to changes in department policies and procedures. Also consider how receptive or resistant they are to the introduction of new ideas for improving processes or creating efficiencies. This will help you assess how well your team members adapt to change.

What鈥檚 the best way to map out your performance review for your AP team?

Now that you鈥檝e set your goals as a team, made them a part of your daily work, and mapped out a schedule for performance revues, you need to plan what those end-of-year performance reviews will actually entail. You will be well-situated if you have had an ongoing conversation with team members throughout the year about their goals and your expectations.

Start with goal-setting conversations

When planning your performance review process, you will want to start at the very beginning. Engaging in a start-of-the-year conversation with each of your team members to discover the things they want to achieve will be first on your list. This will happen at the very beginning of the performance cycle.

Setting department goals with your employees should start with an understanding of their individual goals. In this initial goal-setting meeting you should outline what the whole process will look like all the way through to the final performance review at the end of the year. If there are numerical systems in place for assessing performance, lay those out for your employee so they understand how your company guides the process from beginning to end.

Preparing for and conducting the review

Approximately two weeks before each performance review, ask your team members to document the things they are most proud of from the year. At the same time, ask for a few sentences from individuals across the company who work closely with each member of your team. Review your notes from the past year that document the things your employees have excelled at and the places where they could improve. On the day of your meeting, share your appraisal with your team member giving them enough time for review before you meet. This gives your employee an opportunity to digest the content of their assessment and prepare for the conversation ahead.

In the review conversation, most of your team members will likely be good, solid workers, 鈥淪o for the vast majority, you should concentrate exclusively on things the person has done well,鈥� says Dick Grote, author of 鈥淗ow to Be Good at Performance Appraisals.鈥� He goes on to add that this method tends to motivate people who are already competent at their jobs. For those who are struggling, give specific advice, and keep the conversation fact-based instead of veering into the personal. This will allow your employee, being given constructive feedback, to find an opportunity to improve as opposed to feeling personally attacked.

If possible, keep the topics of compensation and rank to a separate meeting. It will be distracting for you both if those topics are on your minds and treating them separately will allow for a more meaningful discussion on goals and future plans.

End your performance review session by reviewing the goals your employee set out to achieve and walking through all that they and your team have accomplished over the past year.

How can virtual payments technology help your AP department succeed in achieving annual goals?

We鈥檝e just described how you can create an effective goal-setting and performance review process for your AP team. We outlined that the three overarching goals for any AP department are accuracy, efficiency, and adaptability. Adopting virtual payments for your business will help you maximize the opportunity to achieve those goals by creating more efficient, less error-prone methods of operating, and ultimately will save your company money. Learn more about how 糖心Vlogpayment solutions can be tailored to your business, so you can accelerate and streamline operations while creating lasting growth and success for your organization.

For more insights and updates on corporate payments, check out:

• Your guide to virtual card rebates
• Traditional vs. virtual payments
• 2026 business payment trends

Stay up to date on the latest in business payments by subscribing to our blog! Simply hit the 鈥淪ubscribe鈥� button above or submit your email address in the form below.

The information in this blog post is for educational purposes only. It is not legal or tax advice. For legal or tax advice, you should consult your own legal counsel, tax, and investment advisers.

Editorial note: This article was originally published on September 18, 2015, and has been updated for this publication.

Sources:

鈥淗ow to be good at Performance Appraisals鈥� by Dick Grote

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It’s time to charge full speed ahead with your open enrollment aftermath strategy. By analyzing what went right, and what could be improved, you can help ensure an easier, more effective process for next year. This helps you take actionable steps to collect, analyze and act upon data from four key groups:

• Employees
• Internal stakeholders
• Your benefits broker
• Your technology partner

With data from these four groups, you’re on your way to all the information you’ll need to improve your benefits strategy for next year.

But let’s take this seemingly monstrous task and break it down into manageable chunks. Rather than looking at every group, let’s start by focusing on the first, and most important, group you need to survey.

WHO should you survey?

Start by delivering an open enrollment survey to both your benefits eligible employees AND the dependents they have listed in your system. Some employees might designate a spouse, or other family member to perform benefits enrollment tasks on their behalf and you want your true end-user to be able to provide feedback on their overall experience.

WHAT should you ask?

The open enrollment survey questions you ask largely will depend on the聽goals you are trying to measure. If you have not defined any specific goals, then start by focusing on the open enrollment experience as a whole, for example 鈥� what did your employees like and what do they want to be different for next year. Regardless of the type of questions you ask, make sure to keep the survey brief 鈥� no more than 5 questions 鈥� and ask only the information that will help you take actionable next steps.

Want more tips on what to ask? Check out our graphic below:

WHERE should your survey live?

A majority of organizations are going to find that creating an online survey is the most effective way to collect, store and analyze data. The easiest option is to use a free survey tool like Survey Monkey and distribute the survey link to your employees through email. If you go this route, double check your survey tool to make sure it is mobile-friendly and offers robust analysis and reporting tools. For organizations with robust research and analytics teams, approach peer leaders in these areas to explore access their research and analytics tools.

Pro Tip: If you work in an organization with a population of employees whose job functions do not allow access to a computer with ease during the day, you may want to deploy a hybrid approach of both online and mailed paper copies of your open enrollment survey.

WHEN should you survey?

In an ideal world, you would survey your employees immediately after they complete open enrollment while the experience is still fresh in their mind. Add the link to a post-enrollment email. Missed the opportunity to do that this year? Don鈥檛 worry, send out the survey as soon as you are able to put something together. Collecting this group’s data is what matters most 鈥� regardless of timing.

WHY should you survey?

Simply put, employee feedback is the most important data you can obtain to help shape future open enrollments. Their feedback can help you identify any gaps between what you as the employer think is important, and what employees are actually looking for. Furthermore, data obtained from this group can be used to help strengthen your overall communication strategies and enrollment campaigns to raise awareness  and provide benefits education to employees who need it.

HOW should you survey?

Thankfully, there are many free tools online that make it easy to write, create, and deploy an open enrollment survey on your own. However, depending on the benefits administration solutions provider you work with, they may be able to execute this survey on your behalf 鈥� and provide experienced guidance to help you ask the right questions, of the right employees, at the right time.

For example, our clients have the option to consult with their client delivery manager about any post-enrollment activities they want to execute, such as a survey. From there, the client team designs the survey and uses our communications module to immediately send out a link to the survey (or mail a paper copy) after the employee completes enrollment. We can even send automated reminder emails to employees who have not responded. This allows you to spend more time analyzing the data and less time setting-up, distributing and collecting survey responses.

Here are the top five post open enrollment survey questions we find to be most helpful for actionable next steps and overall analysis:

1. How would you rate the overall benefits enrollment experience?
   Pro Tip: Use a Likert scale format (Excellent, Good, Neutral, Fair, Poor) to measure employee experience in a data consistent format.
   
2. How satisfied were you with the benefits package offered during open enrollment?
   Pro Tip: Use a Likert scale format (Very satisfied, Satisfied, Neutral, Dissatisfied, Extremely dissatisfied) to measure opinion in a data consistent format.
   
   
3. Did you have enough tools to make an informed decision about your benefits?
   Pro Tip: Use Yes/No check boxes. If the employee selects “No”, add a progressive survey question that asks “Did you know who to contact for help/guidance during the process?” to gain further insights.
   
4. Was the benefits enrollment system personalized and easy to navigate?
   Tip: Use Yes/No check boxes to help you draw general conclusions. Next Steps: Provide employees with the smoothest, easiest benefits experience ever when you implement a benefits technology with effortless customization available.
   
5. What could be better during open enrollment?
   Tip: Make this a required, open-ended question to allow employees the space to share their thoughts and provide ideas you might not have thought of before. Next Steps: After you gather the data, categorize the responses to this question into similar topics for easier analysis. Take the results a step further and host in-person focus groups to expand on important themes that surfaced from the survey. For additional ways to solicit 鈥� and act upon 鈥� employee feedback, check out this article.

Would you like more advice on benefits communication? Check out this episode of our Benefits podcast!

The information in this blog post is for educational purposes only. It is not legal or tax advice. For legal or tax advice, you should consult your own counsel.

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Read on to learn about how fraud impacts operations for businesses with a fleet of commercial vehicles, what鈥檚 considered fraud, and various preventive measures for businesses to safeguard their fleets from fraudulent activity.

Learn how 糖心Vloghelped NexTier protect against fraud

NexTier’s 3,200 vehicle fleet has the ultimate protection with WEX

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What actions are considered fuel card fraud or indicate fraudulent activity?

Fuel card fraud takes various forms, all involving some form of fuel card misuse or unauthorized use. Here are some examples of fraud or signs that may indicate suspicious activity:

• Unauthorized purchases: Simply put, these are fuel card transactions that the fleet manager didn鈥檛 approve.
• Fuel card skimming: This involves copying a card鈥檚 information, using a device to create a duplicate card, and then using that card to purchase goods.
• Internal fraud: This type of fraud is committed by employees or insiders who misuse company resources.
• Phantom fill-ups: Reporting a fuel purchase that never actually occurred is called a phantom fill-up, and fraudsters usually pocket the money instead of using it for fuel.
• Overcharging: This involves charging more than the actual cost of a service or product and pocketing the difference.
• Card not present (CNP) fraud: These are fraudulent transactions made without the physical card on hand, usually meaning fraudsters have stolen/obtained card information by malicious means.
• Multiple transactions: Several transactions made in quick succession may be a sign that a fraudster is attempting to maximize the use of a stolen or cloned card before you flag it as suspicious.

Some of these signs and signals of fraud are easier to catch than others. You need strong internal controls to prevent fraud. Some examples of internal controls are:

• Tools for regularly monitoring transactions
• Robust training programs to educate employees about proper card usage
• Telematics tracking technology to bring data and insights under one roof

Explore this comprehensive fraud prevention white paper today

Learn how fuel controls and a closed-loop payment system can help your business prevent fraud

Read now

How has AI impacted fraud numbers?

Phishing attacks have gotten more sophisticated with the advent of AI. Since the fourth quarter of 2022 when ChatGPT launched, there’s been a increase in malicious phishing attacks. 

AI has removed some of the barriers to entry for phishing. You don’t have to be a native English speaker, or understand the economy that you’re operating in to commit fraud. You can ask AI questions, and it will generate an email or a phone call or text message, and not only generate it, but also perform the fraudulent activity for you.

There are more phone-based phishing schemes now where AI is making the phone calls. Before generative AI, if you had an offshore fraud team, this kind of activity was not possible. Now it is. The AI voice is so good that criminals can start collecting information over the phone from unwitting customers.

Account takeover through phishing and social engineering is one of the biggest risks in the fraud space today. 

What are the numbers when you consider fraud as related to commercial vehicle management?

If you鈥檙e running a 1,000-vehicle fleet with $5M in annual fuel spend and a $10M total operating budget you could be losing $500k annually to fuel theft and misallocation. This is from drivers filling up personal vehicles or misreporting fuel use. This number is based on 10% of your annual fuel spend.

You could be losing $600k annually to fraudulent transactions like card cloning, skimming, or unauthorized use by criminals outside your business intent on stealing from you. This is assuming fraud hits 12% of your $5M fuel budget. 

$2.2 million annually is tied to theft and fraud across fuel, maintenance, and other operational costs. This is based on 22% of your $10M fleet operating budget. 

The consequences of fleet fuel card misuse and fraud

Fuel card fraud and misuse can significantly impact an organization and cause substantial financial losses and operational challenges. Some of the most challenging or damaging aspects of fuel card fraud include:

Financial loss

With annual – a 33% increase year-over-year, fleet businesses can save money by addressing fraud head on. Implementing controls and processes dedicated to fraud awareness and prevention is a good first step. Take Shell, for example, which has a whole team dedicated to fraud detection and prevention. The company estimates that this team is responsible for saving them through fraud prevention measures.

Reputational damage

An organization鈥檚 reputation banks heavily on its ability to establish and maintain trust with customers. Repeated incidents of fraud or theft can signal vulnerability. This not only puts you at risk of losing customers whose trust may begin to wane but can also act as a beacon for other thieves or fraudsters who may think your business is an easy target.

Legal and regulatory consequences

Non-compliance with fuel card regulations can lead to both legal and financial penalties. In some cases, organizations may even be held liable for fraudulent activities.

Data security risks

There is typically lots of sensitive financial information stored on a fuel card. Once compromised, fraudsters can use that data to commit further crimes.

Common weaknesses and vulnerabilities that lead to fleet fuel card fraud

Before implementing preventative measures, business owners should assess their fleet鈥檚 vulnerabilities and get a complete understanding of where there may be opportunities to increase security measures.

If you鈥檝e never done something like this before, start with a comprehensive audit of all fleet activities, evaluating your current security measures, identifying weak points in the fleet management process, and recognizing signs of potential security breaches. By understanding where your fleet is most vulnerable, you can develop targeted strategies to enhance security across the organization.

Lack of control over fleet card usage

Without proper oversight, employees may have access to fleet cards they don鈥檛 need or may use them for personal vehicles. Additionally, if cards are not quickly deactivated when employees leave the company or change roles, those cards could prevent risk for further misuse.

Inadequate monitoring and reconciliation of fuel transactions

Without regular reviews of fuel purchases, it becomes easier for discrepancies and unauthorized fuel theft to go unnoticed. Moreover, if fuel receipts are not consistently collected and cross-referenced with card statements, it can be challenging to detect fraudulent activity.

Outdated or ineffective security measures

Stay up-to-date on the latest security tools to protect your business. As technology progresses, so do fraudulent practices. Thieves are always innovating鈥攅ven alongside the most modern and robust security tools鈥攖o get around the latest preventive measures. For instance, if your fleet cards lack chip technology or if you鈥檙e not using secure payment terminals at fuel stations, you increase the risk of card skimming and data breaches.

How to catch and/or prevent fraudulent activity

There are lots of effective ways to reduce your fleet鈥檚 exposure to fraud risk, manage risks that seep through, and mitigate future instances, including everything from technology implementation or upgrades to employee training. 

糖心Vlogfuel cards provide protection from fraud. In one recent 60-day period, less than one basis point of total transactions were confirmed as fraudulent. In the same time period, WEX’s AI-driven systems helped customers stop 32% more fraudulent transactions and reduce fraud losses by 25% compared to our non-AI driven systems.

Use technology to monitor actions and mitigate risk

Technological solutions like telematic systems, electronics loading devices (ELDs), and fleet management software are highly useful for monitoring your commercial vehicle use and fuel consumption in real-time to detect suspicious activity. Additionally, physical security measures such as GPS tracking devices, alarm systems, dash cams, and steering wheel locks can deter theft and aid in the recovery of stolen vehicles.

Provide ongoing employee training

Educating employees on proper card usage and how to recognize suspicious activity such as unauthorized purchases or multiple transactions, creates a staff better equipped to report issues promptly. 

Training also reinforces ethical behavior, which can help reduce the likelihood of internal fraud. By becoming and staying informed, employees can act as a frontline defense against fraudulent activities, ensuring that fuel cards are used responsibly.

Foster a culture of security and accountability

Trust and safety are the key to long-term fleet protection. Start by clearly communicating with employees your company鈥檚 security policies and expectations. You can do this by providing comprehensive training on security best practices. During this training, emphasize the importance of their role in maintaining a secure environment. Your employees should know how to identify and report suspicious activities, how to properly handle sensitive information, and the consequences of security breaches.

Encourage open communication and transparency for employees with security concerns. Employees should feel open to report any security incidents or potential vulnerabilities without fear of retribution, so establish communication channels鈥攁nonymous surveys are one great way to allow employees to communicate concerns. Actively listen to their feedback and address any issues promptly, demonstrating your commitment to prioritizing security within the business.

Lastly, lead by example by consistently showing compliance with security protocols. Incentivize good behavior by recognizing and rewarding employees who lead others on security best practices.

How Hammer Construction took control of its expense tracking to detect and mitigate fraud

Over the years, Hammer Construction has faced several fleet management challenges. These include fuel theft and mismanaged expense tracking. Its fleet of vehicles are scattered across hundreds of miles in the U.S. and employees often work off-site for weeks at a time. Both of these factors made expense management difficult. Unfortunately, the company noticed a trend of internal fuel theft resulting in a loss of $500 to $700 a month.

To mitigate this, they needed a solution to help enhance employee accountability and gain better insight into fleet expenses. With the help of WEX鈥檚 fraud protection tool, ClearView, Hammer Construction was able to quickly identify trends and patterns, monitor purchasing behavior, and implement corrective actions to improve fleet operations.

The user-friendly nature of ClearView allows fleet managers to gain a clear understanding of complex data, helping them make the most informed decisions for their business.Through the ClearView dashboard, Steve Doss, Cost Control Manager at Hammer Construction, can easily examine fleet card usage in any region, department, service station, or even by employee or vehicle. That level of visibility and control has allowed him to not only improve fleet card efficiency and expenses but also transform employee mentality and accountability about fuel card usage.

鈥淐learView gives us the ability to quickly identify trends and patterns and eliminate the extra risk of theft. Driver mentality has changed from, 鈥楾hey will never miss a few gallons here or there.鈥� Or, 鈥楾hat鈥檚 just one of the perks of the job.鈥� To, 鈥業 better not steal any fuel because (Johnny) was terminated for using the fuel card for his personal vehicle.鈥欌�� 鈥� Steve Doss, Cost Control Manager at Hammer Construction.

Along with increased fleet card protection, 糖心VlogClearView helped Hammer Construction access insights that gave them a clearer picture of their business and, ultimately, achieve sustainable growth.

Learn how Hammer Construction reduced fraud for their business

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Minimize fraud risk and operate with confidence

糖心Vlogspeaks the language of small business operators. Whether you鈥檙e looking to modernize your insight and reporting efforts, save on fuel costs or take advantage of the latest GPS tracking technologies, 糖心Vlogoffers solutions to simplify the business of running a business. To learn more about WEX, a dynamic and nimble global organization, please visit our About 糖心Vlogpage.

Learn more about fleet management tools and best practices:

• Fuel card fraud prevention
• Fleet cost savings
• Safety on the road
• Grow your business with the best fuel card provider

Apply for a fleet card today!

Source:
Fleet Owner

Editorial note: This article was originally published on February 28, 2024, and has been updated for this publication.

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