How to manage company cars and pool vehicles in the fleet

Not every employee in a company is entitled to their own company car. In order to still be able to offer employees attractive mobility options, many companies offer corporate car sharing (pool vehicles). These offers bring with them a different type of fleet management, as in addition to the normal tasks of a fleet manager, new issues are now added: the taxation of pool vehicles, bookings, and costs, as well as further regulations when pool vehicles can also be used privately by employees. We have taken a look at how you can efficiently combine company cars and pool vehicles in your fleet and what you need to pay attention to in order to ensure continued compliance in the fleet.

Differences and similarities between pool and company vehicles

The biggest difference between company vehicles and pool vehicles is the allocation. Company cars are tied to one employee of the company, while pool vehicles are accessible to multiple employees of a company. In some companies, a pool vehicle is even made available per team. Here, of course, bottlenecks can occur in comparison to company vehicles, and a digital booking system, as well as the driver's logbook, should regulate who has booked which vehicle, when and for how long.

A common feature of the two types of vehicles is, among other things, the administration. For both the personal vehicle and pool vehicles, regular UVV inspections of the vehicles, damage management, and risk analyses must be completed in order to keep a transparent overview of compliance, costs, and effort of the fleet in view. In addition, fleet managers must ensure that regular driver's license checks are performed and documented.

To do this effectively, we advise using digital fleet management software that allows you to manage both personal and pool vehicles transparently and cost-efficiently. With Avrios, you have the possibility to manage all vehicles in your fleet with one system and only one complete data basis, thus saving costs and time.

Using vehicles privately - what do you have to consider?

Here, it applies in advance for both company cars and pool vehicles that the private use of the cars must be clarified in writing with the employer in advance. With both options, the private use of a company car is considered a non-cash benefit, which must be taxed accordingly as a benefit for employees and thus as income.

The amount of a non-cash benefit for individual employees is calculated from the sum of all list prices of the vehicles provided in the pool. This amount is allocated to the number of employees and employees must then pay tax on a percentage of the average list price for all private journeys. This also applies if employees use the vehicles for commuting to work. In this case, the imputed income is calculated at 0.03 percent of the list price and divided by the number of drivers. The employee's share is then calculated as the product of this value and the respective distance kilometers.

You can also learn more about special depreciation for motor vehicles and the question of business benefits here.

Manage pool vehicles with Avrios

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