A fleet manager’s questions are compliance and cost, not today’s parcels
What is due, what is off the road, what did fuel cost per kilometre. Those are asset questions, so the vehicle goes on the asset register rather than in a fleet system’s own copy of it. This one is not built yet, and here is the design anyway.
· 2 min read
With that said: the decision is worth writing down now, because it is the kind that gets made badly under delivery pressure and is expensive to reverse.
Fleet and delivery are different questions
It is easy to assume a fleet product is a delivery product. It is not. Rutba Orders answers "where is this consignment"; a fleet manager is asking something else entirely, and often about vehicles that deliver nothing at all — plant hire, care providers, builders.
- What is due — MOT, service, tax, driver licence checks.
- What is off the road, and why.
- What did fuel cost per kilometre, per vehicle, this quarter.
- Can I prove the driver hours and the walkaround checks, if asked.
None of those is about a parcel. They are compliance and cost questions about an owned thing, which is to say: asset questions.
So there is no second vehicle table
The vehicle lives on the asset register in Rutba Facilities, with an operating profile attached. Fleet is a surface over it, not a system with its own copy — which is why Fleet lists Facilities as a hard requirement.
The alternative is what most estates end up with: a vehicle in the fleet system, the same vehicle in the fixed-asset register, and four spreadsheets that disagree about the registration. One record with a legal status, a driver, a fuel line and a cost is the whole design.
Every "second table" starts as a reasonable decision to ship faster, and ends as a reconciliation somebody does monthly forever.
What is planned, stated as planned
- The vehicle profile on the asset register — no second vehicle table.
- Drivers, licences, and the checks they are due.
- Walkaround checks and defects, raised from the cab.
- Duty and hours, for driver-hours compliance.
- Fuel and energy per vehicle, and cost per kilometre.
- Incidents, with the evidence attached.
Priced on request, and that is not coyness — it is that we will not publish a price for something nobody can use yet. A price list entry for an unbuilt product is a promise about a date, and we would rather make the date promise explicitly or not at all.
Rutba Facilities, which does exist
The asset register underneath this, with custody events, sites and spaces, and lifecycle. In early access today.
See the register