ECM Vehicle Files Module

Germany's roads are a busy place. Customers are visited, goods are transported from A to B, company cars are driven back to the garage at home after work. Companies do not have to be involved in logistics in order for their fleet to grow. And that creates a lot of work. Fleet managers take care of more than repairs, insurance and MOT appointments to ensure that there are always enough vehicles ready for use. Their job also involves fuel cards and receipts, logbooks, maintenance and repair receipts. Furthermore, there are vehicle taxes, new tyres on a regular basis, cleaning and care products and, last but not least, the expenses for registration and deregistration.

Most of these are small tasks, but they are quite numerous. You can sort and file these odds and ends on paper and tire out your hole punch in the process. The better alternative, however, is to introduce digital motor vehicle files. They speed up the processes because they automatically save the documents in the right folders and therefore ensure transparency in real time.

ECM: up-to-date data in digital form

Digital motor vehicle files are part of an ECM solution. The abbreviation ECM stands for Enterprise Content Management. These systems focus on capturing, managing, storing, maintaining and distributing documents in digital form. At the same time, ECM systems define digital workflows that, for example, route the latest status of a vehicle repair through the system with as much automation as desired.

The goal of all fleet managers is to provide the necessary mobility at the lowest possible cost. Digital vehicle files can help with this. Each individual vehicle is recorded with its master data. Information ranging from the model name to the optional equipment is collected in the data screen. Maintenance, MOTs (called TÜV in Germany) and repairs can be entered into the digital vehicle file, as can invoices, contracts or manuals. “Information about repairs, leasing periods or insurance conditions is always available in a centralised and digital format in the latest version,” says Robert Maurer, ECM Product Manager at TA Triumph-Adler. “This means that a company's in-house staff are always 100% able to provide information.”

Maintain an overview thanks to digital vehicle files

Digital vehicle files provide a clear overview and automatically generated reminders avoid deadlines being missed. This allows someone to check immediately whether damage caused by an accident a fortnight ago has already been assessed and if the vehicle has been repaired. The digital files also know which employee has been driving which vehicle and for how long. Speaking of employees, in ECM systems - which are always modular - the motor vehicle file can also be linked to the associated digital personnel file.

The digital vehicle file itself can also be expanded to include a likewise digital roster. After all, as has been said, it's about providing as much mobility as possible at the lowest possible cost. 

Would you like to know more about the ECM Vehicle Files Module?