Understanding the Importance of Accurate Distance Travelled Reports

Accuracy in distance travelled calculation can be tough but with the right technology at work, it is achievable. TrackoField can help your business unlock accurate data-based optimisation!

Just like how an umbrella with holes is of no use to a person standing in rain, a system with inaccurate data is useless to field business.

“Quality is determined by accuracy and completeness” – Larry Sanger

Mr Sanger said it right! This is why our field force management system claims to be the best in the industry. While several businesses provide clients with distance travelled reports, TrackoField does so accurately. This accuracy, unmatched in the industry, can help you boost your business’ quality.

Before we see the reasons why workforce management requires digitised reports on distance travelled by their employees, let us understand what these reports are.

What are Distance Travelled Reports?

A field force management software tracks executives during their working hours. True to these claims, the software lets managers see what areas their executives travelled during their journey. The system uses the GPS tracker available in the employee’s connected device t track their employees. But this information is often not very accurate. 

Thus, most businesses have to settle for getting the crow fly view of their executive’s journey. While this information can be helpful for them in ensuring that their employees visit allotted task locations, the lack of accuracy can also cause issues. 

Why is TrackoField’s Accuracy so High? 

It is very simple, the credit is our team’s. The innovative minds have been able to crack the code (quite literally!) to bring you the most accurate distance travelled reports. Some of the features that this system includes are: 

• Route Creation: The system allows managers to set the frequency of their hits for receiving the employee’s locations. The more frequent these hits are, the higher would be the report’s accuracy. Managers can play back the route their employees travelled through. 
• Expense Calculator: A field business that rolls out employee allowances for the distance they cover needs to have accurate distance travelled reports. This closes any chance of employees adding extra distance to their total productivity to increase their pay. 
• Battery Optimisation: Battery is one aspect that plagues the entire field management industry as a whole. After all, mobile tracking renders useless if the phone’s battery dies. GPS tracking via TrackoField is different as it optimises battery consumption to deliver longer monitoring hours.
• Actionable Insights: What are smooth operations when they do not provide managers with any data to work with later on? This is why our field force management system collects data and presents it in the form of reports and insights. This data highlights any kind of inconsistency in the working hours of employees or their distance covered. 

How Can I Use Distance Travel Reports for my Fleet Business?

So as a business owner or sales manager, you might be wondering how the distance travelled reports can help your business, right? Here at TrackoField, we have received several such queries as well. Let us go through some of the issues that managers face during their field operations:

Problem 1: My business’ expenses are exceeding my estimates.

For business models that pay their employees for every task and the amount of distance they travel, this can be a very common issue. This is because the system only tracks a crow fly route of their employees. It can also leave a window for inaccurate distance travelled as the system chooses a random path to reflect out of all the possible routes from one point to another. 

But with an employee tracking system, managers do not have to worry about this issue. The system can help managers calculate their employee’s incentives and salary based on the accurate distance executives cover. Thus, predicting the business’s total expenditure and diminishing the discrepancies between the managers and employees.

Problem 2: How can I calculate the task density for easier planning? 

Managers who are entrusted with managing their employees’ tasks need to ensure that they are able to cover as many task locations in a  single trip as possible. To expand on task density, let us understand it through an example.

Two employees A and B, both travel a 20 km distance in one day to make door-to-door sales. But Employee A  only gets to visit 30 houses while employee B visits 40 houses.

This example shows us that the distance-to-task ratio varies in both cases. But to decipher this ratio and compare, it is important that managers have accurate reports on how much distance employees cover. Only then will they be able to ensure that their employees do not waste any time travelling to routes that are not as productive? 

Field force management software’s route distance calculator helps mitigate this issue very smoothly. They provide managers with accurate data that is actionable. Thus, they can compare reports and ensure that employees are always travelling to better and more productive areas.

Problem 3: My employees are facing several battery consumption issues with their mobile devices.

We have to agree, GPS tracking systems can be very battery-consuming. But this does not mean that field businesses can compromise their efficiency and productivity. So how can they obtain accurate distance travelled data and high battery optimisation?

Using field force management software sounds like good advice. But this is not the ultimate solution to the problem. A handful of systems in the market have been able to crack battery optimisation and route distance calculation, TrackoField being one of them.

This system helps managers get accurate reports and also preserve their employee’s mobile energy. This means that there is no interference with other operations that this system executes because of GPS tracking.

Why is Employee Tracking Software the Best Option for Businesses?

Our field force management system is a lot more than its location and distance reports. It is a complete toolkit that can help companies optimise all kinds of challenges that present themselves during operations. 

“Simplify the task. Continually look for faster, better, easier ways to get the job done.” – Brian Tracy

Some of the features that make this system suitable for any field business include:

Dynamic Solutions

The solutions that the field force management system has to offer can help businesses optimise all kinds of mismanagement of their business. They are able to micromanage their employees even from remote areas, promoting not just their professional growth, but also becoming time efficient. Some of these solutions include:

• Task Management: Managers get to access their executive’s task status in real-time. They can assign tasks remotely, saving the time previously spent on manual scheduling and sending out task instructions. Businesses do not need to face any kind of inconsistencies in data and can use reports to manage their expenses and productivity. 
• Attendance and Leave Management: Employees can request leaves right from the system instead of waiting for approval from various people manually. They also save travel time to their office with the help of verified attendance marking. As soon as they enter a task location, the system will mark them present.
• Expense Management: No more manual approval process at different stages before employees get reimbursed for their work-related expenses. All they have to do is put the expense on the application with the proof. Managers can also use these solutions to put a cap on employee expenses.
• Employee Tracking: The system helps managers track the real-time location of their employees. They can use this information to not only assign tasks accurately but also ensure low time theft. Employees cannot use their working hours for leisure with the help of this system.

Reports and Records

Field force management software helps managers not only via automation but also with the help of data. Productivity reports enable them to see what is causing the team/specific employee to underperform. Training programs designed based on this data can be more helpful and hold the ability to boost business productivity in general. 

Accurate distance travelled reports can help managers decide the incentives for their employees. This promotes healthy competition between executives and boosts their productivity as a whole.

Communication Tools

The tools that employee management software provides can boost the ways that managers communicate with their employees. Not only does this make the task completion process a lot simpler for both these parties, but can also help declutter their operations. Some of the tools that are useful for effective communication are:

• In-built Chatboxes: The system eliminates the need for any third party communication applications. Managers and employees can talk to each other using the chat boxes in the field force management system. This makes doubt solving easier and also strengthens team bonding. 
• Custom Fields and Forms: For accuracy in communicating clients’ messages with the managers, the company can decide to use custom forms. By choosing the kind of question to ask the customer, or get reviews for their service.

Coming to an End

With accuracy being the primary goal for optimisation, why are you planning to settle for software that gives you an estimate at best? Distance travelled reports with TrackoField will never disappoint! It will help you plan your tasks according to the distance your employees cover, ensuring correct productivity calculation!

But that is where the benefits of using good field force management software begin. With several solutions aiming to optimise your field operations, there is no room for inconsistencies.