Expense management has evolved rapidly in recent years, with new tools and AI solutions making headlines. Yet for many fleet businesses, controlling, tracking, and reconciling expenses is still a major challenge.
At Coast, after speaking to hundreds of businesses in construction, trades, and transportation, we’ve noticed that many companies are still stuck using old-school methods: corporate cards, spreadsheets, and endless emails.
To get a clearer picture, we surveyed 95 executives across the industry. We also asked our customers how their approach has changed since adopting Coast as their expense management solution.
We’ve built this report to help you benchmark your current expense management processes, see how you stack up against industry peers, and discover practical insights from others who have made successful changes. Whether you’re actively looking for ways to improve or simply curious about how others are managing their expenses, this report provides valuable context and guidance.
Methodology
In May 2025, Coast surveyed 95 fleet business executives, including business owners, CEOs, and CFOs, across the United States.
Companies surveyed range from construction, trades or transportation businesses, with fleet sizes between 10 to 150 vehicles.
Have fleet businesses adopted expense management tools?
Only 10% of the businesses we surveyed use expense management tools to handle expenses. That leaves a massive 90% still using corporate cards combined with manual spreadsheets and paperwork.
So why is the adoption of expense management tools so limited for fleet businesses?
While expense management adoption for small businesses across industries is in the range of 39 to 47 percent according to recent studies, fleet businesses have unique challenges. Because their employees and drivers are in the field, and not just in the office, expenses vary widely, from fuel to vehicle repairs. This often means juggling multiple payment methods and tools and having ad-hoc processes.
Unfortunately, most expense solutions out there aren’t built to handle these complexities. They’re typically geared toward tech companies or big corporations, leaving fleets behind.
Are expense reports still a common solution to manage employee expenses?
53% of fleet businesses still rely on expense reports to manage their employee expenses.
Why are expense reports still so common? Because it’s a proven process, and that’s how businesses have always approached employee expenses.
But there’s a real cost: more than half (52%) said their employees spend over 30 minutes each month filling out these reports. When you multiply this by every employee, that’s hours and hours of wasted productivity each month.
How many receipts does finance manage to collect?
Receipt management is another big hassle. About 57% of companies lose track of at least 20% of their receipts on a monthly basis. This usually happens because employees collect paper receipts and submit them later, making it easy to lose or forget them. Missing receipts mean compliance gaps and potential trouble with taxes or audits.
How many days does it take fleet businesses to close their books?
Reconciling transactions and closing the books every month can be a time-consuming task for finance teams.
In addition to the pain around receipt management, nearly 70% of businesses still manually enter or export transaction data into their accounting systems, and only about a quarter have automated integrations. This lack of integration means finance teams spend extra time sorting through data instead of working on more important financial planning.
Closing the books isn’t quick either. On average, fleet businesses manage to finish their month-end process in 5 days. 44% can wrap things up within three days, but for 30% of businesses, it can drag out for over a week, valuable time that could be spent on improving your business.
Do employees follow their company’s expense policy?
Many businesses are unsure if employees always follow spending guidelines. 52% said they trust their employees respect their expense policies, but nearly the other half weren’t as confident.
And with good reason: 70% have found expenses outside their policies, and about one in four deal with this every month.
These issues often happen because spending guidelines are shared only through written expense policies or emails, relying on employees’ goodwill rather than proactive controls. Most employees mean well, but mistakes happen, and outdated systems don’t help.
It’s Time for Better Expense Management
Fleet businesses in construction, transportation, and trades have complex, unique needs, and traditional expense management solutions just haven’t kept up. Relying on manual processes or outdated systems leads to wasted time, compliance headaches, and frustrated employees.
Coast is built differently. We’ve designed our tools specifically for fleet businesses, giving you modern, intuitive solutions that make expense management simple and secure.
In the same survey, we asked Coast customers how they manage their expenses now and how much time and money they save as a result:
- 1.5 days saved on the month-end close
- 8 hours of finance work saved per month on average
- +19% of receipts captured
- 10% saved on their corporate card spend on average
- +44% confidence in expense policy compliance
You and your team deserve tools that work as hard as you do. With Coast, expense management becomes one less thing to worry about, so that you can focus on running your fleet, supporting your team, and driving growth.
Ready to take the next step? See how Coast can help you better manage your expenses.
