Tony Yankovich, senior manager for the consulting company Mercury Associates Inc., presented a session at GFX on Tuesday, June 11 about fleet audits and reviews.

Yankovich, who audits and conducts reviews for fleets across the nation, said some of the main reasons why an operation is audited are: to reduce costs, to improve efficiencies, to compare an organization to others across the country, and because of a perception of fraud.

Fleet organizations that are candidates for an audit are those with high costs, low productivity, inventory shrinkage, undocumented processes and practices, lack of management reports, and/or low utilization.

If a fleet is being audited, Yankovich urges public agencies to use subject-matter experts, and that fleets take advantage of the opportunity to educate upper management and elected officials and to identify a project manager. During the audit, he recommended that fleet managers ask for in-process reviews, which will allow them to review and dispute any incorrect findings before the final report. When responding to an audit, he said fleet managers should provide responses with evidence and facts and to get as many people to review it as possible.

Finally, Yankovich said the ways to avoid an audit are: tracking key performance indicators (KPIs), developing and updating policies and procedures for all aspects and functions of an organization, using a robust fleet management information system, right-sizing, proactive reporting, and exceeding customer expectations.