A new software tool is helping Volkswagen Financial Services to automatically authorise more online fleet service and maintenance transactions with dealers.

Part of epyx’s 1link Service Network e-commerce platform, the tool alerts dealers whenever they attempt to obtain authorisation for a standard job at a higher price than previously agreed, allowing them to adjust the amount and resubmit.

Normally, these jobs would be rejected by the platform and would trigger a correspondence or call to resolve the issue, adding to the time taken and adding to the administration for both dealer and fleet.

Ray Tallis, maintenance service manager at Volkswagen Financial Services, said: “We have been using 1link Service Network for many years for the processing of our service and maintenance transactions, and one of our ongoing targets is to drive automatic authorisation levels ever higher.

“The new tool has enabled us to increase them by about 8-9%, which means a substantial reduction in the amount of rejected authorisations with which we have to deal. This saves time and administration and is something that benefits everyone in the supply chain as a result – the dealer, the driver and ourselves.”

David Wallace, sales and business development director at epyx, added: “This is one of those simple ideas that is proving very effective in use. Volkswagen Financial Services are one of the first to adopt the tool and we expect to see other fleets follow suit.”