Headlight becomes your single source of truth for which driver is assigned to which vehicle.
This guide walks you through the key actions for maintaining an accurate and up-to-date fleet overview. Maintaining your fleet overview is important, as it feeds into payroll (Benefit-in-Kind), and is your source for e.g. invoice control.
Knowing how to manually perform updates is therefore important in general, though it is particular useful for Headlight.Ops users, and Headlight.Flow users that have finished data validation, but where onboarding is still ongoing and therefore Driver Switch Workflows are not yet in use.
When does Benefit-In-Kind applies?
In Headlight, there are two main conditions for when Benefit -In-Kind applies:
- The vehicle should be linked to the employee .
- The vehicle should have status “driving”.
Therefore, this article shows you (1) how to link vehicles and drivers, and when to link/unlink drivers, and (2) how to update statusses.
Vehicle-Driver Assignments: Introduction
Initial match vs subsequent changes
When a vehicle is imported via supplier reports in Headlight for the first time, the system automatically matches it to an employee based on the driver name found in the leasing company’s report. Employee numbers are often not included in these reports, so the name is used as the primary identifier for this one-time initial connection.
Once this initial link has been established, Headlight becomes the master of the vehicle-driver relationship. From that point forward, any driver name changes reported by the leasing company in a subsequent reports, will not automatically update the assignment in Headlight.
Headlight should reflect the true status of your fleet in terms of vehicle-driver relations, as they translate in payroll-impacts (Benefit-In-Kind).
To make sure (outdated) leaser reports cannot update your driver-vehicle relations, we need to check the “Block Driver Switches” in the Fleet data settings.
Vehicle-Driver Assignments: Managing Driver Switches
When one employee hands over a vehicle to another employee, we need to update the assignment in Headlight to reflect the new driver.
When to (un)link, and when not
When:
- An active vehicle that was previously “parked” (available) is now used by a driver.
- An active vehicle, that will remain active (used for an upcoming new colleague, for instance) is no longer used by an employee, because the employee has e.g. taken possession of his/her new company car.
When not:
- A vehicle that is end-of-contract is being returned to the leasing company. Here, the status of the vehicle should be put to “retour” or “exited”, which makes that the second condition for Benefit-In-Kind is no longer met.
- A vehicle that is currently being repaired, and a replacement vehicle is currently in use. For the replacement vehicle, you should toggle the setting to exclude this vehicle for BIK.
Automatic follow-up actions
After you have processed a driver switch, Headlight.Flow users can automatically notify the leasing company so they can update their own systems accordingly. Headlight is leading: the leasing company follows. See our articles on Workflow triggers.
Updating Vehicle Statuses
Introduction on Vehicle Statusses in Headlight
There are 5 vehicle statuses in Headlight:
- Order validation: The vehicle is ordered via Headlight, but not yet confirmed by the leasing company
- Ordered: The vehicle is ordered and is appearing in the leasing company reports
- Driving: The vehicle (contract) is active and the vehicle is being invoiced
- Retour: The vehicle is returned, but administration (e.g. final invoicing, expertise) is still ongoing.
- Exited: The vehicle is has completely left the fleet and all administration has been finished.
Important Notes:
- Chronology Matters: Updates from the leasing company are only taken into account if they follow the correct sequence: order-validation → ordered → driving → retour → exited.
- Overriding Incorrect Updates: If there’s a discrepancy with the leasing company’s records, Headlight’s status will prevail to maintain accurate vehicle history.
- BIK Reporting: As mentioned, the Benefit In Kind (VAA) is charged for any period a vehicle is in “driving” status and is associated with a driver.
Note: Leaser reports can only move statuses forward (e.g., Ordered → Driving), not backward.
Also see this article.
