Deanna Shimota (00:00:05) - Welcome to The HR Tech Spotlight podcast. I'm Deanna Shimota, CEO of GrowthMode Marketing. The HR technology market is crowded, and we know it can be hard to find the best software solutions for your business in the sea of sameness. On this podcast, we shine a spotlight on some of the best up-and-coming technology options out there. Check it out if you are interested in learning about new, innovative solutions available in the market. And if you are with an HR tech company and interested in being considered for a guest spot. Stay tuned for details at the end of the show. Hello! Today we are shining a spotlight on Cardata, a solution that provides cost-effective and accurate ways to reimburse employees for using their personal vehicles for work. The Cardata suite includes reimbursement software, IRS-compliant tax-free programs, and business intelligence tools. Here to talk about the technology is the president of Cardata, Michael Levine. Michael, thank you for joining me on the HR Tech Spotlight today.
Michael Levine (00:01:11) - My pleasure. Happy to be here, Deanna.
Deanna Shimota (00:01:13) - Great. So let's start off. Why don't you tell us about your background in the HR tech space?
Michael Levine (00:01:19) - Sure. Yeah. So I have been leading credit card. It's card data. I say data, but I've been leading Cardata for about just over three years now. So I've been at the helm of the business. We've seen some really nice growth. Since when? Since my partner and I took over operations. And, you know, that's the extent of my HR experience. I haven't experienced prior to that and just vertical software and just, you know, SaaS as a general category. But this would be my first go around in HR tech. And I've come to really love the space. And I think there's some really exciting problems we solve. You know prior to that I sort of cut my teeth in banking and, and investment and private equity. And then ultimately my partner and I were just very, very compelled by the Cardata story, what they were offering to the market, the problems they were solving.
Michael Levine (00:02:06) - And, you know, we really built an investment thesis around the company and have since been at the helm and we've seen some really good success.
Deanna Shimota (00:02:14) - So I know before we hit record, you were talking about how you and your business partner had purchased Cardata and you weren't the founders, but you've, you know, found that it was worth looking into and building up this company more. Tell us a little bit about what made you decide to take that leap.
Michael Levine (00:02:33) - Yeah, sure. So I think what we do is certainly a very niche space, right. Like IRS-compliant reimbursement programs are not what people are out there talking about. And I think a lot of the times no one's at their googling that you sort of we have to bring the solution to them. Right. So I was incredibly intrigued by the niche market, and I think it was obvious we were solving a real problem. And when I say that, what I mean is two things. One is we had some very incredible customers on our roster, which for the company of its size was incredibly impressive blue-chip public companies, it was fantastic.
Michael Levine (00:03:12) - And number two is when we did case studies and ROI analyses. The ROI is very, very compelling. When you build these programs correctly. There are some very tax-inefficient ways, very expensive ways. There are certainly ways to get your employees a lot more money and a lot more bang for your buck in reimbursement. And a lot of people just aren't aware of those solutions. So I would say really, really attractive customer base, very, very attractive, compelling ROI. And we were solving a real problem. And I mean, thirdly, which is important, is speaking with customers of card data. They were very happy with the solution and thought they solved a real problem.
Deanna Shimota (00:03:51) - So let's talk a bit about what Cardata actually does for employers.
Michael Levine (00:03:57) - Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I'll keep it sort of high level, but we are effectively an outsourced reimbursement program. Right. So there's many ways to, you know, reimburse or give your employees cars to do their job. Right.
Michael Levine (00:04:12) - You can either give them a fleet or you can reimburse them for the use of their own car. So we play in that market where we're helping companies provide reimbursement to drivers bringing their own car to work. And within that, there's a whole slew of ways you can do it. What we help you do is effectively you outsource your management of it. We help you come up with rates for what you should pay your drivers, and we help you optimize for tax. And we provide some technology solutions around that. There's a mileage tracking app. There is a like sort of a reporting center, and we actually facilitate the payments to the drivers similar to a payroll company. So we're a very tax-efficient payroll solution for mileage. That's the best and simplest way to think about us. There's some more nuances obviously, but that's conceptually what we do.
Deanna Shimota (00:04:59) - And what would you say differentiates Cardata in the market from any other potential vendors that are out there?
Michael Levine (00:05:06) - Yeah. So we like to pride ourselves in being the most hands-on program manager in the industry.
Michael Levine (00:05:15) - Right? I think there's always a push in software for, you know, you hear product-led growth promotion, you know, scalable SaaS like, you know, self-service. You hear all those terms and like, yes, they're all important to us. But at the end of the day, I think we've really come to appreciate that one size does not fit all for these solutions. There's a lot of nuances. They all run differently. It is very hard to template size our product. We do the best we can, but it's not possible. So we work very closely with our customers. I like to say we co-own the program, right? We don't just give them a tool to own it themselves. We like to really assume a lot of management over the program. Right? That can be as detailed as, you know, we'll add and delete users for you. We'll build and we'll build it integration with your whole system. Like there's a lot of ways to do it, but we like to be, I would say, consultative and really get our arms around the program with our customers.
Michael Levine (00:06:09) - Right. Like be the ones the drivers are coming to like and really help manage the program, make recommendations and not just be like, here's a tool like, you know, good luck. I think that's where we really shine is our support and service. And just like ownership of the program and shared accountability over the program, if it's not going well, you know, it's not just on you that's on us too. Right? And I think that's different from a lot of, you know, pure SaaS offerings. Whereas like, hey, if you guys, I've seen many, many SaaS offerings fail because like, there's just not a lot of buy in on the tool itself, whereas we take full accountability when there's not buying. Right. That's on us as much as you. Full accounting is not the right word. There's obviously extenuating circumstances, but we really want to dig in and own that program with you.
Deanna Shimota (00:06:54) - And what would you say, Michael is a big challenge or a problem that you see facing employers when it comes to, you know, managing reimbursements to employees for using their vehicles?
Michael Levine (00:07:09) - Yeah.
Michael Levine (00:07:09) - There's. I would say the biggest challenge, at least if you've already decided you're going to reimburse, I'd say it's like it's same with compensation. Like it's really hard to standardize these programs across many geographies, right? There's always edge cases, right? Like let's say you're a multinational corporation. You operate in 20 states and within those states, five cities, whatever it may be. How are you going to practically reimburse everyone? Fairly. Right. Like, I mean, it's no secret cost of car ownership is different in different states. And, you know, within let's use the state of Michigan, right. Within Detroit, it's far more expensive than other cities, right? So even within a state, are you going to fairly reimburse for, you know, changes in costs? Right. So one, I think the problem we solve is we have rates for you, right? We use employee data, we use their zip code, we know where they live. And we build a program around like, you know, where their geography is.
Michael Levine (00:08:10) - I mean, you know, it's obviously based on some assumptions and like, it's never perfect or it's impossible to be perfect there, but it's fair and it's reasonable and it's defensible. So that's one problem is how do you fairly inaccurately reimburse everyone you know. Secondly is, you know, how do you track mileage? We can solve for that problem. And I would say, you know, third would be how do you make sure the drivers whole because a big problem people have is because they're not aware of tools or they're just on a simple method. They're typically paying like a taxable car allowance. Right. Like, you know, John is driving. We don't even know how much John is driving. He may not actually even be driving, but we're going to give him $700 a month of an allowance. The problem is, is that gets fully taxed. So you don't actually see that if you track your miles and do it right, like that can be tax-free. So there's ways to either help the company save on the tax-based.
Michael Levine (00:09:02) - You can pass it on to the driver. You can share in the savings. There's a slew of ways you can do this. A fourth sort of secret benefit that I think a lot of people don't appreciate. So we actually check every driver's insurance documents. So there's a bit of a risk compliance element to our product too. So we make sure that you set your company parameters around how much insurance your drivers need to have and will actually take that off your plate of checking those documents for you.
Deanna Shimota (00:09:27) - That's so interesting. It makes me think my husband is actually an outside sales rep and is territories regional, so he has to get in his car every day and drive around town and submit his mileage. And it makes me wonder how the fortune 500 company that he works for actually manages those type of things, because I think it's a bit of a hassle for him.
Michael Levine (00:09:47) - Yeah. Yes, there's so many ways that that it can be done. But it's a good point, right? It's not it's not a well-known problem.
Michael Levine (00:09:56) - Some people just don't know what's a better solution. They don't know like companies are just unaware of the best way to do it. You know, drivers are sort of none the wiser. Like, you know, a lot of them just go in and throw their miles and concur. But like that itself is clunky. So there's a lot of there's a lot of good ways to do it.
Deanna Shimota (00:10:12) - What is the end-user experience like for the employees that are going into your system and logging information?
Michael Levine (00:10:20) - Let me think about how to answer that one. I mean, I'd like to think it's simple, right? Like you don't have to submit insurance that often. You really just have to track your miles and give us your car-like information. So, like, you know, it should be fairly simple, but like, tracking your mileage is always something that it's always difficult to explain. Some people are like, okay with it. Some people have privacy concerns. Right? Like, so like I would say that's a big problem we face is like, you know, there's always that I don't want to be tracked.
Michael Levine (00:10:44) - Right. So that's just a beast of its own. But I would like to think it's fairly simple. You know, I think the biggest thing, you know, where we where we face challenges certainly are like, if someone's, you know, fleet car's been taken away and they moved to our reimbursement solution, but that's more of a like a change management problem, more of a Cardata solution problem. Like that's just like, you know, company wants to save costs. They're going to get a fleet, they'll move to reimbursement and go to Cardata or one of our competitors. And that's always a big challenge of like, I've lost my fleet car, right. That's a benefit I had. Now I don't have it. I have to get my own car. But like, there's no way I can solve for that problem. That's just not know that you best software solution in the world will not solve for that problem. Like the only solution is to pay them a lot, right? And that power I don't have, I can't say like we can provide rates, but like ultimately, it's the company and the employer's decision on am I going to pay a lot or I'm going to pay a little, right.
Michael Levine (00:11:42) - And like that's always something out of our control.
Deanna Shimota (00:11:46) - Well, and I think that's a really good point. You know, a lot of times in the air space we're looking at the employee experience. Obviously Cardata provides the tools to be able to manage these types of things, but it's up to the company to determine like what are fair policies and especially if they're doing things like taking away a car that someone got to use and fill up for gas for free. And now you have to use your own vehicle. You know, there's emotions that come along with that when you're an employee. And certainly they're not looking at it from the same perspective as an employer.
Michael Levine (00:12:20) - Yeah, and that's a really good call out. I'm sure this is not like we're not alone in HR tech and dealing with that problem. The lines get blurred for sure. Right. Of yeah. You know, think about changing benefits, changing payroll provider, changing anything. Right. It's. You know, there's always change management.
Michael Levine (00:12:40) - There's always something they liked about the last provider and then they didn't like. And there's just a, it's sometimes the lines are blurred on like who is making the change. Right. And you know like you know, if an employee base is vehemently against being tracked and they're never going to like our program, right. They're just not right. But like, that's not really our decision. Right? Like that's we're just a tool to enable it. But certainly there and that's why going back to my answer. But we need to co-own it. It's like we really clearly want companies to understand what they're signing up for and what they're getting into. And typically they know and they understand what's going on. Right. But like that's always going to be a challenge for us is change management.
Deanna Shimota (00:13:22) - Yeah. Well and I imagine having worked with many organizations, you've seen some of the mistakes some companies have made and you've seen what have gone well. So you can advise new clients when they come on board, like, hey, here's the things you guys probably want to think about as you're rolling this out to your team.
Michael Levine (00:13:38) - For sure 100%. We know the pitfalls in that. I'd say the common like it's easy to like if we're giving money back to the employee that that's an easy one, right? If you're already on a reimbursement model, that's an easy one, right? If you're you know, I think it's moving from fleet to reimbursement. That and can be challenging. But I think when you do an ROI analysis and really, you know. Get down to the brass tacks savings. Like it's kind of a no brainer. And you don't have to carry all these assets on your on your balance sheet. So but you know, those are those are optimizing for different problems. But yes, we can certainly help. And I think going back I say this again, but it's very important. It's like when you when you're standing arm in arm with those companies really helping push the change. That's good. When I feel like they push it too much on us to to drive it, they have to buy into what we're doing and not just throw it sort of over the fence at like, this is all Cardenas problem now.
Michael Levine (00:14:33) - And when we get really good buy-in from the company that like, hey, we want to do this, we're totally fine with all of this. We're bought in like the success is much higher.
Deanna Shimota (00:14:42) - That makes sense. What type of companies are the perfect fit for car data?
Michael Levine (00:14:48) - And I would say I mean, obviously you've made the decision that your preference is to reimburse, right? You know, if you're a fleet company and you're hellbent on keeping that fleet car, like, not not a great fit, right? I think if you have made the decision that you're set for reimbursement model, you're you're really good fit for us and we're a good fit for you. We're fairly industry-agnostic. We can deal with any vertical. We've got construction, we've got health care, we've got med device, you know, got food and beverage. Right. So industry agnostic, if you've got drivers on the road driving for work that need to get paid, you're a good fit. We tend to deal with like larger customers.
Michael Levine (00:15:25) - So like, you know, 50 plus drivers in a business maybe 100 plus is our sweet spot. You know, we've got certainly some companies with 2000 plus drivers, but anywhere from like let's say 100 drivers to, you know, unlimited is really a good sweet spot for us. You know, we're not the lowest cost provider because we lead with service. So if you're looking for, you know, if you're a smaller company and you're really looking for the lowest cost provider, like that's probably not us. We're not the highest price out there. But, you know, I think a company with some scale with, let's say 100 to 100 plus drivers, a really good fit for us.
Deanna Shimota (00:15:59) - And can you tell us a little bit about the impact that you have seen? Organizations that work with Cardataexperience, like what's the ROI, you know, what are the benefits that they're seeing as an organization when they implement a solution like this?
Michael Levine (00:16:14) - Yeah, I think the you know. I know we don't talk to many customers that say that their strength is internal fleet management, like we'll call it fleet management.
Michael Levine (00:16:23) - Right. Like that's something you want to outsource if there's a lot of hassle. Right. So, you know, I would say we have built really good integrations with companies so they don't have to really enter data in our system. So like, you know, we've had some customers that come over and we fully automate, you know, user onboarding and user partitioning in our platform. We've seen ROI upwards of, you know, this is sort of in the customer's control. So like I can't really like plea like I can't really sell the dream of great ROI because if you don't want to, you know, if you're you really want to pay high rates, I can't really get you a compelling ROI. So there's a bit of a work together on that ROI. We've seen upwards of, you know, 300%, which sounds crazy, but it's really not right. Because I'll give you a good example. You know, if you're paying like, say $1,000 a month taxable and let's say the user or the driver gets 750 after tax, right.
Michael Levine (00:17:16) - If we can go out and give the driver 750 tax-free, you've just saved 25% on your reimbursement. And our costs are way lower than 250 bucks a month. Right. So you really when you crack the nut on the system and what's happening, it's not impossible to get insane ROI. Right. And I've done ROI analysis for companies where I'm like, you can break even with our fees and give every driver 100 bucks more a month, like, why wouldn't you do that? Right? So there are certainly opportunities where, like, I can get you break even and you're just going to give everyone more money and we're just going to arbitrage the tax. So we've seen some really, really compelling, you know, I've worked with a customer who couldn't afford to get 100 drivers reimbursed or something. I forget the number. They moved to our program. We saved the tax on, like let's say 400 drivers, and we actually brought 100 extra drivers on the program with the savings. Right? So and they were not getting paid at all for the use of their car.
Michael Levine (00:18:21) - So those are certain things I've seen happen. That's a rare case. But like certainly there's things we can do.
Deanna Shimota (00:18:30) - That's great. So what is your future vision for car data?
Michael Levine (00:18:35) - I think. Good question. I mean, obviously I want to grow and do more with what we do, solve more problems for more customers. Would be my like very, very simple answer. You know, to be a bit more specific, I really want to make our product better. I want to make our app better. I want to make our reporting better. I want to make everything better, and I want to just bring more value to the people using the software. Right? Offer more products that really helped them, not because they're cool and our team thinks they're cool, right? Like because they really add value. Like, how do we become more of a platform for your administration that could be integration, that could be more more products? I think there's something in the sustainability space which I think is a really hot topic.
Michael Levine (00:19:15) - You know, we know how much all your employees are driving. We know what cars they drive, right? Like, why can't we help with trying to track your emissions, things like that. So there's a lot of cool things we can do. But I think ultimately, you know, I want to do what we're doing with more customers and I want to add more value to the customers I have and I bring on. Speak. I think it's a vague answer, but I think that's what you're looking for.
Deanna Shimota (00:19:37) - No, no, it's it's great. And, you know, speaking of customers, what are the things that you would recommend someone who's considering purchasing this type of technology take into consideration as they evaluate the options?
Michael Levine (00:19:51) - Yeah, it's a great question. So I think as I said, right. I think you need to be all in on the reimbursement model. Right. Like there is still a big sector of the market that likes fleet and has no interest in moving away. Right. If that's your mandate or like your sort of mentality, you're probably kicking tires.
Michael Levine (00:20:11) - I don't I don't really think like it's a good fit. If you're really genuinely interested in moving to a reimbursement model, you know, letting employees build equity in their own cars, really transitioning away like where a good fit. Once you've made that decision, I think, you know, there's a lot of vendors out there, right? There's a lot of a lot of people you can go with. I think you have to understand, like really ask yourself what you want to optimize for, right? The best technology, the most service, like, because there's a lot of great companies in our space and they do things very differently. You know, if you're just like, I want the cheapest solution out there, like there are solutions out there that won't really help you manage the program, but they're really cheap like that exists. Right? So I think really trying to understand where you fall on the spectrum of like, I want cheap technology or like high, high touch service, like that's also a consideration, right? Because certainly you have to pay for high-tech service in any sort of industry.
Michael Levine (00:21:06) - That's that's like not a secret.
Deanna Shimota (00:21:09) - What final thoughts do you want to leave our audience with today?
Michael Levine (00:21:13) - Yeah, I think look, I think we talked about change management. I think it doesn't it's not always bad. We've got a lot of success stories. I think once you're in a reimbursement model, it's really not that hard. I think we can add a lot of value for customers, you know, helping you fair rates across many geographies, technology solution. And I think, you know, at the core, I think there's really great people at Core Data as well that just I think we get a lot of great feedback in the market that our sales reps actually care to solve the problem. And they're not just shoving software down your throat. Right? I think that's important, right? AI because we don't want to take on customers that feel like they have buyer's remorse or weren't clearly told something in the sales process. So, you know, I think ultimately what really sort of we take pride in is.
Michael Levine (00:21:57) - Just how much we genuinely care. We want these programs to be successful. We're not just slinging software. That's not really our mandate. We turn down deals all the time that we don't think are good fits. So I think that's a really important thing I'd like to leave the audience with is just, you know, we really care about making this successful for you all. And I and I think that's that's really at the core of our values.
Deanna Shimota (00:22:17) - I love that. So where can our listeners go to learn more about car data?
Michael Levine (00:22:22) - Yeah. Our website Carrico a lot of good information and we've got a really great content writing team. There's a lot of fantastic content on what we do, why you should choose us. You know, some interesting trends in the market. Follow us on social post a lot on LinkedIn. So just the traditional place, LinkedIn, our website, a lot of good stuff. We've got some podcasts. Our HR leader runs a podcast. Our product marketing manager is fantastic. Her name's Ali, she runs a podcast and she's just great to listen to.
Michael Levine (00:22:48) - So, you know any just traditional car data, social channel. I think you'll get some good information.
Deanna Shimota (00:22:53) - Great. Thanks so much for being on the show, Michael. It was great to learn about Cardataand we will be sure to include some links in the show notes so people can connect with Michael and check out the company.
Michael Levine (00:23:06) - Thank you so much. It was a pleasure to be on.
Deanna Shimota (00:23:13) - Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Tech Spotlight podcast, where we showcase some of the.
Deanna Shimota (00:23:19) - Best up-and-coming HR technology options in the market. If you are an HR tech company leader who would like to be. For a guest spot on this program. Please contact me via GrowthModeMarketing.Com. Or reach out to me Deanna Shimota on LinkedIn. And if you found this show informative, subscribe. Connect with us on social media and leave a review.
Deanna Shimota (00:23:42) - This is Deanna with GrowthMode Marketing signing off. Thanks for listening. We hope you'll tune in again next time.