Keeping track of mileage is one of those things that can be difficult to do. Years ago I found recording mileage so painful that I didn’t even claim business mileage on my tax return. Later I realized that was stupid because the standard business mileage rate was over $.50 per mile and all those business miles add up to a fair deduction.
In early 2015 a client told me about MileIQ and it’s made keeping track of my mileage so much easier! It’s an app that you download on your phone and it automatically tracks your miles driven. Once the miles are recorded it’s easy to classify them as a business, personal, medical, etc. I find it easier to do the classification from the web interface and I add in notes so I know what I was doing (should I ever get audited). It’s also easy to delete out trips that you don’t want in there – such as riding with a friend, taking Uber, etc.
You have the ability to easily run reports which are emailed to you as a CSV file. In addition to the reporting, there are a number of other items you can customize so be sure to check out the settings once you get your account set-up.
I’m also a Freshbooks user (it’s one of my favorite tools for saving money on Paypal fees!) and I was delighted to discover that I can send my business mileage over to Freshbooks as well. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that the notes I added to my drives also carried over to Freshbooks.
MileIQ does have a free version but I had to upgrade to a paid plan (which is fairly inexpensive and it more than pays for itself). Using my referral link will give you 20% off an annual subscription.
The start of the year is the perfect time to get MileIQ set up and you’ll be grateful your mileage is being taken care of! Are there other mileage tracking apps you’ve used? Let me know in the comments.
