Whiteboard: Mileage and Expense Tracking

Here's a simple way to track mileage as an expense. And it should be considered an expense, because driving costs your company money. It's like buying something, and as such is tax deductible like any other expense. You'll see mileage records in ST alongside other expenses. Those mileage records are assigned to projects and clients just like any other expense, and can be included on invoices.

Consulting Essentials

"I put on about 2k miles a year"
"That's over a thousand bucks!"

Scroll down for the video.

Mileage is almost always associated with a certain vehicle. You may drive multiple vehicles, so picking one from the list simplifies input. It causes the last odometer reading to pop into the "Start" field. You simply enter the distance or ending odometer reading. Now it's available for the next time you drive.

It turns out there is also an expense template feature in the timesheet especially for mileage. You can create a template that defines trips you take frequently. That trip now shows up in your timesheet. Just enter the number of miles, and your taxable amount is automatically computed based on the government taxable rate.

So whether you're using the smartphone time and expense app, or the timesheet expense template, you have nice solutions for mileage tracking. Scroll down for a deeper discussion.

Here's another expense video to help.

What is that timesheet expense template mentioned above?

Hey, you mentioned some timesheet thing above the video. What is that?

Here's what it is: You can enter expense quantities into the ST timesheet. So, in addition to entering hours into the timesheet, you can enter expenses. But how does that work? Expenses have a lot more fields than just one. How do you enter them all at once? Easy. With expense templates.  There's where the quantity thing comes in.

In the ST timesheet, you choose which (predefined) expenses you want to enter. Now enter a quantity for each expense. Here's a timesheet expense template video that shows how. That number of expenses will be added to your log. You can run reports like any other expense.

"Our expenses repeat a lot, so templates are good"

The same works for mileage. You can enter the quantity for a frequently used mileage template, and that number of expenses are added. Each one represents a mileage segment, and has an expense amount which you can write off on your taxes.

Does it matter if I use the smartphone or desktop?

No, you can enter expenses on both platforms. The expenses will end up on both systems. That is because of the smartphone bidirectional synchronization. In other words, expenses go up to the desktop, and desktop expenses go down to the smartphone. Sync does that.

"Time and expenses and mileage"
"Nice!"

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