That's the problem with habits: hard to start, and hard to stop.
I got this here fancy iphone - does dictation, memos, everything, and I use every feature I can.
And yet I got me a spiral bound 8 x 11 notebook that gets filled up and stacked on the shelf with the others and then the next and the next. It goes everywhere with me.
My biggest problem with QB self employed was I could only access it from my phone.
I have since switched to mileIQ it runs on my tablet which stays in my vehicle and automatically logs my trips.
Then at the end of the day I categorize them as business or personal and add any necessary details to the trips.
I can also access it from my computer and get all the same functionality.
I found QB didn't capture all my trips. For the $50 a year I've been very happy with mileIQ as a few missed trips can easily pay for the price of the software.
-logs the drives under the appropriate vehicle that I am driving based on connecting to the vehicles Bluetooth
-sends a notification at the end of the drive asking me to categorize it (not just personal/business, but also purpose as in customer visit, work site, errands/supplies)
- if I drive somewhere three times it will ask if I want to automatically log that same drive from now on. This way I only have to categorize the first few trips to a new work site. After that it knows how to log the drive and doesn't ask me to categorize it
It is also easy to pause tracking, so if you are on a vacation it won't pester you to log your trips. You can also set it up to only log trips during certain hours of the day.
I used to manually log my travel. I am sure I screwed myself over by missing countless trips. I don't even have to think about it this way.
I believe it was MileIQ I tried a while back, after seeing a few recommendations here. Didn't like it.
Any delay, such as construction, hitting a drive-through or even an extra-long traffic light would trigger a trip end/new trip. Pita sorting them out. Driving in the boonies, with wi-fi and GPS maybe available or maybe not, accuracy was pathetic.
MileIQ will allow you to link trips together to make one big one so say you stop for lunch and don't want to have to put one trip down as gone to lunch then the next as visit customer you can link the two trips and just mark them visit customer.
I haven't had the issue of construction or anything causing additional trips
I've been using one of these books forever. I write down the starting mileage (usually the same as the previous day's ending mileage), ending mileage, trip mileage, business purpose if necessary and the hours that I worked that day.
There might be a better way but old habits die hard. Not uncommon for my wife to here me come home, come out and find me sitting in my truck counting with my fingers.
Personally i couldnt even imaging remembering to log miles accurately. I am constantly in and out of my vehicles and half of the time and I am trying to balance five different things at a time while getting in and out plus most of my trips would be considered “gray area“ of whether the trip was personal or business
That's why I love mileIQ. I just let my tablet do the logging then when I get to a computer that night it has all my trips and I mark them personal or business and add any required details.
No need for me to remember to do anything really if I go a couple days without categorizing I just look back at my calendar to see where I was.
I highly recommend checking out the free version it's probably the best 80$ I spend in a year in terms of making me money.
I write down the odometer reading on Jan 1st and Dec 31.
Total up all my vehicle expenses for the year and multiply by business % use.
The receipts would allow me to recreate my driving history for the whole year if need be.
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