MileIQ: A Better Way to Track Mileage

We all know mileage is valuable, but tracking it throughout the year can be a real hassle and something we easily forget to do. Earlier this year I discovered an app, MileIQ, that has completely removed this hassle for me.

MileIQ is an app that uses your phone’s GPS to track mileage. All you have to do is classify each trip as business or personal (you can get more granular than that in your classification, but that’s the basic level). To give an example of further classifying drives, I have mine set up so that once I classify a trip as Business, I have business sub categories that I can use to further classify the drive such as “meeting”, “view a property”, “123 Main St. - Maintenance/PM”, “supply run”. etc. This helps me see where I’m spending much of my driving time and what for.

Since we’re creatures of habit, you most likely have repeat trips to various places (think daily commutes). Once you’ve made a few of these repeat-trips, the app will ask if you would like to auto-classify those trips. If you say yes, it will still log the trip and applicable mileage, but it will automatically classify it and file it away so that you don’t have to manually classify the same drive every single time. Since I’ve been using it for the entire year, I now have many auto-classified trips, so I’m not spending a lot of time classifying my drives. I usually check the app once a week or so to see what trips didn’t get classified and then mark them accordingly. Simple.

When tax season rolls around, I’ll be able to download and export a report of all of my mileage, turn it into my CPA and file the report away. No more pens and paper in my car and no more forgetting when I made all those business-related drives. You can view and export reports at any time throughout the year on their website.

The app is free and will classify up to 40 drives each month. After 40 drives, you’ll need to move to a paid plan if you want to classify more drives or else it will stop tracking for the rest of the month.

If you’d like to try the app, here is my referral link. This will allow you to sign up for free (up to 40 drives) and then, if you later decide to upgrade to a paid plan, you will get a 20% discount (but only if you sign up initially using this referral link). In full disclosure, if you do end up going for a paid plan from my link, they will give me $25 for the referral. Note that if you happen to have an Office 365 Business Premium subscription, MileIQ is now included in your subscription at no additional cost.

Finally, remember that a MileIQ paid plan is also a business expense, so it ultimately pays for itself at the end of the year. Happy hassle-free tracking!