James D. Gaddis, J.D. •
New apps for our cell phones spring up all the time. These apps can provide entertainment, convey specific information, connect us with friends and colleagues, and even function as tools to help us in our daily lives. Two such subsets of these “toolbox” apps are the mileage trackers and financial budgeting apps. In this blog, we’ll take a quick look into the mileage trackers, and save the financial budgeting apps for a later blog!
New apps for our cell phones spring up all the time. These apps can provide entertainment, convey specific information, connect us with friends and colleagues, and even function as tools to help us in our daily lives. Two such subsets of these “toolbox” apps are the mileage trackers and financial budgeting apps. In this blog, we’ll take a quick look into the mileage trackers, and save the financial budgeting apps for a later blog!
Tracking your miles . . . and more! Anyone who has ever had the need to track his or her mileage for a tax deduction, be it for business, charitable work, or medical transportation, knows the hassle of trying to maintain a paper journal. This log is usually kept in the glove box or tucked beside the driver’s seat, and each time a relevant trip is taken, the journal must be updated with the miles driven, the date, the destination and purpose, and sometimes beginning and ending odometer readings. It is easy to forget to log trips altogether, or to skip recording smaller trips just to avoid the hassle. At the end of the day, the IRS will still sometimes question the validity of these journals, as they know such a record could be created after the fact in preparation of an audit.
Mileage tracking apps can vastly simplify the process, with the added benefit of producing IRS-ready reports at year’s end! All of these apps utilize your cell phone’s GPS tracking abilities, and generally record each drive you take. You simply need to identify the nature of each trip, be it business, commuting, personal, or otherwise, often with the ease of a simple swipe! Some apps have the added ability to record other automobile expenses, such as gas, oil changes and repairs, by allowing you to take a picture of the receipt and classifying it accordingly. At the end of the accounting period, the app can produce a comprehensive report for you. Thus, these apps can help you save time, produce documentation to support your mileage deductions, and most back up to the cloud, so you can’t lose the data!
Some of the more popular tracking apps for the iPhone include Mileage Expense Log, MileIQ, TripLog, TaxMileage, MileBug, TrackMyDrive, MileTracker, and AutoMiles. For the Android, popular mileage tracker apps include MileIQ, TripLog, FuelBuddy, MileageLogGPSTracker, Fuelio and Everlance. Some of these apps are free, some are free up to a certain number of drives, and some come with a monthly or annual expense, but the benefit derived from the time saved in logging trips, and the missed trips you didn’t bother to record, quickly make even the apps with a cost well worth the value.
Mileage tracking apps can vastly simplify the process, with the added benefit of producing IRS-ready reports at year’s end! All of these apps utilize your cell phone’s GPS tracking abilities, and generally record each drive you take. You simply need to identify the nature of each trip, be it business, commuting, personal, or otherwise, often with the ease of a simple swipe! Some apps have the added ability to record other automobile expenses, such as gas, oil changes and repairs, by allowing you to take a picture of the receipt and classifying it accordingly. At the end of the accounting period, the app can produce a comprehensive report for you. Thus, these apps can help you save time, produce documentation to support your mileage deductions, and most back up to the cloud, so you can’t lose the data!
Some of the more popular tracking apps for the iPhone include Mileage Expense Log, MileIQ, TripLog, TaxMileage, MileBug, TrackMyDrive, MileTracker, and AutoMiles. For the Android, popular mileage tracker apps include MileIQ, TripLog, FuelBuddy, MileageLogGPSTracker, Fuelio and Everlance. Some of these apps are free, some are free up to a certain number of drives, and some come with a monthly or annual expense, but the benefit derived from the time saved in logging trips, and the missed trips you didn’t bother to record, quickly make even the apps with a cost well worth the value.
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