# How detailed do my mileage records need to be?



## Chrisw (Feb 11, 2016)

Currently I'm jotting down my time/location/mileage every time I move my car while the app is on. Days like yesterday where I was doing A LOT of short trips this amount of record keeping became very tedious. 

I'm curious if the IRS would be satisfied in the case of an audit, with just starting mileage and ending mileage backed up by the normal uber app trip history?

Thanks in advance


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## Undermensch (Oct 21, 2015)

Chrisw said:


> Currently I'm jotting down my time/location/mileage every time I move my car while the app is on. Days like yesterday where I was doing A LOT of short trips this amount of record keeping became very tedious.
> 
> I'm curious if the IRS would be satisfied in the case of an audit, with just starting mileage and ending mileage backed up by the normal uber app trip history?
> 
> Thanks in advance


For the IRS, they lost typically have wanted starting/stopping odometer logs on a daily basis for days that you use the vehicle for business if it's a mixed use vehicle. If you switch between business and personal during the day then you would typically record another entry for that day.

If the vehicle is 100% business use for the entire year then you only need odometer at start and end of the year (or purchase/sale).

The problem with the mileage tracking apps is that they haven't been tested in an audit as an accepted source of mileage. I'm not willing to risk it. The IRS tends to over-react on the side of strictness when something changes, then a few years they loosen it up. I don't need to be their test case that they hassle about this.

You can keep the logs in a notebook if you want. I personally keep it in Evernote on my phone which I can then see on my computers. I transcribe that to my Google Sheets later in the week for computing profitability. I could log it directly to Google Sheets but it's a little harder to enter particularly when I have down time during the day (for that I make notes in Evernote and compute the total down time when transcribing).

Hope this helps.


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## Fireguy50 (Nov 23, 2015)

TripLog let's you download to excel


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## socal_uberx (Nov 2, 2015)

Fireguy50 said:


> TripLog let's you download to excel


it does but most of those apps like SherpaShare, MileageIQ, Everlance all charge for the year end tax summary. plus why trust them w/ your data when you can keep it safe w/ two factor authentication in your google drive or offline on your MAC/PC?


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## Papa Sarducci (Jun 20, 2016)

If you use an Android phone and Waze or Google maps go to the Google Maps website and look at your history. Everywhere you have ever been is in there. Try this link http://www.google.com/maps/timeline


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