Introduction
Mileage lets employees log business driving and claim reimbursement for it. You enter a route, Smartbills calculates the distance, applies the reimbursement rate that governs your business, and produces an expense you can add to an expense report. Mileage appears as Mileage Trips in the sidebar.Mileage is business-scoped, so it only appears when you are working inside a business rather than your personal account. Viewing and logging your own trips is available to everyone.
How a trip becomes money
A mileage trip moves through two stages. Understanding the split explains most of the behaviour you will see in the interface.1
Logged
You record the route, vehicle, and date. The trip shows a calculated distance and an estimated reimbursement, but no expense exists yet. Its status is Logged.
2
Converted
Converting the trip creates a real mileage expense in your Expenses list. From that point the trip carries the status of the expense report it belongs to, starting at Unreported.
3
Reported
You add the mileage expense to an expense report and submit it like any other expense. It then follows the normal approval and reimbursement path.
What determines the amount
Three things decide what a trip is worth.
Rates are frequently tiered. Under a tiered program such as the CRA’s, the first portion of your annual distance earns a higher rate and everything beyond an annual threshold earns a lower one. Smartbills tracks your year-to-date distance and applies the correct tier automatically. See Mileage rates.
In this section
Manage vehicles
Add the vehicles you drive and set which one is used by default
Log a trip
Record a route and let Smartbills calculate the distance
Multi-stop and round trips
Add intermediate stops, reorder them, and include the return leg
Convert a trip to an expense
Turn logged trips into claimable expenses, one at a time or in bulk
Add mileage to a report
Claim mileage alongside your other expenses
Mileage rates
Configure the rates your business reimburses at