The Future of Mileage Software

For decades, mileage tracking has been a cornerstone of business operations across industries with mobile workforces. However, the way mileage is tracked has evolved significantly over time. Gone are the days when mobile workers relied on manual methods to log work-related miles in their personal vehicles. As technology has advanced, digital solutions have taken the reins, offering more efficient and accurate ways to manage mileage. Welcome to the era of mileage tracking software—a smarter, more streamlined approach to an age-old task.

As any history teacher will tell you, the best way to make sense of where you’re going is to understand where you’ve been. In this article, we’ll take a quick look at the current landscape of mileage tracking and logging, and the ways in which mileage software has emerged to lead you and your business into a brighter, more streamlined and cost-efficient future. 

The Current Landscape of Mileage Tracking Software

So, when it comes to the ways in which businesses and their mobile employees keep track of their work-related travel, where are we now? 

Manual Methods

Many businesses still rely on those tried-and-true manual forms of mileage tracking for their employees’ mileage logs. After all, the IRS’ rules for compliant mileage records have no rules about what form mileage logs take, just that those logs are accurate, timely, and contain all relevant information about the employee’s work-related travel activities. Therefore, logs kept in hard copy pen-and-paper format or in computer spreadsheets are still fair game.

An “allowed method” isn’t always the “best method,” especially when it comes to mileage tracking. Relying on spreadsheets or paper logs as long-term solutions opens the door to countless errors—such as data entry mistakes, miscalculations, or even the risk of physical logs being lost or damaged. Manual methods also leave your company vulnerable to expense fraud, including inflated mileage totals, duplicate submissions, or reimbursement claims for ineligible travel, like commuting. These outdated approaches can cost your business time, money, and accuracy.

Besides the fact that these old-fashioned methods of mileage recording come with a high margin for error and fraud, they’re also time-consuming! Your mobile workforce is full of hard workers who are good at their jobs. Don’t you want them to actually be doing those jobs instead of using their valuable time – and yours – typing numbers into a spreadsheet? 

Growing Popularity of Digital Solutions

Luckily, more and more businesses are starting to embrace options for mileage tracking outside of the pen-and-paper or even Excel spreadsheets. Digital solutions for tracking work-related mileage have been emerging for the last few decades, and new ones continue to hit the market every day.

One popular and widespread option for businesses that require mobile employees to track their work-related travel is GPS tracking. After all, in this day and age where almost everyone has a smartphone, GPS technology is pretty ubiquitous. Because of this, it’s usually pretty easy to onboard mobile employees to mileage tracking solutions that track using GPS. Plus, with GPS software tracking the employee’s trips and mileage, the employee no longer has to calculate and/or log that mileage manually. 

There are still some pitfalls in the realm of GPS mileage tracking, as well. Besides the fact that GPS isn’t always reliable, depending on where the employee is traveling during their workday, mileage technology that utilizes GPS has a tendency to track all trips. Because these solutions can’t differentiate between mileage that is eligible for reimbursement and mileage that isn’t, it’s often up to each employee to determine which trips they need to be reimbursed for, which, again, could make your business susceptible to inflated reimbursement claims. So, while these digital solutions are certainly a step up from outdated manual methods, there’s still a long way we can go. 

Emerging Trends Shaping the Future of Mileage Software

So, what emerging patterns in tracking technology do we hope shape the mileage software of the future?

Mobile Apps

It’s right there in the name; your mobile employees are on the go so much that the best way for them to manage the entire mileage tracking and reimbursement process is right from their smartphone. It’s not so novel anymore to use an app to track mileage—or to use an app for anything, really. But as remote and mobile workers become a larger and larger part of business operations, and smartphones get smarter, it’s becoming more and more necessary that the entire process of mileage reimbursement be something that can be managed from a mobile device, for both employees and their supervisors. 

Expense report submission, review, approval, and payment should all be accessible to all employees via a secure mobile app. The built-in mobility and portability mean that employees will never miss a payment, supervisors will never miss an approval, and nobody will have an excuse not to submit a report! 

Real-Time Tracking

Another element of cutting-edge technology that could offer a huge boost to mileage software is real-time tracking. Unlike your current, slower, more manual processes, mileage software that instantly processes data and generates reports lets mobile employees help manage their time better, as well as making it easier and more efficient to plan and organize their assignments for the day.

Real-time information on employees’ mileage and travel activities also offer a huge advantage to those employees’ managers and supervisors. Having access to more current data gives supervisors the most accurate look possible at how exactly employees are spending their time and organizing their workdays. This lets management observe patterns and trends in employee behavior, and could give them vital itel that could help them better coordinate their workers in the field.

Software Integration

Another vital component of forward-thinking mileage software? The ability to integrate with the accounting and payroll software of the business utilizing it. Full integration between a company’s mileage tracking software and its accounting systems do away with any lulls or bottlenecks between reimbursement report submission, report approval, and the distribution of the actual payment. This ensures fast, accurate reimbursement payments for your extremely deserving employees, and a more consistent, streamlined process from start to finish. 

Automation 

It’s the future, so why not take advantage of the huge leaps and bounds technology is making even as we speak? The goal of any technology should be to make the job of the person using that technology easier, saving them time they might otherwise spend doing repetitive, routine tasks. That’s where automation comes in! 

Mileage software that takes advantage of automated systems could carry out the entire process quickly, efficiently, and accurately. Why not let automated software streamline trip data collection, flag possibly problematic behaviors in mileage logs, and carryout workflows so you don’t have to worry about manual workflows slowing everything down, and employees can actually spend their time doing the job responsibilities they’re being paid to perform?

Drive Into the Future With CompanyMileage 

Why settle for outdated, error-prone mileage tracking methods when CompanyMileage can revolutionize the way your organization handles reimbursements? With our suite of innovative solutions, including SureMileage and SureMobile, we automate and simplify every step of the process, saving your employees valuable time and your company money.

SureMileage’s unique point-to-point calculation ensures accurate reimbursements by calculating the most efficient route between work-related destinations, eliminating errors, inflated mileage claims, and fraud. Paired with SureMobile, our intuitive mobile app, employees can effortlessly log trip data, capture receipts, and submit reports in just minutes.

Our QuickCapture feature takes this efficiency and ease one step further, offering one-touch reporting for submitting location data to help calculate trip mileage. SureMobile also comes with an integrated Address Book which can easily be populated with current client lists. And because CompanyMileage uses a three-tiered security system, with secure facilities, data encryption, and airtight privacy policies, you can be sure that important client and trip data is always completely secure and safe. 

Once mobile employees submit their expense reports, SureMileage seamlessly processes them through an automated digital workflow. This workflow can be easily customized to align with your organization’s unique management structure, ensuring a smooth and efficient approval process. Once approved, SureMileage integrates effortlessly with all major accounting and payroll systems, streamlining the journey from submission to employees receiving their well-deserved reimbursement payments.

Don’t wait to modernize your mileage tracking process. Let the ideal mileage software solutions of the future become your present by requesting a demo with CompanyMileage today!