A Mid-Year Mileage Review: 7 Signs You’re Leaving Money on the Road

You did it! You reached the halfway point of the year. Now’s a great time to take stock of your business’s processes around mileage tracking and reimbursement. Hopefully it’s all working the way it’s intended to, but can you say that for certain? Small mistakes and inefficiencies in mileage tracking can add up very, very quickly. Travel too far down that road, and you’ll end up with inaccurate reimbursements, lost tax deductions, and unnecessary administrative headaches. 

Here’s seven signs to look out for with your reimbursement processes. If you recognize one or more of these, it may be time for a mid-year mileage checkup.

1. Employees are Still Tracking Mileage Manually

Manual mileage tracking. It’s an allowed mileage tracking method, and it doesn’t not work…but sticking to old fashioned processes can be way more trouble than its worth. Paper logs and manual-entry mileage spreadsheets seem simple, until you make a calculation error that throws off your mileage total, and no one catches it. Or you forget to log a trip and can’t remember the details later. Or you misplace your log and start again with a new one halfway through the month.

All this to say: if your team records mileage manually, odds are that they’re not capturing every business mile driven. It’s time to find a better way. 

2. Mileage Reports Get Submitted Late

Remember the Internal Revenue Service? The IRS has several rules about what they expect from a compliant mileage log. One of those rules mandates that trips get logged when they occur, or as close to that time as possible. 

Some workers will ignore the timeliness rule, sending in mileage reports weeks after the travel actually took place. Late logs are more likely to have been filled in from memory, leading to half-remembered, estimated entries, with details that either consist of guesswork or are missing entirely. Late reporting also increases the chance of delayed reimbursements, and decreases the likelihood of accurate records.

Take a look: Review how much time it takes for employees to submit mileage after completing their business trips. If it takes weeks or even months every single time, eventually something’s gotta give.

3. Reimbursement Costs are Higher than Expected

Are you seeing unexpected increases in mobile workers’ mileage reimbursement expenses? Those jumps might be caused by:

• Inefficient routes that rack up mileage counts
• Duplicated log entries that got missed or overlooked
• Reporting inconsistencies, such as estimated mileage, mileage that’s been rounded up, or mileage calculation errors

Compare your notes: Compare your reimbursement mileage totals from the first six months of this year to the same period last year. If those numbers are drastically different (even accounting for mileage rate increases/route changes), they might warrant further investigation. 

4. Employees Have Frequent Questions About Mileage Policies

The best mileage reimbursement workflows in your industry won’t mean a thing if employees don’t know how, when, or why to use them. Here’s where your mileage reimbursement policy (or policies) comes into play. 

An effective mileage reimbursement policy should outline everything a business’s employees need to know to handle reimbursement successfully. If managers and supervisors at your organization spend a significant amount of time fielding questions about what qualifies as business mileage, or how to submit it, your policy probably needs some work. 

Consult this checklist: Does your mileage reimbursement policy convey the following to employees?

• What trips do and do not qualify for reimbursement
• What documentation is required
• Deadlines for submitting logs and reports
• The rates at which the company reimburses employees for mileage driven

5. You Don’t Have Audit-Ready Records

Do you want to bring the wrath of the IRS down on your business? Probably not, right? Then you’d better get your records in order. Full compliance and accurate financial reporting require thorough, accurate mileage documentation.

Incomplete, inaccurate, or unorganized records create challenges during audits or financial reviews. The consequences run the gamut from fines to reputational damage to, in some cases, legal action. 

Time to double-check: When mileage records get submitted, verify that they include the date, destination, business purpose, and accurate mileage for each trip. 

6. Managers and Admins Spend Too Much Time Reviewing Reports

We promise you, well-managed mileage reimbursement is achievable without requiring hours of administrative effort month over month over month. If your mileage reimbursement processes require managers to manually verify entries, calculate reimbursements, or correct errors, your efficiency is suffering, along with those managers. 

Do the math: Estimate how many hours your team spends processing mileage reports every month. Wouldn’t that time be much better spent on actual high-focus work, instead of processing paperwork?

7. You Haven’t Reviewed Your Mileage Process This Year 

Plenty of businesses take the time at the midpoint of every year to review their budgets, their staffing, and their operations – but skip over their mileage reimbursement programs. That oversight can be a costly one. Even a simple, bare bones-review can reveal opportunities for improving accuracy, reducing administrative effort, and controlling costs.

Get it on the calendar: Before heading into the second half of the year, take 15 minutes to evaluate your mileage program. It’s a good time to review costs, verify compliance, identify issues, and explore opportunities for automating and streamlining systems. 

Mileage Reimbursement Management Made Easy with CompanyMileage 

If you’re seeing any of these red flags in your business’s reimbursement workflows, let those flags serve as a sign that it’s time to look for better, smarter ways to manage mileage reimbursement. Luckily, you won’t have to look far!

SureMileage by CompanyMileage offers businesses an intuitive, automated software solution for mileage reimbursement. Using a unique point-to-point method, SureMileage takes the start and end points of each work-related trip and automatically calculates the best route for reimbursement between them. 

Employees and managers get spared the time-consuming slog of manually tracking, recording, and entering mileage, and in return our system keeps things like errors, duplicate reports, and in eligible mileage from ending up in expense reports. Those reports, once submitted, get moved through an automated, customizable approval workflow. Our software also integrates easily with all major accounting and approval software, guaranteeing a fast, seamless process from logging all the way to payment. 

Contact us today to learn more about how CompanyMileage can help your business, and save you time and money in the process!