How accrurately do your employees record their mileage, and how often do you check it?
Several companies offer GPS logging devices that are put in a car to capture journey information. PEAK Mileage Capture, for example, is a USB dongle with built-in GPS which is inserted into the car’s USB socket or cigarette lighter. It starts up when the car begins moving, and stops once stationary for 20 minutes – to allow for short stops, e.g. to refuel. When the time comes to do the mileage claim, the dongle is plugged into a PC so all the data can be uploaded to the device’s website.
A detailed list of every recorded trip (start point, end point and number of miles) is then available on-screen. The journeys then need to be tagged as business or private and you can also enter who you went to see and the purpose of the visit. It then calculates the business miles at the rates selected and the detailed claim is complete. The only downside is that it isn’t free – it costs £99 for the first year and then £5 per month after that.
If you reimburse mileage at HMRC’s approved rates, then £99 equates to just 18 miles per month wrongly claimed, so the device should easily pay for itself.
Around 25% of mileage claims are overestimated. Improve the accuracy by getting employees to use GPS software to log mileage. This could save the company over £1,000 per 20,000 business miles.