Over the past few months I’ve been searching for a replacement car mileage tracker app that automates the process of logging the miles I travel on business. So I started my own ‘group test’ and I think I’ve finally come to a decision.

My problem

Small Business owners will probably understand the frustration of having to log every mile travelled on business for tax purposes. For many of us, climbing into the car is an opportunity to switch off from work for a short while. For others, it’s the perfect time to catch up on calls, or listen to podcasts that keep you up to date with the industry in which you work. Whatever your choice, certainly the last thing on most people’s minds is to get in, note your mileage, drive, note your mileage, get out.

For the past couple of years I’ve relied on assistance from an app called Rove (no longer available after it was purchased by TripAdvisor). Rove logged every movement I made. Every drive. Every walk. Every photo I took. Every piece of music I listened to. Much of this was irrelevant to me (in fact for many people this was so much of a pain, they stopped using it), but the mileage aspect was very useful.

Unfortunately, when Rove was sold, it began to break. Suddenly the exporting of data from it stopped working. That was a nuisance but not insurmoiuntable. Then when iOS9 happened (at least I think that was the changing point), Rove really started to fail me. It was sucking up over 50% of my battery usage. And giving me continuous errors about it not running (even though it was, and was still logging data).

At that point I decided I had to replace Rove with something similar. I wanted something that was automatic. I dont want to have to stop every time I get in and out of the car to log my drive; I want my phone to record every journey I make, allow me to email myself the records and then I can pick out the business trips from the report.

My findings

So I downloaded a group of apps that claimed to have this functionality and gave them all a try. In turn I tried TripTagger by Tourmaline Labs, Autoed by Autoed, MileWiz by SilverWiz, Magical Miles by William Henchy, TripLog by eSocial and Work Hours & Mileage Tracker by Mobile Apps.

I tested each of them against actual recorded mileage from the car to make sure they were recording accurately, and out of all of them there were only two apps that came close to accurate: Rove (which I already know I’m not keeping) and Work Hours & Mileage Tracker.

Several of the apps failed to record some of the journeys at all. All of the apps expect the two above failed to record accurately, missing somewhere between one and two miles at the start of each journey before suddenly realising you were moving. I guess if you’re a long distance driver 2 miles is not a huge issue, but if your expenses claim is made up of lots of 3-4 mile journeys. you’re suddenly missing half of your claim. The app I chose was spot on for every journey I made with it (as you’d want and expect).

Making use of the GPS, obviously these apps are going to chew your battery (but not as much as Rove has been doing). Fortunately the app I’ve selected seems to be the most efficient at battery use as well taking less than 5% of battery use each day.

Lastly, all of these apps were free to run, but with limited use. They rely on a subscription element to allow you to kep logging. The standard price seems to be £3.99 a month, or £33.99 per year. Fortunately the app I’ve selected is £2.99 a month or £22.99 a year.

Summary

So, right now, I’m pretty settled on Work Hours & Mileage tracker. I’ve turned the work hours tracking off and am continuing to monitor the mileage it declares before finally deleting Rove (and getting some additional battery power back!).

Of course, as they say on the Internet “Your Mileage May Vary” – if you have any better suggestions I’d be happy to hear them.