When using a personal vehicle for business mileage your company can reimburse you at HMRC approved mileage rates. This guide explains how inniAccounts makes this easy and how we keep track for you.
HMRC specify mileage rates for different vehicles when a personally owned vehicle is used for business purposes. Mileage rates must be used instead of claiming for fuel, insurance, depreciation etc.
As part of your business records you must maintain, HMRC require you to keep a record of business mileage when claims are made. inniAccounts takes care of this for you and helps ensure that you are reimbursed for all your business travel.
Only allowable expenses can be claimed which are those that are necessary for the conduct of business and, when the contract they relate to is not caught by IR35 legislation.
Making an entry in the mileage log
The mileage log is accessed through the Quick Entry area by clicking the mileage log button under the time sheet.
To make a new entry in the mileage log, click the new button then fill out the form:
- Date – the date they journey was made
- Contract – if you are billing the cost to a client, select the contract
- Journey from – where your journey started. We recommend including a postcode too
- Journey to – where your journey was to. We recommend a postcode here too
- Description – the purpose of the journey
- Distance – in miles. You can put in the return distance
- Bill to client – if you need to include the travel on an invoice to a client, tick the box
- Rate – only needed if you are billing a client
- Vehicle type – select what type of vehicle you used
- Vehicle engine & fuel – If you are using Standard VAT and have selected car or motorbike you will also need to select what engine and fuel type it uses.
Billing a client for travel
If your client has agreed to pick up the cost of the travel, inniAccounts makes it really easy for you charge the expense when you next invoice them.
You make an entry in the mileage log when you have used your own vehicle to ensure that you personally are reimbursed for the business use of your vehicle. When you make the entry, by ticking the bill to client checkbox and selecting the contract to invoice from the pull down menu, you will be able to include the journey on an invoice. If you enter a rate (£/mile) you can charge your client at a different rate to the defined HMRC rates.
Speed up your entries
We have a great feature to save you time that allows you to quickly make entries in the mileage log.
If you regularly travel from your home office to a clients site, you can enter the details for that journey in your contract settings. The information to capture in the mileage defaults section is; journey from, to, return mileage and vehicle.
As you maintain your timesheet in the Quick Entry area, you can click the checkbox for default mileage on the days you made that journey. When you save your timesheet, entries will automatically be made in your mileage log ready for reimbursement on your next payslip.
Repaying mileage
Any entries made in the mileage log that have not been repaid will be included on the next payslip.
The mileage claims will default to the main employee however they can be reimbursed to a different employee if required. To do this, when you create the payslips press the repay mileage button on the main employee and uncheck the journeys to repay someone else. You can then edit another employees payslip and include the mileage claims on their payslip.
