Mileage

The Vehicles module is where you log monthly business mileage and let Simple-C calculate the deduction at the IRS standard mileage rate. You can keep multiple vehicles per business, each with its own monthly log for any year.

The Vehicles step inside the Entry Workflow is just a bridge: it takes you straight to this dedicated Vehicles module, where all the adding, editing, and exporting happens.

Why track mileage

The IRS lets you deduct business miles driven using the standard mileage rate. Simple-C keeps a clean monthly log per vehicle and automatically applies the correct rate for each period — including mid-year rate changes the IRS sometimes announces.

Getting to the page

1. Open the Entries area (or the Entry Workflow) and choose Vehicles.
2. Pick the business and the year you want to log. Simple-C remembers the last business and year you used and carries them over, so you usually don’t have to re-select them.

The page title is Add Vehicle Mileage, with the breadcrumb Home → Entries → Vehicles.

Adding a vehicle

1. Click Add Vehicle.
2. Enter a Vehicle Name. This name is the label you’ll see in the vehicle selector, so pick something meaningful. The placeholder suggests “Vehicle Plate & Description” — for example, ABC-1234 — 2019 Ford Transit.
3. Click Save Vehicle.

The new vehicle appears in the selector and is selected automatically so you can start logging miles right away. Vehicle names must be unique within the business.

Logging monthly miles

Once a vehicle is selected you’ll see the Monthly Mileage Record with 12 monthly fields (January through December):

1. Click the month you want to update. The cell becomes editable.
2. Enter the business miles driven for that month. Only business miles — personal miles are not deductible.
3. Save. Simple-C stores the miles and applies the IRS mileage rate that was in effect for that month to compute the deduction.

You can come back any time and correct an earlier month — just click it again. The Total Miles and Total Deduction at the bottom update as you go.

Mileage rates

Above the monthly grid, Simple-C displays the mileage rate(s) that apply to the selected year. The IRS occasionally changes the rate mid-year; when that happens, Simple-C shows each rate with its effective period (start and end month) and applies the right one to each month automatically. You don’t have to manage the rates yourself — they’re maintained for you.

Switching between vehicles and the table view

• Vehicle chips / selector — click any vehicle to open its monthly grid.
• Preview / Table view — click Preview to see all vehicles for the business side by side in a single table, with monthly miles, per-vehicle totals, and a global total row. You can edit miles directly in the table too. This is the fastest way to review a whole year at a glance.

The year selector lets you pick any year from the current year back to 1990, and each vehicle remembers which years it has data for.

Editing, archiving, and reactivating a vehicle

From the monthly view you can:

• Edit Vehicle — rename the vehicle.
• Archive — soft-delete the vehicle. You must enter an Inactive since date. An archived vehicle is hidden from the active list and its mileage can’t be edited, but the data is preserved.
• Reactivate Vehicle — bring an archived vehicle back. Use the Show inactive toggle on the selector to find archived vehicles, then reactivate them.
• Delete Permanently — available only on archived vehicles. This removes the vehicle and its mileage history forever; use it only when you’re sure.

Multiple vehicles

You can add as many vehicles as the business uses. Each one has its own log, totals, and yearly history — make sure you have the right vehicle selected before entering miles. The global totals at the bottom of the table view sum every active vehicle for the selected year.

Exporting

Use the toolbar buttons to share the log with your accountant or keep it for IRS substantiation:

• Download — generates a PDF mileage report (landscape, letter size, with page numbers).
• Export to Excel — exports an Excel (.xlsx) file with the vehicle mileage data.

Both exports respect the selected business and year.

Tips for accurate mileage tracking

• Be consistent — record mileage at the same time each month, while you still remember the trips.
• Separate business and personal — only log miles driven for business purposes.
• Keep your own trip log — Simple-C stores the monthly totals; the IRS expects you to also keep a contemporaneous log of dates and purposes for audit purposes.
• Don’t estimate at year-end — round-number guesses entered all at once are an audit red flag.
• Update every month — even if you didn’t drive much, enter 0 rather than leaving the month blank, so your log is complete and consistent.