There are dozens of vendors advertising mobile apps designed to track business mileage. How do you compare these competing companies to choose the right mileage app for your organization?
Quick Answer: How Do You Choose the Best Mileage Tracking App?
To choose the best mileage tracking app, employers should evaluate accuracy, automation, integrations, app stability, customer support, and privacy controls. The right software should make it easy for employees to track business mileage, help managers review and approve trips, protect employee privacy, and connect mileage data to reimbursement workflows.
Cost matters, but the cheapest app is not always the best option. Employers should compare value, support, reporting, ease of use, and reimbursement accuracy before choosing mileage tracking software.
At mBurse, we will not even pretend to be unbiased when it comes to mileage apps. We have our own app, mLog, that we advertise. But we know a lot about what a first-class mileage tracking app should provide.
Whether you give our app a try or go a different route, the following guide should prove useful. Our criteria evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of any software designed to track mileage for tax purposes or reimbursements.
The primary criteria for evaluating a mileage app are accuracy, automation, integrations, app stability, customer support, and privacy protection. Cost matters, but it should be evaluated against the value, support, and reimbursement control the software provides.
Every organization, when evaluating a product or service, takes price into account. But the key question is value – what you get for the price. Opting for the least expensive mileage tracking service may save money in the short run. But this choice may cause headaches in the long run or create hidden costs due to shortcomings.
The best way to test a mileage tracker is to do a free trial. (mBurse offers a free trial for mLog.) By reading reviews or getting a free trial, you can determine whether an app meets our criteria. To determine value, apply the five criteria below.
You have to choose an app that performs its primary function well. If the app yields inaccurate mileage calculations, what is the point of using it?
Inaccuracies can result from causes such as
An accurate mileage app will automatically and reliably track business mileage without draining the battery.
Without an accurate mileage tracking app, your organization will spend more money in the long run. Drivers will spend time manually entering trip info that they would rather spend doing their jobs. Manual entry can increase the risk of inaccurate, incomplete, or inflated mileage claims.
The best mileage apps provide automation and prioritize user experience.
The effectiveness of a mileage app will depend on its use by employees who drive for the company. If employees find the user experience confusing or frustrating, they will resent being required to use the software. When evaluating an app, watch out for non-intuitive screen navigation, difficulty changing settings, slow loading, and absence of hands-free mode.
An effective mileage-tracking app will emphasize convenience for the user. Users should be able to figure out how to set the controls as desired and begin using the app quickly. A quality app will allow users to "set it and forget it" and trust that all their trip information is recorded automatically.
The value of an app that tracks mileage relies on its ability to integrate with existing company software.
The usefulness of a mileage app drops significantly if it does not integrate well with the reimbursement system and other software. What drivers want is an easy and simple mileage approval process. The more you can reduce administrative time for drivers and managers, the happier they will be and the freer they will be to focus on their priorities.
It is also useful to add value by integrating the mileage app with your CRM. If the app can automatically upload trip data, then you remove your reps' choices from the equation. Data input is no longer dependent on whether they remember or are motivated to complete that task. Most vendors will advertise on their website what software integrations their app features.
App stability refers to the frequency of crashes, bugs, or updates.
One way to determine whether the app is buggy is to read user reviews. Another way is to talk to the vendor and ask how many app updates they performed in the previous year. Frequent updates are not always a problem, but repeated complaints about crashes, bugs, missed trips, or slow fixes may signal reliability issues.
It is also good to ask the vendor how long it takes to fix the mileage tracking app when there is an issue. Look for user reviews that highlight frustrating waits for software fixes to be issued.
Poor customer support can undermine even a strong mileage tracking app.
Customer support begins with employee onboarding. The "Getting Started" guide should be easy to follow, and help videos should be clear and readily available. The vendor should have personnel trained to onboard users quickly and smoothly.
It is also crucial that employees be able to get help quickly from the vendor's personnel. Check reviews on a prospective vendor. If customers complain a lot about being put on hold, getting no response from electronic communications, or finding technical support unhelpful, then avoid partnering with that company, no matter how good their app is.
When mileage tracking apps were first introduced, many mobile employees voiced privacy concerns. Privacy remains an important consideration.
Today's employees are more comfortable with automated mileage tracking. Many insurance companies use telematics software to reduce premiums for safe drivers. However, even though privacy concerns may not be as acute today as they were ten years ago, that is no excuse to choose an app without privacy protections.
The best way to protect privacy is to choose an app that does not report location or mileage in real-time. Instead, employees should have control over what management sees when it's time to upload mileage and trip data for reimbursement. They should be able to easily edit out a trip that was personal but erroneously recorded as "business" or a personal stop in the middle of a business trip.
Picking the right mileage-tracking partner requires some homework. The key is to opt for quality and value over the least expensive option. Paying a few dollars more per driver each month is worth it if you're investing in a program that meets the criteria discussed in this article. Chances are that the budget option will fall short in numerous ways.
Need help choosing mileage tracking software that supports reimbursement, approvals, privacy, and reporting? mBurse can help your organization evaluate mileage tracking needs and implement a workflow that supports accurate reimbursement for mobile employees.
Accuracy is one of the most important features because inaccurate mileage data can lead to incorrect reimbursements, employee frustration, and more manual review work for managers.
Not necessarily. A low-cost app may save money upfront but create hidden costs if it lacks reliable tracking, privacy controls, reporting, integrations, or customer support.
Privacy matters because employees may be concerned about location tracking. Employers should choose software that separates business and personal trips, limits unnecessary location visibility, and gives employees clear controls.
Many mileage tracking apps integrate with CRM, expense, payroll, or reimbursement systems. Integrations can reduce manual data entry, streamline approval workflows, and simplify mileage reporting.
A company should consider switching when employees frequently drive, mileage claims are hard to verify, approvals take too long, or manual logs lead to errors, delays, or inconsistent reimbursement records.