There are dozens of vendors out there advertising mobile apps designed to track business mileage. How do you compare these competing companies to choose the right mileage tracking software for your organization?
At mBurse we will not even pretend to be unbiased when it comes to comparing mileage tracking apps, since we have our own app, mLog, that we promote. But we know a lot about what a first-class mileage app should provide for people who operate vehicles for work.
So whether you give our app a try or go a different route, the following guide should prove useful in evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of any software designed to track mileage, keep track of business trips, and report mileage totals for the purposes of business reimbursements.
The primary criteria for evaluating a mileage app are accuracy, ease of use, integration, customer support, and privacy protection. Note that cost is not one of the criteria. Why is this?
Every organization when investigating a product or service takes into account price. 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 while leading to headaches in the long run or creating hidden costs due to shortcomings in one or more of the five evaluation criteria.
In short, the right mileage tracking app for your organization will offer the best value for your investment. To determine value, apply the five criteria below. In most cases, you can find out whether an app meets the criteria either by reading user reviews or by doing a free trial, which many vendors offer. (mBurse offers a free trial for mLog.)
First and foremost, you have to choose an app that performs its primary function well. If the app yields inaccurate calculations of mileage, then what is the point of using it? Inaccuracies can result from causes such as spotty GPS functionality, buggy software, and battery drain. An accurate mileage app will automatically and reliably track business mileage without draining the battery.
Without an accurate mileage tracking app, your organization will likely end up spending more money in the long run. Mobile employees will spend time manually entering trip info that they would rather spend doing their jobs. And manual trip entry is a major source of generous estimations of mileage and even outright mileage fraud.
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, and slow loading.
An effective mileage tracking app will emphasize convenience to 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.
The usefulness of a mileage app goes way down if it does not play well with the reimbursement system and other software, such as your CRM. What drivers want is an easy and simple mileage approval process. The more you can reduce administrative time spent by drivers and managers, the happier they will be and freer 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. The input of data is no longer dependent on whether they remember or are motivated to fulfill that task. Most vendors will advertise on their website what software integrations their app features.
Poor customer support can wreck even the best mileage tracking app and disrupt an otherwise excellent reimbursement model. Customer support begins with employee onboarding. The "Getting Started" guide should be easy to follow, and help videos should be clear and readily available.
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. Now people have gotten more used to the concept, especially with so many insurance companies using 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 comes time for mileage and trip data to be uploaded into the reimbursement system. They should be able to easily edit out a trip that was personal in nature but erroneously recorded as "business" or a personal stop in the middle of a business trip.
Picking the right mileage tracking partner requires doing 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.
To learn more about mBurse mileage tracking options and schedule a demo or free trial, check out our mileage tracking solutions page.