Did you know that most real estate professionals drive further than the equivalent of once around the world every year? According to NAR, the average REALTOR® logs more than 30,000 miles every year — just slightly more than the circumference of the earth! It's safe to say that those miles can add up to a pretty substantial tax deduction or reimbursement, and careless record-keeping can cost you more than you may realize.
If you are still keeping track of your mileage with a pen and paper, there is lots of room for error. With multiple trips a day, it's very easy to forget to log your miles, or simply incorrectly estimate distances driven. Despite what you may think, most people actually under-report their total business mileage — leaving hundreds, if not thousands of dollars unclaimed. Don't make this mistake.
MileIQ is an app that takes the hassle and guess work out of mileage tracking. Specifically created to help on-the-go professionals keep accurate accounts of their business miles, MileIQ works automatically whenever and wherever you travel in your vehicle — without you having to lift a finger. Turn it on once, and you never have to think about it again. At the beginning of each trip, you have the option to designate each trip as "business" or "personal" with one swipe, or you can always go back and do that later. Every journey is calculated, recorded and documented in an IRS-compliant report that you can easily use at tax time. Your drive data is synced securely to the cloud, and you'll get weekly and monthly summaries that make it easy to stay on top of the numbers.
Other useful features of this app include:
- Calculate in miles or kilometers.
- Set standard working hours so business trips are easier to categorize.
- Create custom categories for trips.
- Store data for parking and tolls.
- Export to FreshBooks, Concur, CSV or PDF.
MileIQ is available for Android and iOS, and is free for the first 40 trips of each month. Upgrade to unlimited trips for $5.99/month or $59.99/year. Visit www.mileiq.com for more information.