A trip log your accountant can use.

Why GPS alone is a weak audit trail

Automatic mileage apps are good at noticing that you moved. They are less good at proving what kind of trip it was, what the dash said at the start and end of the year, and whether a missed leg left a hole in the record. When a reviewer asks for a logbook, they are usually looking for dates, destinations, purpose, distance, and odometer — not a map screenshot.

That is why we built the trip log as a structured record, not a swipe-only score. Read the longer version in Why GPS alone isn't a mileage log.

What belongs in a defensible trip log

You do not need an app to keep these fields. You do need them to be consistent. At minimum, a useful log includes:

• Date, from, to, and purpose — enough that someone who was not in the car can tell why the drive happened.
• Start and end odometer on the trip when you have them, plus an optional year-opening odometer snapshot per vehicle for the tax-year PDF.
• A first-class category — Business, Personal, Commute, Medical, or Charity — not only a note on a personal swipe.
• Who drove when more than one household member uses the car, so the log is not a single anonymous GPS trail.
• A PDF or CSV you can export — distance by category, a deductible-mileage subtotal where that language applies, and the same filters in both formats.

Illustrative official rates — not a filed deduction

Carspel does not file your taxes, invent a deduction, or decide that a trip qualifies. When a published official table exists for your profile country, vehicle type, and date, the trip-log export can add an illustrative allowance column. Confirm the current instrument with your adviser or the revenue authority.

• United States — each trip row can use the IRS standard mileage rate for that category (business, medical, or charity). Personal and commute stay unpriced. The 2026 column uses a simplified annual table, not a mid-year split. Confirm at irs.gov.
• Canada — business kilometres can use the CRA automobile-allowance bands (including the 5,000 km step). Medical kilometres are listed with the CRA 40/80 km one-way footnote and are not priced. Carspel does not assert eligibility or invent a medical per-km amount.
• AU, GB, IE, NZ, ZA — published business-rate tables only, where seeded. Every country still gets the full trip PDF/CSV without a dollar column.

How it works in Carspel

1. Log the trip. Type it, use Live trip on Add trip, or Confirm an Auto Trip draft (Family, Ultimate, and Trial). Set the category before you move on.
2. Keep the odometer honest. Fill distance from start/end readings when you have them. Confirm a year-opening snapshot when you want the stronger PDF appendix.
3. Export the tax-year log. PDF and CSV share the same date range and category filters. Import a MileIQ trip CSV if you are switching — Category and Purpose map into Carspel categories.

Those trips sit on the same timeline as fuel, charging, and service. Auto Trip is not a swipe-to-classify clone: drafts wait for you. Basic uses Live trip or typed trips. Import is a one-time copy, not a live sync with another app.

The honest version

If mileage is the only thing you will ever track, a dedicated mileage-only app may still be simpler. Carspel is the stronger fit when you also want fuel or charging, service history, a household garage, and an export that prices a category only when we actually have that country's rule — and stays silent when we do not.

Related reading

• Why GPS Alone Isn't a Mileage Log
• Automatic trip tracking — and how it compares if you are leaving MileIQ
• Import a MileIQ, Fuelio, or Drivvo CSV
• User Guide — trip log and allowances