How to log business drives and claim them at tax time

“I keep my receipts in Snapstub, but my mileage is in a notebook — and I only remember to add it up in April. Can the drives live with the receipts?”

Yes, since 1.7.0. Trips sit beside receipts in the same ledger: same date filter, same business, same one-time unlock. There is no separate app to buy and no second subscription, because there is no first one.

Step 1 — Switch to Trips

Above your receipt list there is a Receipts / Trips switch. Trips are on by default; if you never drive for work, turn Mileage off in Settings ▸ Fields and the switch disappears.

Step 2 — Log a drive

Tap Add trip and fill in the date, the distance, where you went and why. The purpose field is the one an auditor asks about, so it is worth a few real words — “client meeting”, “site visit” — rather than “work”.

Step 3 — Or keep it by odometer instead

Some people prefer readings to distances, and Germany’s Fahrtenbuch rules require them on every trip. Turn on Record odometer readings in Settings ▸ Mileage and each trip takes a start and an end reading, with the distance worked out for you. The next trip starts where the last one ended, so there is one number to type rather than two.

Step 4 — Repeat the drives you make every week

Long-press a trip and choose Log this trip again. The route, purpose and vehicle come across with today’s date and a fresh odometer. The weekly client visit stops being retyped from scratch.

Step 5 — Set your rate, once

In Settings ▸ Mileage, choose kilometres or miles and enter the rate you claim per unit. Snapstub prefills a starting figure for your region as a convenience — it is not tax advice, and rates change on dates that differ by country. The number is yours; the report prints the rate it used, so a wrong one is visible instead of silent. Leave it at 0 to log distance only.

Step 6 — Export at year end

Trips export as their own CSV, or as a mileage report of their own — the way QuickBooks keeps mileage separate from expenses, because the vehicle deduction is a different line on the return. If you would rather hand over one document, a receipts PDF can carry a mileage section instead; the Include mileage switch in the export sheet decides.

Either way the export carries monthly subtotals, the business-use share, and the year’s first and last odometer readings — the figures the IRS and the CRA ask for at each end of the tax year.

What Snapstub does not do

• It does not track you. There is no GPS drive detection and no background location. You log the trips you decide to log, and nothing leaves the phone.
• It does not claim compliance. Snapstub keeps the record and does the arithmetic. Whether your log satisfies your tax authority is between you and them — and in Germany specifically, a Fahrtenbuch has tamper-evidence requirements this app does not claim to meet.
• It does not import your bank. Never has, in any feature.

Snapstub is free to download and free to log with. A single purchase unlocks getting the data out — receipts and mileage together, one payment, no subscription.