Mileage Tracker for UK Sole Traders and Small Businesses

If you drive for work - visiting clients, collecting stock, travelling between sites - a proper mileage tracker turns a shoebox of scribbled odometer readings into a clean, defensible business expense. WDI Billing's mileage tracker logs each trip, calculates the value at the current HMRC rate, and keeps the record ready for your Self Assessment or company accounts - without streaming anything to HMRC until you choose to file.

For sole traders, freelancers and small limited companies across the UK, mileage is often one of the largest allowable expenses of the year. Getting it wrong - or not claiming it at all because the paperwork felt like too much effort - costs real money. A dedicated mileage tracker fixes that with almost no ongoing admin.

Why you need a mileage tracker, not just a notebook

HMRC expects a business mileage log to show the date, the reason for the journey, the start and end points, and the number of miles travelled. A paper diary can do this in theory, but in practice trips get forgotten, receipts get lost, and at year-end you're left trying to reconstruct six months of journeys from memory. A mileage tracker removes the guesswork: every trip is logged as it happens (or added afterwards in seconds), timestamped, and stored in one place alongside the rest of your business records.

That matters if HMRC ever asks questions. A consistent, contemporaneous mileage log is far stronger evidence than a lump-sum estimate written up months later.

The HMRC mileage rate, built in

The current standard mileage rate (AMAP) for cars and vans is 55p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles in a tax year, dropping to 25p per mile after that - with 24p for motorcycles, 20p for bicycles, and an extra 5p per mile for each passenger you carry on a business journey. WDI Billing applies the correct rate automatically to every logged trip, including the drop once you pass the 10,000-mile threshold, so you always see the pounds-and-pence value of your mileage claim without having to do the maths yourself. As HMRC updates the rate, we update it in the software - you don't need to track it separately or hunt down the current figure before you file.

This is genuinely useful money: even a modest 30-mile round trip a few times a week adds up to a meaningful allowable expense over a tax year, and a mileage tracker makes sure none of it slips through the cracks.

How the mileage tracker works

Log a trip in whichever way suits how you work:

• Quick manual entry - add the date, purpose, and mileage in a few taps, ideal if you prefer not to have location tracking running in the background.
• Trip logging on the move - capture journeys as you drive and tidy them up later, rather than trying to remember details at the end of a busy week.
• Bulk import - already keeping a spreadsheet? Bring your existing mileage history in rather than starting from zero.

Every logged trip sits alongside your other expenses and receipts inside WDI Billing, so your accountant - or you, at year-end - sees the complete picture in one place rather than mileage in one app, invoices in another, and receipts in a drawer.

Mileage tracking for sole traders vs limited company directors

If you're a sole trader, business mileage at the standard rate is simply an allowable expense that reduces your taxable profit on your Self Assessment return - no separate claim process, just an accurate log. It's one of the simplest reliefs available, which is exactly why it's worth tracking properly. Our sole trader accounting software is built around this kind of everyday record-keeping.

If you run your own limited company and use a personal vehicle for business journeys, the same mileage rate lets the company reimburse you tax-free, with the mileage log as your supporting record. Either way, the tracker does the calculation - you just need the trips logged.

From mileage log to allowable expense: how Prepare mode fits in

WDI Billing works in three modes - Records, Prepare, and File - and mileage tracking sits naturally inside all three. In Records mode, your trips and their calculated values simply build up as part of your bookkeeping. In Prepare mode, the default for most users, that mileage total feeds straight into your expense summary and Self Assessment or year-end figures - ready and waiting, but nothing is sent anywhere automatically. When you're ready, you move to File mode and press submit yourself.

That's the whole philosophy behind WDI Billing: your mileage data, like every other business record, stays yours until you decide otherwise. No trip data is shared with HMRC, no location history is sold or handed to third parties, and if you ever want to move your records elsewhere, a clean export is always available - no lock-in.

Keeping mileage records HMRC can trust

Sole traders generally need to keep business records, including mileage logs, for at least 5 years after the 31 January online-filing deadline for the relevant tax year, in case HMRC asks to see them. A tracker helps here too: instead of a fading memory of "roughly how many miles" you did each month, you have a dated, itemised log stored securely and backed up automatically, so producing evidence years later is a five-minute job rather than a scramble.

This is especially useful if you're claiming mileage for several vehicles, mixing business and personal use of the same car, or simply want peace of mind that your biggest recurring expense claim is properly documented rather than estimated.

A good mileage tracker also removes a common source of under-claiming: many self-employed people quietly round down or skip short journeys because logging them by hand feels like more effort than the claim is worth. When every trip takes seconds to log and the HMRC rate is applied automatically, there's no reason to leave money on the table.

Mileage tracking is part of a bigger picture

A mileage tracker is most useful when it isn't an island. Pair it with our expense tracker and receipt scanner to capture fuel, parking and repair receipts alongside your mileage log, and you have a complete, HMRC-ready record of your vehicle costs without juggling several tools. If you're still working out what you can and can't claim more broadly, our guide to allowable expenses for the self-employed covers the rest of the picture.

For the full range of UK accounting tools - invoicing, bookkeeping, VAT and Making Tax Digital filing - start at the WDI Billing UK hub, where every mode and every feature is explained in one place.

Start tracking your mileage properly

Stop losing pounds to a mileage log you never quite get round to keeping. WDI Billing's mileage tracker logs every trip, applies the current HMRC rate automatically, and keeps the record ready for filing - on your terms, in Prepare mode, with nothing sent to HMRC until you say so. See full plans on our pricing page and start your free trial of WDI Billing today.