The log book is built from recorded check-ins and the road distances estimated between them. It is a record of your own trips, not tax advice. Only appointments with a mobile service and a street address appear in it.
Build and export a log book
Build the log book for a BAS quarter, or for your own dates, when you need a record of the kilometres driven.
- Open Trips and select Actions (More on a narrow screen), then Export log book. On a phone, you can also select Plan in the bottom bar, then Export log book.
- Under BAS quarter, select a quarter, or select Custom dates and set From and To.
- Optional: under Cents per km, type your own rate over the ATO rate.
- Select Build log book.
- Read Check this before you file it, then tick the box that says you are responsible for checking the log book.
- Select Download CSV, or Print PDF.
A period can cover up to 92 days, which is the longest Australian BAS quarter. Building fetches a road distance for each day in the period, so a full quarter takes a moment, and the dialog shows each day as it is worked out. Stop cancels a build part way, and Rebuild clears a finished log book so you can change the period and build again. When it finishes, the dialog says Log book ready with the number of days and stops. If the range has no mobile stops, it says so instead.
Download CSV and Print PDF stay unavailable until you tick the box: you are responsible for the accuracy of the timings, trip lengths and street addresses before relying on the log book. Print PDF opens a print-ready page. If your browser blocks the window, allow pop-ups and select it again.
What is in it
The log book has one row per stop, with these columns:
| Column | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Date and Stop | The date with its day of the week, and the stop's place in that day's run |
| Pet and Customer | The pets on the booking and the owner |
| Address and Suburb | The street address of the stop |
| Booked start, Checked in and Checked out | The booked time and the check-in and check-out recorded on the job |
| Time on site (min) | The recorded time on site, or the booked duration when nobody checked in |
| Drive from previous (km) and (min) | The road distance and drive time from the stop before |
| Check-in latitude, Check-in longitude and Location source | Where the check-in was recorded, and how |
Days that could not be routed keep their rows and their times, and are counted separately in the totals so the distance figure is never inflated by a day it does not cover.
Cents-per-kilometre estimate
The dialog shows an Estimate beside the log book, using the ATO cents-per-kilometre rate for the income year the period ends in. Type a different rate over it if your accountant uses another figure. A year with no published rate starts blank rather than guessing, and the estimate reads Enter a rate until you do. Before the build, it reads Once built.
The estimate is a guide, not tax advice. The cents-per-kilometre method is capped at 5,000 km per car each income year, and the log book covers one period across every vehicle. The estimate is carried into the CSV header and the PDF summary, and changing the rate after the build updates it without another build.
What affects accuracy
- A stop with no check-in has no recorded time, only its booked time.
- A stop with an address that cannot be resolved has no distance to or from it.
- Distances are road distances between stop addresses, not the exact path the vehicle took.
- Accuracy also varies with GPS quality and whether every stop was checked into on the job.
- Cancelled appointments are excluded.