The Mileage Tracking App That Does The Work For You
Shoeboxed has always helped small businesses organize receipts for tax time. What a lot of people don't know is that Shoeboxed also tracks your driving mileage automatically, and it's included in your plan already.
Here's the idea in one sentence. You drive like you normally do, and once a night we send you a text message listing every trip you took that day, so all you have to do is reply and tell us what each trip was for.
- ✓No app to remember to open, and no need to tell it when your trip starts or ends
- ✓Unlimited mileage tracking, even on our $9 a month plan
- ✓Receipt scanning included on every plan
- ✓Every plan includes a Magic Envelope for your paper receipts
- ✓Real US-based support, by email or phone
How it works in three texts
1. We text you your trips
2. You reply once
3. It's saved as a receipt
Why we built it this way
Most mileage tracking apps ask you to remember to open the app and press a button before you start driving, and to press another button when you're done. If you forget, that trip never gets recorded, and you lose the tax deduction for it. This happens to people constantly. We've read the complaints from drivers who lost weeks or months of mileage because they forgot to turn a tracker on.
Our mileage tracker doesn't work that way. There's no button to press before you drive. Your phone already knows where it is, and our system watches for trips in the background and records them on its own, whether the Shoeboxed app is open or not.
The other thing we changed is how you tell us what each trip was for. Most tracking apps make you open the app after every single trip and swipe left or right to mark it as personal or business. If you drive a lot in a day, that can mean a dozen or more swipes before you're done. We do this differently. We wait until the end of the day, then send you one text message listing everything, and you reply once to classify all of it at once.
"Why are you keeping the mileage tracker a secret? I hate to think how much tax I've overpaid."
from a fourth-generation farm that just sold out its first olive oil harvest
A lot of Shoeboxed customers feel the same way once they find out this feature exists. They've been using Shoeboxed for their receipts for years without realizing mileage tracking was already part of their plan.
What actually happens when you use it
Here is the full process, step by step.
You drive somewhere in your car, the same as always. You don't need to open any app or press any button beforehand.
Our system detects that you took a trip using your phone's location. It records where the trip started, where it ended, and how far you drove using the actual roads, not a straight line.
That night, you get one text message that lists every trip you took that day, along with the mileage and an estimated dollar value for each one based on the current IRS mileage rate.
You can see in that message above that the tracker also asks whether any of the trips were for business, medical care, or charity work, since the IRS treats each of those differently at tax time.
Once you reply, we do the math using the current IRS mileage rate and save a full receipt for that trip inside your Shoeboxed account, with a map of the route, the date, the distance, and the reason for the trip.
That screenshot above shows what one of those saved trips looks like once it's in your account. Nothing about this is locked in permanently. You can always go back and correct a trip later.
What about trips with multiple stops?
If one of your trips included a stop for something personal in the middle, you can reply "split it." We then walk you through splitting that trip into separate pieces so you can label each part correctly. Here's a real example, start to finish.
1. One bundled trip, 310 miles
2. Reply "split it" for 3 separate legs
3. Classify and label each one, done
This makes it easy to claim all the mileage you can deduct, even when a trip includes personal legs.
Need help? Just ask.
We know texting can get a bit confusing. If you need help, just text "options" and we tell you all of the different things you can do, like getting trips for specific days, splitting trips, and more.
Here's the full list of what you can text the tracker, any time:
- →"trips today," "trips yesterday," or "trips Aug 5" to see any day's trips
- →"1 was business" to label a trip as business, medical, charity, or personal
- →"split 2" to break a trip into separate legs
- →"no" if a day's trips were all personal
- →After you label a trip, tell it what the trip was for, like "client visit," and that goes on the receipt
- →"text me at 8am" to change what time your daily trip text arrives
- →"options" any time to see this list again
What our customers say about it
We asked some of our longtime customers what they thought of the mileage tracker, and we're sharing their answers here exactly as they wrote them, without their names attached.
"I like that it tracks through my phone now rather than having to remember to start the tracker."
from a horse-breeding and training facility owner
"As a Realtor, I track a lot of mileage, so this is going to make doing my taxes at the end of the year so much easier. I'm genuinely super impressed with the app. I even left you guys a five-star review on the App Store."
from a busy Bay Area Realtor
"I have been using your product for over 9 years now. Your new mileage piece is so easy to use and I love that it reminds me every night to log it."
from a Managing Broker who runs his own real estate group with a perfect five-star rating across dozens of reviews
What it costs and what's included
Mileage tracking is already included in every Shoeboxed plan, starting at nine dollars a month. There's no separate app to download and no extra charge added to your bill for using it. If you're already a Shoeboxed customer, you likely have access to this feature right now and just haven't turned it on yet.
There's no limit on how many trips you can track. Whether you drive twice a week or several times a day, every trip gets recorded and texted to you, with nothing held back for a higher-priced plan.
That screenshot above is a real week of trips from a real Shoeboxed account, each one already logged, categorized, and priced out automatically.
Common questions
Text us and tell us about it, and we'll add it to your account by hand. This is rare, but it can happen on very short trips, usually under a mile, where there isn't enough movement for your phone to register that a trip took place.
Why Shoeboxed instead of just another app
Most mileage and receipt apps are exactly that, an app, and nothing else. If you get confused, or the app breaks, or you've still got a drawer full of old paper receipts sitting there, you're on your own. There's no phone number that reaches a real person, and no way to send in the paper.
Shoeboxed is different because it was a real company with a phone number and a real office years before it was an app. That matters most if you don't have time to sit around learning new software. If you're a landscaper, a Realtor, a contractor, or anyone else who's busy running a business instead of poking around in an app, here's what that actually gets you.
| Most mileage apps | Shoeboxed | |
|---|---|---|
| Tracking your trips | ✕You press Start and Stop. Forget once, and the trip is gone. | ✓Automatic in the background. No buttons, nothing to remember. |
| Labeling your trips | ✕Open the app and swipe every single trip, one at a time. | ✓One text a night. Reply once and you're done. |
| Trip limits | ✕Caps on cheaper plans, upgrades to unlock more. | ✓Unlimited trips on every plan, starting at $9 a month. |
| Your paper receipts | ✕No way to handle paper. That drawer stays full. | ✓Mail them in a postage-paid Magic Envelope. A real person scans every one. |
| Receipt scanning | ✕Mileage only. Receipts are somebody else's problem. | ✓Included on every plan, paper and digital. |
| When you need help | ✕A help article, maybe a chatbot. | ✓A real person in Durham, NC picks up the phone. (888) 369-4269. |
The Magic Envelope
The only receipt service in America that still handles your actual paper.
- →We mail you a postage-paid envelope. Stuff it with a month of receipts, or years of them.
- →Drop it in any mailbox. A real person in our Durham office scans every one.
- →More than one business? Use a separate envelope for each and we keep them apart.
Real people in Durham, North Carolina
Not a call center. Not a chatbot. A real US team since 2007.
- →Call us at (888) 369-4269, Monday to Friday, and a real human picks up.
- →That's the same team behind mileage tracking. It's not a robot guessing at your trips, it's built by the people who've been doing this by hand since 2007.
- →If a trip or a receipt ever looks wrong, you call the same number and talk to the same kind of person who scans your mail.
Real people you can actually call
Not a call center, not a chatbot. When you ring our Durham office, one of these folks picks up.
Amy Wilson
Client Success Manager
Jennifer Wilson
Client Support Manager
Morgan Price
Operations Manager
BBB Rating: A+
Click for profile
Give it a try
Shoeboxed is a BBB Accredited Business with an A+ rating, and we've been helping small businesses with their receipts and taxes for close to twenty years. If you already trust us with your receipts, this is the same company and the same account. Turning on mileage tracking is one more thing taken off your plate, not a new relationship to build.
Try Shoeboxed Risk-FreeTry it for 30 days. If it's not for you, you get your money back.