SparkReceipt Help

How do I get suggested trips from my calendar?

SparkReceipt can turn meetings with an address in your phone's calendar into suggested trips. Set a base location, pick the calendars, then approve or dismiss each suggestion on your phone or on the web.

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Written by SparkReceipt TeamUpdated Nov 10, 2026

SparkReceipt can suggest trips from your calendar. Turn on Calendar trips in the iPhone or Android app and pick the calendars on your phone that hold your meetings. When a meeting with an address ends, SparkReceipt suggests a trip to it from your home or office, with the driving distance worked out. Nothing becomes a trip until you approve it, and you can approve suggestions on your phone or in the web app.

This works for drives you forgot to record, and for people who don't record trips with GPS at all.

Set it up in the mobile app

Open Calendar trips from the menu, or tap Trips from your calendar at the top of the Trips tab. Then:

  1. Under Base location, set your home or office. The first trip of the day starts here and the last one comes back here. Pick an address from the search results so SparkReceipt can work out distances.
  2. Under Calendars on this phone, turn on Use calendars on this phone. SparkReceipt asks Read your calendar? Tap Continue, then allow calendar access when your phone asks.
  3. Tap Calendars and turn on the calendars that hold your meetings. Holiday, sports and shared calendars are best left off. Suggestions start once at least one calendar is on.

Calendars from your phone's accounts, such as iCloud, Google or Outlook, show up in the list when they sync to your phone.

What leaves your phone

Only meetings that have an address leave your phone: their time, title and address. SparkReceipt never writes to or changes your calendar.

Optional settings

  • How far back: Look back sets which past meetings are suggested: the last 30 days by default, or up to the last 12 months to catch up on past months.
  • Trips from these calendars: the Vehicle and Category (Business or Personal) that suggested trips start with. By default they get your own vehicle. You can change both on each trip.

To stop, turn off Use calendars on this phone. Suggestions you haven't approved go away; trips you already approved stay.

Which meetings become trips

A meeting is suggested as a trip when it has ended, has a physical address, and falls in your look-back period. These are left out:

  • online meetings without an address, such as a video call link;
  • all-day events, and events longer than 12 hours;
  • meetings you declined;
  • meetings at your base location.

Back-to-back meetings at the same place become one trip. When one meeting starts within 3 hours after another ends, the trip to it starts at the first meeting's address, and only the last meeting of the outing returns to your base location. A single meeting with nothing after it is suggested as a round trip from your base location.

Approve or dismiss suggestions

Mobile app. Tap Suggested trips at the top of the Trips tab, or on the Home tab when trips are waiting. Tap Approve to add a suggestion to your trips, or Dismiss to drop it. Open a suggestion to change its details first, then tap Save trip, or Save draft to come back to it later. To handle several at once, select them and choose Approve selected trips or Dismiss selected trips.

Web app. When trips are waiting, the Trips page says how many and offers Review. Approve or dismiss each suggestion, or select several and click Approve or Dismiss. Review and approve opens a suggestion so you can check the route, vehicle and other details before you click Approve trip. The web app reads the calendars you turned on in the mobile app; to change them, use the mobile app.

An approved suggestion becomes a trip like any other: you can edit it, export it in a trip report and put it on an expense claim. A dismissed meeting isn't suggested again.

If a suggestion says it Needs a start, SparkReceipt doesn't know where the drive began. Set a base location, or open the suggestion and pick the start address.

Plans

Calendar trips are on every plan. An approved suggestion counts toward the Free plan's monthly trip limit like any new trip. When the month's trips are used up, you see Monthly trip limit reached: the suggestions stay, and you can approve them next month or after upgrading.