SparkReceipt has a built-in mileage tracker, shown in the app as Trips. It is live in the web app and the iOS and Android apps. It records the distance you drive for work, keeps each trip alongside your receipts and expenses, and estimates the reimbursement from the distance and a rate you set. On mobile you can record trips automatically with GPS or add them by hand. In the web app you add and edit them manually. Every trip can be classified as Business or Personal, attributed to a vehicle, and given a purpose. You can export trips as a PDF, Excel or CSV trip report to claim your mileage.
Where to find Trips
Trips is available to everyone on every platform, with nothing to turn on first. It also can't be turned off or hidden if you don't use it.
Mobile app (iOS / Android). Open the Trips tab.
Web app. Open Trips from the left sidebar.
Recording a trip with GPS (mobile)
On iOS and Android you can record a trip live while you drive:
- On the Trips tab, tap the + button (or Start trip if you have no trips yet) and choose Record trip.
- Grant location access when prompted — SparkReceipt needs it to log your route. On Android the recording runs as a foreground service with an ongoing notification so tracking keeps working while the app is in the background.
- Drive. SparkReceipt captures your GPS path and adds up the distance as you go. You can pause, resume, or stop the trip at any time.
A few things worth knowing:
- You can only have one active trip at a time. Stop or pause the current trip before starting another.
- Trips are recorded offline-first. If you're out of signal, the trip is saved on your device and uploads automatically once you're back online — you'll see a Not synced badge until it does.
- If the app closes mid-trip, SparkReceipt offers to recover the unfinished trip the next time you open it, so you can continue tracking, save it as-is, or delete it.
GPS recording is a mobile-only capability. The web app is for adding and editing trips manually.
Adding a trip manually
Manual entry works on both mobile and web, which is handy for trips you forgot to record or want to log after the fact.
- Choose Add manually (mobile) or Add trip (web).
- Enter a From and To address. Start typing and pick a suggestion — SparkReceipt geocodes the addresses and calculates the driving distance for the route automatically.
- Optionally add intermediate stops for multi-leg trips.
- Adjust the details: start and end times, the vehicle, the classification (Business or Personal), a purpose, and an optional description.
If the calculated route distance isn't right, you can override it and type the distance yourself. An overridden distance is kept as-is and won't be recalculated from the route.
Saved addresses
If you drive to the same places often, such as home, the office or a client's site, save them once and pick them instead of typing the address each time.
Your saved addresses show first in every trip address field. In the web app, click an empty From, To or stop field to see them all, or start typing to narrow them down by name or address. In the mobile app, they are listed at the top of the address search under Saved addresses.
To save an address:
- While adding a trip. In the web app, fill in the field and click the bookmark button next to it (Save address). In the mobile app, open the address search on a filled field and tap Save this address. Give the address a name, such as Home, and save it.
- Ahead of time. In the web app, go to Account settings → Saved addresses and click Add address. In the mobile app, open the menu, tap Account settings, then Saved addresses, and tap +.
You can rename, change or delete saved addresses on the same page. In the mobile app, tap an address to edit it, or touch and hold it to delete it. Deleting a saved address doesn't change trips that used it.
Saved addresses are personal: only you see your list, and each account you belong to has its own.
Duplicating a trip
To log a repeat drive, start from a trip you already have:
- Web app. Open the trip and click Duplicate at the top of the page.
- Mobile app. Open the trip and tap the copy icon (Duplicate) at the top. On a narrow screen it may be in the … menu.
A new trip opens with the same addresses, stops, vehicle, classification, purpose, description, passengers, round trip setting and distance. The times aren't copied: the start time is now and the end time is empty. A trip needs a start time, so the web app won't save one with the start cleared. Set the times of the new drive, change anything else that differs, and save. The original trip doesn't change.
A trip that is still being recorded can't be duplicated. A duplicate counts toward the Free plan's monthly trip limit like any new trip.
Round trips
Turn on Round trip to count the distance both ways. SparkReceipt stores the one-way distance and doubles it for what you see — both the displayed distance and the reimbursement estimate reflect the round-trip total.
Classifying trips
Every trip is either Business or Personal. GPS-recorded trips start as Business by default. You can change a trip's classification from its detail view, and on the web app you can select several trips and mark them all Business or Personal at once.
Trip purpose, including AI suggestions
Each trip can have a short purpose (for example, "Client meeting" or "Site visit") plus a longer optional description.
If you save or finish a trip without a purpose, SparkReceipt can generate a short one for you from the trip's start and end addresses and any stops. An AI-suggested purpose is labelled Suggested by AI. As soon as you edit the purpose yourself, it becomes your own text and is no longer treated as AI-generated. A trip with no address information anywhere is left without a purpose rather than having one guessed.
Vehicles
You can attribute trips to a vehicle and give each vehicle its own reimbursement rate. Manage vehicles in the web app under Account settings → Vehicles, or in the mobile app from the menu under Account settings. Each vehicle has:
- Name (required)
- Registration (plate)
- Make and Model
- Rate per km or Rate per mi: the reimbursement rate for this vehicle
There's no limit on how many vehicles you can add. If you delete a vehicle, trips attributed to it keep their distance but lose the vehicle link.
Reimbursement rates and the estimate
SparkReceipt shows an Estimated reimbursement on a trip when it can work out a rate. The rate is resolved in this order:
- The attributed vehicle's rate, if the trip has a vehicle with a rate set.
- Otherwise, your account's default rate.
The estimate is the trip's distance, in your account's distance unit, multiplied by that rate (doubled for round trips). If neither a vehicle rate nor a default rate is set, no estimate is shown.
Where to set the account-wide rates:
- Web app: Account settings → Vehicles, under Mileage rates: Default rate per km (or per mi), Passenger rate per km and Mileage currency.
- Mobile app: open the menu, tap Account settings, then Mileage Tracker: Default rate, Passenger rate, Mileage currency and Distance unit.
Only account admins and Accountants can change these rates.
Default rates for new accounts
When a new account is set up in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Poland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa, SparkReceipt fills in the default rate from that country's government-published mileage rate, and the passenger rate where the authority publishes one. It only fills an empty rate and never changes it later, so check the rate when the official rate changes. In other countries, and on older accounts, you set the rate yourself.
Passengers
Set Passengers on a trip to count the people riding along, not counting the driver. If your account has a Passenger rate, the trip shows a Passenger reimbursement on top of the mileage amount, and a Total reimbursement. Leave the passenger rate empty to turn passenger reimbursement off.
Distance unit (km or miles)
Trips use a single distance unit per account: kilometres or miles. SparkReceipt picks a default from your region (miles for the US, UK, Myanmar and Liberia, kilometres elsewhere). You can change it in the mobile app under Mileage Tracker → Distance unit. Your rate is an amount per that unit.
Adding a cost to a trip (tolls, parking, fuel)
A trip has no cost field you type in. Its money value is the reimbursement worked out from the distance and your rate, plus any passenger amount. That amount is what goes into trip reports.
For costs on top of the mileage, such as tolls, parking or a ferry ticket, add the receipt to SparkReceipt as an expense. On a paid plan (Pro or Elite) you can put the trips and those expenses on one expense claim and send it for approval: select the trips and choose Add to expense claim. See Which expenses and trips can go on an expense claim?.
Repeating or bulk-adding trips
To copy one trip, use Duplicate. Trips has no recurring trips and no import from a file or from Google Maps Timeline.
To add many trips quickly, ask SparkAgent. It can add manual trips for you from a plain description, for example:
- "Add a business trip from 12 Main Street to the Riverside office on every Monday in September, round trip."
- "Copy my trip from 3 June to 10 June and 17 June."
- "Add these trips:" followed by a list of dates and addresses you paste in.
SparkAgent works out the driving distance from the two addresses, or uses the distance you give it. It adds single-leg trips only, so add stops in the app afterwards if you need them. Trips SparkAgent adds count toward the Free plan's monthly trip limit like any other. See How to use SparkAgent.
Which plans include Trips
The Mileage Tracker is available on all plans. There's no separate purchase. The difference is how many trips you can create each month:
- Free: up to 3 trips per month.
- Pro and Elite: unlimited trips.
The monthly count only applies to creating trips: it resets at the start of each calendar month, and trips you started recording but cancelled don't count against it. You can always view and edit the trips you already have, even after reaching the Free limit. If your account is linked to a paid account, the paid tier lifts the limit.
Exporting trips to a report
Trips export as a mileage report you can hand to your employer or accountant, or use for a mileage claim.
Web app
- Export in the Trips page header covers all your completed trips. Trips that are still being recorded are left out.
- Export selected covers only the trips you ticked in the list.
- Both open the export dialog, where you choose PDF, Excel or CSV, can change the report name and click Export. The report downloads when it is ready and is kept in Reports with the kind Trip report.
- Export PDF on a single trip's page is one click with no dialog. The PDF downloads straight away. If you have signed up for your account, it is also kept in Reports.
Mobile app
- Tap Export at the top of the Trips tab, or open the three-dot menu and choose Export. It covers your completed trips, or the trips that match your search. Trips that are still being recorded are left out.
- To export some trips only, select them (Select may also be in the three-dot menu) and tap Export in the selection bar (Export selected). Only completed trips that have synced can go in a report; the export sheet tells you when some selected trips were left out.
- Both open the export sheet, where you choose PDF, Excel or CSV, can change the report name and tap Export. When the report is ready, Open shows it. It is also kept in the Reports tab.
- Export PDF at the top of a single trip makes a PDF of that trip in one tap, with no sheet. When it is ready, a message with Open appears. The button is greyed out while the trip has changes that haven't synced yet.
Totals in the report. The PDF report starts with a summary: the number of trips, the total distance split into business, personal and uncategorized, and the reimbursement for business trips, with uncategorized trips on a line of their own. Excel has one row per trip on its Trips tab and the same totals on a Summary tab. CSV has one row per trip with the same columns, so you can add them up yourself. Amounts use the rates set when the report is created. Personal trips carry no reimbursement amount. A trip without a rate shows no amount, and the report says so when some trips were left out of the totals for that reason.
Trips and accounting software (Zoho Books, QuickBooks, Xero)
Trips are not published to accounting software on their own, and Zoho Books does not receive trips from SparkReceipt in any form. To get mileage into Zoho Books, export a trip report and enter the total there.
Trips on an approved expense claim can be published to QuickBooks Online, Xero, Procountor or SimplBooks together with the claim. See How do I publish an expense claim to my accounting software?.
What Trips does not do
- No odometer entry. Distance comes from the recorded GPS route or the route between the addresses you enter, with a manual override if you need it.
- No cost field. See Adding a cost to a trip above.
- No recurring trips or importing. See Repeating or bulk-adding trips above.
- No link to a receipt. A trip can't be attached to a receipt or document. Expense claims are the place where trips and receipts come together.
Related articles
- Can I track mileage with SparkReceipt?: the short answer, with plan limits at a glance.
- How do I hide the SparkReceipt Academy or the "Finish your setup" reminder?: includes the Track a trip step.