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For anyone who does time or mileage billing for trips they make in their cars, in their capacity as salespersons, consultants, delivery persons, or other activities, Mile Manager is ideal.  Mile Manager generates several printable billing reports, that are especially useful for such tasks.

Usage Categories

One of the most powerful features of Mile Manager is the ability for you to define custom Usage Categories, and store them in your database.  Adding a Usage Category to your database is easy, and once added, the new Usage Category is instantly available throughout several parts of the application, to manage your trips, billing, special mileage reports, and related functions.

Usage Categories are extensively discussed and explained in the documentation that accompanies the application, and are very easy to configure.  (Note: an example database with sample Usage Categories accompanies Mile Manager, and is included in the standard free download package.)  You can optionally set any or all of the properties of custom Usage Categories, depending on what you wish to do.

Properties of Usage Categories

Time Rate Options you can set, include:

• Hourly Rate : the familiar per hour time billing charge.
• Daily Rate : charge per day, for accrued  billable time.
• Hourly to Daily Rollover : useful if you wish to charge only your daily rate, after a certain number of yours have elapsed at your hourly billing rate. (e.g. if you want to bill for one "day" at your defined daily rate, after say, 8 hours have elapsed.)
• First Day Charge : option to bill for first day immediately at the start of a trip (so that you always bill for at least one day), or wait until an elapsed day, to bill for your first day.
• Elapsed Day Option : you can control whether (i) a new day elapses every 24 hours (by the actual clock) from the beginning of a trip or billable episode, or (ii) a new day elapses every calendar day (i.e. at midnight each night.)

Mileage Rate Options you can set :

• Per Mile Rate : the standard charge per mile, for elapsed billable mileage, in your trips.
• Per Trip Surcharge : optional block rate to be assessed per trip (like a taxi meter drop.)  You can add this to, or use it instead of, your per mile rate.

Billing Header Options you can set :

• Bill To fields : the name, address, etc fields, of a company or entity to which you wish to submit billing reports, for billable time and mileage charges accrued in a selected Usage Category.  These fields are optional, and each custom category can contain its own set of billing headers that you can store with the category's rates and other settings.  These headers allow you to produce virtually complete billing reports, with a couple mouse clicks, if you routinely or periodically submit time or mileage charges to a certain source, for reimbursement.
• Remit To fields :  similar to Bill To fields, these fields are a convenient way to store header information right in your custom category, along with the set of applicable time and mileage rates.  Very useful for frequently used or periodically generated billable time or mileage reports.

Using Usage Categories

Usage Categories and Trips are designed to work in concert, to accomplish a wide range of billing and personal accounting functions.  Once your time and mileage rates and settings have been stored in a particular Usage Category, you can turn any trip record into a billable  episode by simply clicking on the desired Usage Category, in the drop down categories list that is available on each trip record template. (Note: You can store as many custom categories as you wish, in your database, each with a different group of rates and settings.)

Billing Reports

Mile Manager produces dozens of printable reports (for a complete list of reports, jump to the Reports Page.)  Among these are two styles of report which are particularly well suited to be used for billing purposes :

• Category Billing Reports : a summary and breakdown of billable time and mileage charges, for all trips linked to a selected Usage Category, (and falling in a target date range.)
• Client Billing Reports : a summary and breakdown of billable time and mileage charges, for all trips to a selected destination, in any date range. (See also our Client Page for information on client-handling features of the application.)

Note:  Both styles of report are discussed step-by-step, in the documentation that comes with the application, along with useful tips for planning and using each type of report.  You also receive a sample database in the standard download package, from which you can create examples of both reports, and experiment with various report options. 

Category Billing Reports

These reports are well suited for collecting and summarizing a range of trips, made to possibly multiple clients or destinations, but which are all made using a single time and mileage rate structure.  (Contrast with Client Billing Reports.)

There are many applications for such report types.  Suppose you are working in insurance, sales, consulting, real estate, or working as a company "Rep," and you make trips to multiple locations or persons, yet you want to track or bill all time and/or mileage charges, accruing in these multiple trips, using a single time and mileage rate structure.  

Perhaps you want to keep track simply for yourself, to see how your time and mileage is expended.  Perhaps your time and/or mileage in these trips is tax deductible.  Perhaps you need to submit periodic activity or reimbursement reports to a parent company, from whom you receive a mileage allowance, or on behalf of which you are making these excursions.  Perhaps you are doing volunteer work, and wish to keep track of your volunteer time and mileage, for accounting purposes.  

All of these tasks are ideal candidates for the use of Category Billing Reports.  You simply define your desired rate structure once (see above on this page, for Usage Category properties you can set) and store it in your database, under a custom category name that you choose.  

Then, you enter a trip record for each trip you wish to track.  (The Mile Manager Trips Cabinet provides extensive functionality, to make this data entry fast, smart and convenient.)  On each of these trip records, you simply click on your desired category name, and all the computation and data collection is done for you.  When you are ready to create your report, just a few mouse clicks generates the complete and totalled report for you, ready for submission to your parent company.

Client Billing Reports

Mile Manager provides a number of functions for managing your interaction with clients or destinations.  (See Clients and Locations, for more.)  The Client Billing Report is ideal for collecting and summarizing a group of trips (e.g. in a target date range) to a single client or destination.  If you wish to bill a selected client or destination, instead of a parent category, for a range of trips, you would use this report style.

One distinction with this type of report is that it provides you with the flexibility to "cut across" your custom Usage Categories, meaning that you can conceivably log multiple trips to the same client or location, but in different usage categories (i.e. at different billing rate structures), yet easily collect these trips and disparate charges together into a single report of all your activities that pertain to this client or place.  Totalled and summarized, these charges can then be submitted to the selected Client or Location for reimbursement.

Examples here include various types of consulting and contracting situations, in which you bill the client or destination for the time or mileage expended -- instead of, say, a parent company, on behalf of whom you make the trips.  (Someone giving piano lessons could use this type of report, to bill his/her students for time and mileage, when making house calls.)

Summing Up

The range of billing functions that a creative use of Mile Manager can help you accomplish, is very great.  If you are interested in billing or reporting tasks, that involve trips or time in your car, we recommend that you download the application and try it out, free of charge.  The documentation and the example database that are included in the standard download package, provide more information than you will find here.

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