Mile Manager Fuel Receipt Handling

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Introduction

Mile Manager provides multiple ways to enter, arrange, retrieve, total and create reports of, fuel purchase records.   In addition to fuel-related reports, a number of colored charts can be displayed at the click of the mouse, which graphically illustrate fuel-related quantities that the application keeps and generates for you, based on information in your database.

You can easily track your fuel expenses and efficiencies, to answer a variety of questions, including:

• What is the overall fuel cost per mile, for one or more brands of fuel, in my vehicles? 
• What brand of fuel gets the best MPG in a certain vehicle?
• Which grade of gasoline (premium or regular), provides the most cost-effective performance in my vehicle(s)?

The more driving you do, the more important these questions become, and not knowing the answers can mean that you are simply throwing away money.

Mile Manager also will alert you to any sudden fluctuation in the MPG of a vehicle that you have in your database, which can be of value in helping you maintain your vehicles in an emission-compliant condition, as well as simply to maintain the optimal economic efficiency of your vehicles over time.  

About Fuel Receipts

Each individual fuel receipt is a record of a single fuel purchase event.  Information including the vehicle for which the fuel is purchased, the payment method used to purchase the fuel, date of purchase, fuel brand, odometer and other optional information is stored as a fuel receipt record, in the Fuel Receipts Cabinet.

Although your receipts are "kept" in the application's Fuel Receipts Cabinet, Mile Manager invisibly links each receipt that you enter, to data in the other cabinets as well, including the Vehicles Cabinet and the Payment Methods Cabinet.  Thus, you may enter, retrieve and organize your fuel receipt records from those other cabinets, as well as from the Fuel Receipts Cabinet itself.    

Each of these "cabinets" provides a different set of reports, and gives you different options for viewing and connecting your data.  You will find this cabinet system to be very flexible and intuitive, and a natural way of approaching your data from different points of view.  

These cabinets provide not just alternate ways to view or report on your data, but alternate ways to enter it, as well.  You can enter your basic data in any way that you find most convenient.  For example, you can enter a new fuel receipt into the database, by entering it "under" its linked vehicle, in the Vehicles Cabinet.  Or, you can enter it under the Payment Method (e.g. a gas card) that you used to purchase the fuel.   After entering the new fuel receipt, your data will then have a presence in each cabinet that has a "view" of fuel receipt data, for easy and flexible report-creation and other manipulation.

Payment Methods

As mentioned, Mile Manager includes facilities for monitoring your fuel payment methods, as well.  At any time, you can go to the Payment Methods Cabinet to see and access a breakdown of fuel purchases, by gas card, credit card, cash, or any method of fuel payment that you use.   You can get a list or create a report of all fuel purchases, for any given payment method, or compare payment methods against each other. You can view colored charts (see the charts page, for an example) that illustrate your purchase method activity and show monthly averages, both of usage count, and dollar expenditure.  

This cabinet can be quite helpful for users who want to work with their fuel receipt data from the point of view of their fuel gas cards.  For example, users who have a special gas card (e.g. a gas card issued by the company they work for) that is used for particular purchases, will find it a snap to generate a report of fuel purchases made with that card specifically.