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View Full Version : Aack I lost my mileage log...



Blessed
02-27-2009, 10:57 AM
So I'm getting ready to do our taxes and I've got all the receipts, W-2's, 1099's, etc... together and go to add up my mileage and my mileage log is gone - not in the file cabinet, not in my purse, not in the diaper bag, not in the truck... Now I have to try and recreate it... I think this is going to be a LONG day. sigh.

By the way - this year I'm tracking mileage differently than I did last year and it seems to work better and will be much harder to loose!

rezzy
02-27-2009, 11:32 AM
By the way - this year I'm tracking mileage differently than I did last year and it seems to work better and will be much harder to loose!

With a website? Or an excel spreadsheet? If either make sure you have backups or your backups.

In case a freak accident happens with your computer and you lose those documents... again.

vangogh
02-27-2009, 11:40 AM
Jenn it would have to be somewhere. Is it possible you do have it and just haven't found it yet? Or do you think you may have left it somewhere like a gas station when you were filling up?

This won't help you this year, but in the future maybe you could be updating the log in a spreadsheet through the year. That way you can make easy backups of it.

Hopefully you find it and if not hopefully it's easier to recreate than you're thinking.

Blessed
02-27-2009, 12:26 PM
Jenn it would have to be somewhere. Is it possible you do have it and just haven't found it yet? Or do you think you may have left it somewhere like a gas station when you were filling up?

It's definitely somewhere - Sugar has started throwing everything away... I've found socks, bowls, books and etc... in the trash, I check it all the time now to make sure there isn't something in there that shouldn't be. I'm hoping she didn't throw it away.

I expect that I'll find it two days after I upload our taxes - then we'll have to see how far off I am.


This won't help you this year, but in the future maybe you could be updating the log in a spreadsheet through the year. That way you can make easy backups of it.

This is exactly what I'm doing this year - I backup my computer about once a week so if something bad would happen to my computer I'd only have a week or two of mileage to recreate!


Hopefully you find it and if not hopefully it's easier to recreate than you're thinking.

This is when I'm thankful that I use Gmail and never delete anything - most of my mileage is from appointments set by email. The things I'll loose are the few trips to Office Max, etc... that were done for business. That won't add up to much mileage. But this is still aggravating.

vangogh
02-27-2009, 02:17 PM
At least you have the info then. Still a pain to have to recreate the log, but it could be worse if you had to do it all from memory.

orion_joel
02-27-2009, 08:01 PM
what you could do is a little spin on the google one, just use a gmail account and email yourself every time you do travel for business and the details then you can update you log once a week, and if you dont delete the emails from gmail you have them all there if something does go bad, and you dont have to guess it.

Evan
02-27-2009, 10:25 PM
Do you know approximately how much mileage you put on your vehicle? How about approximately how many miles you used your vehicle for business? Or you can backtrack, and determine about how many miles you drove in 2008, and determine the approximate "business-use" of your car.

So if you drove 15,000 miles this year but used your car 60% for business-use, you can determine that 9,000 miles was for business use.

While a monthly breakdown would also be nice, determine what portion is also Jan 1-June 30, and July 1-Dec 31. The mileage rate did go up, and if the tax preparer doesn't know he may just prorate it 50/50.

Your tax preparer certainly doesn't NEED the mileage log, only the numbers. Ultimately though it is your responsibility, as the taxpayer, to have proof of this mileage in the event of an audit. As long as it isn't unreasonable mileage, I'm sure you won't have a major issue.

Steve B
02-28-2009, 06:55 AM
"I backup my computer about once a week"

With so many inexpensive and automated options, why not do it daily? If you don't have a lot of data, there are free web-based storage options. If you have a lot, you can get it backed up every night for $5 per month. You can also purchase external hard drives that can do it nightly if you don't like monthly fees. I like the web-based option because that covers you if your house burns down or floods.

billbenson
02-28-2009, 12:03 PM
It doesn't sound like she had the mileage log in her pc, steve. It's something that would be best to enter into an excel file or book keeping program since it really needs to end up there come tax time anyway. That way you can backup easily.

On the backup issue, I frequently only back up once a week. The reason being I open stuff that I don't want to close during the week. Customer quotes for example where I quoted the product but don't have their name to save it or I'm in the middle of some web design stuff.

What I do is create a directory called daily files. I put all of my files that I usually work with in there. I copy that to another pc every evening. It's not a complete backup, but its easy and quick and gets most of the important data.

There's a million ways of structuring files etc to facilitate your needs. Its worth looking at how and where you save stuff to see if there is a better way for the way you work.

Blessed
02-28-2009, 12:09 PM
Your tax preparer certainly doesn't NEED the mileage log, only the numbers. Ultimately though it is your responsibility, as the taxpayer, to have proof of this mileage in the event of an audit. As long as it isn't unreasonable mileage, I'm sure you won't have a major issue.

About 75% of my mileage is business related and it isn't an unreasonable amount - I just want to get my mileage log back in order now so that if we are audited I won't be scrambling at that point to get it in order! We've never been audited, but I guess there is always a first time...

Blessed
02-28-2009, 12:10 PM
"I backup my computer about once a week"

With so many inexpensive and automated options, why not do it daily? If you don't have a lot of data, there are free web-based storage options. If you have a lot, you can get it backed up every night for $5 per month. You can also purchase external hard drives that can do it nightly if you don't like monthly fees. I like the web-based option because that covers you if your house burns down or floods.

I back it up on an external hard-drive and that is why it happens about once a week - I really should look into other options, I just haven't done it up to this point.

vangogh
02-28-2009, 12:22 PM
One of the things I love about my Mac is the backup program, Time Machine. It took a couple minutes to set up and now as long as my laptop can connect to the external drive backups are done automatically. The program makes a copy of my entire machine every hour so if I needed to find a file as it looked last Thursday I can go back in time so to speak and grab last Thursday's version of the file.

The biggest drawback I see is that all those backups filled my external drive quickly and it's full already. New backups will now overwrite old ones when necessary. That's not a problem for my needs, but it does limit how far back in time I can go. Until I get a new and bigger hard drive.

Steve B
02-28-2009, 01:45 PM
With all the automated options available today, you can back it up once a day, once a week, or once a month. It doesn't cost any extra to do it daily (or even more frequently than that), so why not be safe. Every hour like VG has it sounds awesome - especially if you can go back in time a bit to restore a file the way it was before someone messed it up. I use Mozy and I think it has a "continuous" option, but I chose daily for some reason.

Do they have a PC version of Time Machine?

vangogh
02-28-2009, 03:17 PM
Sorry, Steve. I think it's a Mac only application, though I would think there would be similar products for Windows. If not there should be.

Here's a nice video on how Time Machine works (http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#tutorial=leopardtimemachine). If for some reason it doesn't load the right video, click on it on the right. It's at the bottom in the list of videos.

The downside to backing up every hour is that for a minute or two each hour your computer slows up. Depends on what you're working with at the time. A good option for Time Machine to add would be allowing the user to set when and how often the backups take place. Once an hour is nice, but in truth you'd be fine backing up every 12 hours or even once a day.

Steve B
02-28-2009, 04:48 PM
That must have been the reason I didn't choose continuous with Mozy. I have it set to do it at 2am - even I'm still asleep then.

Evan
02-28-2009, 09:03 PM
We've never been audited, but I guess there is always a first time...

You'll find out in about three years regarding our 2008 return :)