Writing
Mileage bands, grey fleet duty of care, and what Revenue actually wants in the records behind a submission.
The mileage spreadsheet is the most expensive piece of software your firm runs. It's also the only one with no line item. Six cost categories, three firm-size scenarios, and the actual breakeven point - usually around month four to nine.
If you're moving from a spreadsheet to mileage software in July, the question isn't whether you can. The question is what you actually do for the six weeks of the migration. Week-by-week walk-through, what doesn't migrate, and what month two looks like.
Mileage is a billing problem dressed up as a finance problem. Every kilometre coded to the wrong project is either margin you ate or margin you over-billed. For a 30-engineer firm, the leak runs around €126,000 per year - and it doesn't show up as a line item.
It's 10:47pm on a Thursday and Niamh has 47 tabs open. This is what month-end mileage reconciliation looks like in a lot of Irish engineering firms. The shape of the evening is the problem - here's where the errors hide and what 6:15pm Thursday could look like instead.
Mileage band calculations depend on year-to-date totals. A single missing or out-of-order trip can silently push every subsequent calculation into the wrong band - and the cumulative effect across a year is real-money exposure. Worked example with Eileen the engineer.
Most Irish SMEs running grey fleet don't have a written policy. The HSA does not consider that a defence. Here are the seven sections every grey fleet policy needs, what HSA inspectors actually look for, and the one-page version that gets you compliant this week.
On 1 January 2026, the lower limit of the highest BIK mileage band dropped from 52,001 km to 48,001 km. For Irish SMEs running a mix of company cars and grey fleet, that 4,000 km shift changes the right answer for some employees - and most haven't recalculated.
ERR proves you reported the payment. It doesn't prove the payment was right. The two compliance gates are separate, and Revenue audits both - here's what they look for in the records behind your mileage submission.
The single mileage rate promised for 2025 never arrived, so the four-band Civil Service system still applies in full. Here's what's current, and the three places I see Irish finance teams trip up on the band splits.
Grey fleet is employees' own cars used for business - the arrangement most Irish professional-services firms run on, whether they call it that or not. A plain-English guide to what it means for compliance, Revenue mileage bands, and duty of care.
