Business Mileage

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 promised single-rate simplification has been quietly deferred. The 2022 engine-capacity bands still apply — and the complexity is costing employers (and their clients) real money.

If you run a business where staff use their own cars for work, you’re already managing a grey fleet — whether you’ve formalised it or not. A plain-English guide to what grey fleet means, who has it, and why it matters for compliance.