Gain Control Over Mileage Calculation With These Three Best Practices

For organizations with employees constantly on the road, mileage reimbursement is one of the most common travel and expense line items. While reimbursing mileage is necessary, doing so inaccurately or inefficiently can lead to overspending, employee frustration, and compliance issues. That’s why more companies are turning to technology to modernize the way they track and manage business mileage.

With SAP Concur mileage solutions, you can automate and streamline the entire process — from tracking to approval, using GPS-powered tools built right into employees’ mobile devices. 

How the Concur Drive Mileage Calculator Works

SAP Concur provides a modern solution to an age-old problem: How do you accurately track and reimburse mileage without relying on spreadsheets, guesswork, or paper logs?

At the center of the solution is Concur Drive, a GPS-enabled mileage tracker that automatically logs trips using the mobile device your employees already carry. When employees activate tracking for business-related trips, the system captures start and end points, calculates total miles driven, and categorizes the journey as either business or personal. 

These records are then submitted directly into the expense report for review and reimbursement.

Behind the scenes, the Concur Drive mileage calculator multiplies the recorded miles by your preset reimbursement rate based on IRS guidelines or custom rates defined by your organization. 

Automated mileage tracking programs can save you up to 21 hours a year, per employee.

Employees can review their trips, correct any errors, and submit mileage logs for approval. Managers gain visibility into where expenses are coming from, and finance teams reduce time spent verifying mileage manually.

Learn best practices for mileage calculation to get the most out of Concur Drive.

Getting Mileage Right Saves You Money

Accurately calculating mileage saves time and protects your bottom line. SAP Concur customers spend billions on mileage every year.  Even small overestimates can add up quickly when multiplied across hundreds or thousands of employees.

Improper mileage reporting, whether it’s due to honest mistakes or intentional padding, is a real problem. Without a reliable mileage tracker, employees may round up distances, misclassify personal trips as business-related, or forget to include vital trip details. These inaccuracies lead to excess reimbursements and skewed travel budgets. Whether intentional or unintentional, travelers overestimate their mileage by up to 15% on average.

Automated tracking with Concur Drive reduces these risks, increases employee accountability, and ensures organizations pay only for miles actually driven for work. It also improves compliance with tax regulations, helping you avoid penalties and ensuring deductions are backed by proper documentation.

Visibility into mileage trends and patterns gives you the insight you need to improve forecasting and optimize budgets. 

Three Best Practices to Get Mileage Right

How do you get it right? Here are three mileage best practices you can put in place to end unreliable distance calculations and provide more accurate information for tax purposes.

1. Update Your Policies

The first step to improving mileage control is to update your company’s mileage policy and make it easy to understand and access.

For many frequent travelers, submitting expenses is a frustrating experience say submitting expenses is frustrating. One reason? Confusion about what qualifies for reimbursement and how to track it properly. Your mileage policy should clearly define:

• What types of trips are reimbursable
• How and when to use personal vehicles
• Required mileage tracker documentation
• Reimbursement rates and approval workflows

Embedding your mileage policy directly into the SAP Concur mobile app makes it easy for employees to reference on the go. The more accessible and intuitive your policy, the more likely it is to be followed, reducing errors and easing the burden on approvers.

Policies also help ensure that expenses are classified properly for greater efficiency and accuracy.

2. Keep It Accurate

Each mile reimbursed represents a real cost to your business. That’s why accuracy matters and why manual logs are not enough.

Encourage employees to track mileage using a reliable, automated mileage tracker that leverages GPS technology. Concur Drive captures the exact miles driven and eliminates guesswork. This helps prevent overestimation, duplicate entries, or rounding, common issues when employees self-report mileage.

Accuracy also improves transparency and trust. Employees feel reassured that they’re being reimbursed fairly, and finance teams can rest easy knowing claims are backed by objective data.

Documenting mileage more precisely also supports stronger compliance. In the event of an audit, organizations can present clean, consistent records tied to actual trips and not hand-written notes or spreadsheet entries.

With significant mileage spend annually, even a modest improvement in accuracy can add up quickly and improve your bottom line.

3. Make It Mobile

Most of your employees already carry the most powerful mileage tool in their pockets: their smartphones.

By enabling SAP Concur mobile spend management software, you can automate trip tracking with GPS, eliminating the need for manual input or spreadsheets. The mobile-first experience improves user adoption and ensures that trips are recorded in real-time.

Instead of relying on employees to remember to log their miles or estimate routes after the fact, SAP Concur solutions capture eligible miles while the trip is happening. This mobile functionality transforms a once tedious task into a seamless part of an employee’s routine.

Best of all? Companies that embrace mobile mileage tracking tools can save 20%–30% on personal mileage expenses, simply by removing human error and guesswork from the process.

Automate Mileage for Smarter Spend Management

Mileage might seem like a minor expense, but over time and across an organization, those small trips turn into major costs. Inaccurate mileage reporting, unclear policies, and manual tracking methods can all contribute to unnecessary spend.

With the Concur Drive mileage calculator, you gain control over this expense category by using GPS-powered automation, streamlined workflows, and mobile-first capabilities. When paired with smart policies and best practices, the result is improved accuracy, greater visibility, and reduced costs.

Ready to optimize your company’s approach to mileage reimbursement? Download our free ebook: Optimize Business Mileage Spend to learn how you can modernize mileage tracking, save money, and empower your employees on the road.