Against a notes app and a spreadsheet
A notes app satisfies the requirement completely, and the requirement is not the problem.
Date, miles, destination, business purpose, per trip, plus annual total miles. Nothing about the medium makes a record acceptable or unacceptable, and a contemporaneous manual log is a strong record.
Manual logging fails at capture, not at format. The trips you forget are the ones you lose, and forgetting is not a discipline problem. It is what happens on the fourth hour of a busy shift.
So the decision is arithmetic, not preference.
Log manually for two weeks and count the trips you nearly missed. Then:
Missing two trips a week at eight miles each is 832 miles a year. At the second-half 2026 rate of 76 cents, that is about $632 of deduction, which at a combined marginal rate including self-employment tax is well over a hundred dollars of tax. Any tracker in this category costs less than that.
Missing nothing means a notes app is the correct answer and you should keep the money.
That two-week test is the whole comparison, and nobody selling a tracker suggests running it.
What each one does
| Notes app | Spreadsheet | Tracking app | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | Free | Subscription |
| Meets the requirement | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Captures trips you forget | No | No | Yes |
| Totals the two 2026 rate periods | By hand | Automatically | Automatically |
| Entry while driving | Poor | Poor | None needed |
| Survives a lost phone | If it syncs | If it syncs | If you export |
| Data you control | Completely | Completely | Until you export |
The row that decides it is capture. Everything else is preference.
The 2026 wrinkle
2026 is a split-rate year: 72.5 cents January to June, 76 cents July to December.
A manual log has to be totalled in two halves. That is a spreadsheet formula or five minutes with a calculator, and the failure mode is a single annual total multiplied by one rate, which is wrong in one direction or the other. The 2026 rate. · The calculator.
Making a manual log actually work
If you go manual, three habits carry it:
Log at the moment, not at the end of the day. The IRS describes records made at or near the time of use as having greater value, and end-of-day reconstruction loses the short trips first.
One line, always the same shape. 7 Sep · 14 mi · Elm St · delivery. Consistency is what makes it readable a year later.
A weekly five-minute sweep, against the platform's records, to catch what is missing while the day is still recallable. How to start a mileage log today. · What a log has to contain.
And export or back it up. A note that lives on one phone with no sync is a year of records one drop away from gone. What records to keep and for how long.
Where manual reliably breaks
Multi-apping. A continuous shift with drops from three platforms produces far more trips than anyone logs by hand. If you run several apps at once.
Rideshare. Long sessions with dead miles between fares, and the dead miles are most of the deduction. If you drive passengers.
Irregular part-time work. No habit forms, so nothing gets logged. Counterintuitively this is where automatic capture matters most, not least. If you only drive part time.
Where manual works well: low volume, regular routine, and a driver who genuinely does log at the moment.
Where MileTruth sits, disclosed
Our own product, in development, not released. Against a notes app it adds capture and dated per-trip records that split correctly across the two 2026 rate periods, plus a real export so the record is yours rather than ours.
It does not make your log more valid. A contemporaneous manual log is already a valid record, and any tracker implying otherwise is selling anxiety rather than a feature.
Run the two-week test first. If you are not losing trips, you do not need this, and the calculator and the answers on this site are free either way.
The full comparison of every major tracker. · The pricing table, verified at source. · Why apps miss trips.
More in this section
About MileTruth
MileTruth is an iOS app from Baker Ventures LLC that tracks deductible business mileage for gig and delivery drivers and shows true net pay: what is left after mileage, fuel and self-employment tax, not what the platform showed you at acceptance. It is built for people driving several platforms in the same shift, and for anyone who needs a mileage log that would hold up if the IRS asked for it. The app is in development.
Everything on this site is free and needs no account: the mileage deduction calculator, the per-platform pay breakdowns, and the answers, each one linked to the IRS publication or platform document it came from. MileTruth publishes the source for every number, including the 2026 split-year standard mileage rate, because a deduction you cannot substantiate is not a deduction.
Questions and answers
Is a notes app enough for a mileage log?
Yes. The requirement is date, miles, destination and business purpose per trip, plus annual total miles for the vehicle, and a notes app holds all of that. Nothing about the medium makes a record acceptable or unacceptable.
Why use a tracking app at all then?
Because manual logging fails at capture rather than at format. The trips you forget are the ones you lose, and forgetting is not a discipline problem, it is what happens on a busy shift.
How much does forgetting actually cost?
Work it out with your own numbers. Missing two trips a week at eight miles each is about 830 miles a year, which at the second-half 2026 rate is roughly $630 of deduction, and any tracker costs less than the tax on that.
Does a manual log look worse in an audit?
No. A contemporaneous manual log is a strong record. What matters is that entries were made at or near the time and that they contain the required elements, not whether software produced them.
What about a spreadsheet?
Better than notes if you want the two 2026 rate periods totalled automatically, worse for entering a trip one-handed in a car park. Many drivers use notes during the day and a spreadsheet weekly.
How do I decide?
Log manually for two weeks and count how many trips you nearly missed. That number, multiplied out across a year and priced at the mileage rate, is the actual value of automatic capture for you.
MileTruth. “Against a notes app and a spreadsheet.” Baker Ventures LLC, September 7, 2026. https://miletruth.bakerventuresstudio.com/compare/a-mileage-app-versus-a-notes-app/