Mileage is the thing self-employed carers most often lose money on, and it is almost never because the rate is wrong. It is because the miles were never written down. A round of five calls across a county is a real cost, and a notebook in the footwell is not a record you will still have in April.
Two jobs, and most apps only do one
Before you pick anything, it is worth being clear that “mileage” means two separate jobs for a self-employed carer, and they need different things from a record.
- The miles you claim. Business miles reduce your taxable profit. This is between you and HMRC, and what matters is that the record is contemporaneous, complete and shows the business purpose of each journey.
- The miles you charge. Many carers recharge travel to the client or to the family paying the bill. This is between you and them, it goes on the invoice, and the rate is whatever you agreed — not necessarily the rate you claim.
Plenty of general mileage apps do the first job well and have no idea the second exists. Carer Companion does both from the same log, because for a carer they are the same drive.
What your mileage record actually has to show
HMRC does not prescribe a form. What it expects is a record you kept at the time, that shows for each business journey:
- the date
- where you went from and to
- the reason it was a business journey
- the miles
Two things worth knowing, both of which change and neither of which we will quote a number for here, because it would go stale and start misleading people: the approved mileage rate is set by HMRC and has a lower band after a certain number of miles in a year, and there is a minimum period you must keep records for after the filing deadline. Both are on gov.uk, and that is the page to trust over us.
The one that catches carers out: the journey from home to a regular place of work is ordinary commuting and is not usually claimable. For a carer with a round, what counts as your first and last journey of the day is worth asking your accountant about once, properly, rather than guessing every year.
How it works in Carer Companion
The log itself
Every journey is a row: the date, where you went from, where you went to, the purpose and the miles. You can type them in at the end of the day, or the end of the week if that is more honest about how you actually work. It is a proper log rather than a running total, so at year end you hand over something itemised rather than a single number you cannot evidence.
Or let the phone work it out
The companion app on your phone can do it for you. You tap Start my day when you set off and End my day when you are home, and it records the route you actually drove between those two taps — not before, and not after. The miles come back into the same log, against the same clients, ready to check.
That start-and-end is deliberate. It means the app is not following you around on your day off, and it means the record has a defensible shape: this was a working day, it began here and finished there.
The rate you charge, and the rate you claim
You set a standard rate per mile for your business, and a separate out-of-hours rate if you charge more for evenings and weekends. Either can be overridden for an individual client, because in practice the arrangement you made with one family two years ago is rarely the one you quote today.
Straight onto the invoice
Mileage appears on the invoice as its own line, priced at that client's rate, alongside the visits. You are not re-keying a figure from one system into another, which is where the errors and the arguments come from.
What it does not do
Three honest ones, because you will find out anyway:
- It does not file your tax return and it is not an accounting package. It gives you the mileage figures and the itemised log behind them; your accountant or your Self Assessment does the rest.
- It does not decide which of your journeys are claimable. It records what you drove. Whether a particular leg is business mileage is a question for HMRC's guidance or your accountant, and we are not regulated to answer it.
- It will not reconstruct a day you did not start. If the phone was not tracking, those miles are gone and you will be typing them in from memory.
Questions
- Does it work out mileage automatically?
Yes, if you use the companion app on your phone. You tap Start my day when you set off and End my day when you get home, and it records the route you drove between those two taps. You can also just type journeys in by hand if you would rather, and many people do a mix of both.
- Can I charge mileage to a client as well as claim it?
Yes. They are handled separately. You set a rate per mile that you charge, with a different out-of-hours rate if you use one, and it can be overridden for an individual client. The mileage then appears as its own line on that client's invoice alongside the visits.
- Is it tracking me all the time?
No. It records between Start my day and End my day, and nothing outside that. It is not running on your day off.
- Will this satisfy HMRC?
It gives you an itemised, contemporaneous log showing the date, the journey, the purpose and the miles for each trip, which is the shape of record HMRC expects. We cannot promise how any individual return is treated, and we are not regulated to give tax advice — gov.uk is the authority, and an accountant is worth an hour of your time in your first year.
Try it on your own round
Carer Companion is £19 a month with every feature included — no tiers, no per-client charges, and nothing held back for a higher plan. The first 7 days are free and we do not ask for a card to start. Start your free 7 days, or see everything it does first.