Vehicles and mileage

PartyPad records mileage from odometer readings your drivers enter in the crew app. Each reading is tied to a vehicle, so you know which truck covered which miles. This article covers where vehicles come from, when the app asks for readings, and where you review them.

Two kinds of vehicles

• Company vehicles are the trucks, vans and trailers your business owns. You add them under Settings → Business Information → Company Vehicles with + Add Vehicle. Make, model and license plate are required; year, color, VIN and notes are optional. See Business settings.
• Personal vehicles are cars and trucks your contractors own and drive for you. Contractors add their own in the crew app under Profile → My Vehicles.

To see every personal vehicle your crew has registered, open Settings → Contractor Vehicles (open it). The Contractor Personal Vehicles table lists each contractor with the year, make and model, license plate and color of their vehicles. The table is read-only; contractors keep their own entries up to date from the app.

Odometer readings on driver tasks

When a contractor starts a driver task in the crew app, the app asks them to pick a vehicle and enter the starting odometer reading before the task starts. When they complete it, the app asks for the ending reading. PartyPad works out the miles from the two.

A task counts as a driver task when it requires the Driver skill, or when its title names a driver role, such as "DRIVER-Pickup" or "Delivery Driver". Crew tasks without either don't ask for readings. To make sure your delivery and pickup tasks prompt for mileage, include the Driver skill in their requirements. See Manage tasks.

The vehicle list in the app shows the contractor's own vehicles and your company vehicles. If neither exists, the app tells them to add one under My Vehicles or ask you to add a company vehicle. Add your fleet before your first driving day.

Trips that aren't tasks

A supply run or a trip to the repair shop isn't a task, but the miles still count. Contractors can log these from Profile → Mileage Log in the crew app with Log Mileage. Each entry records the date, destination, purpose, vehicle and start and end odometer readings.

Review mileage

On the Professional plan, the Mileage Report under Reports holds every mileage log in one place: odometer readings from tasks and manual entries.

• Filter by date range, contractor and vehicle, then click Apply.
• The summary shows Task Miles (filtered), Tasks Recorded and Avg Miles / Task.
• Click New Entry to add a trip for a contractor, or edit a task's start and end odometer if a driver typed it wrong.
• Export CSV downloads the filtered list for your bookkeeper or tax records.

The report flags readings that can't be right, such as an odometer that runs backwards between two entries for the same vehicle. Flagged numbers show in red; hover one to see what it was compared against. Readings without a vehicle aren't compared, so asking drivers to pick a vehicle every time makes the check worth having.

Common problems

• The app didn't ask for an odometer reading. The task doesn't require the Driver skill and its title doesn't name a driver. Add the skill to the task, or to the template that generates it.
• A driver has no vehicle to pick. Add a company vehicle in Settings, or ask the driver to add their own under My Vehicles.
• The miles look wrong. Open the Mileage Report, find the red reading and correct it.

Related: Invite and manage contractors, The crew app.