Here's how to record mileage travelled in your own car on FreeAgent, when you have a UK account.
1. Find the screen
If you're a sole trader, and you have no staff, start by clicking on the Expenses menu.
If you're a sole trader with staff, or your business is a limited company or a partnership, choose Expenses from the My Money menu.
Or, you can quickly start recording a new journey by choosing New Mileage from the Quick Links menu on the Overview screen.
2. Choose the user
Make sure you have the right user selected, the person who made this journey.
Very first journey: no user visible
The very first journey you create on your FreeAgent account doesn't give you the option to choose the user. This journey has to be one that you took.
If you don't have any journeys to record, put in a dummy journey and then next time you record an expense you'll be able to see the users drop-down menu.
You can always delete your dummy journey later.
3. New Mileage
Click Add New Mileage.
This brings up the Create New Mileage screen.
Date and distance
Enter the date you made the journey.
Put in how far you travelled, remembering that you may need to double the mileage for a return journey to record that you went out and back.
Reason for the journey
Put a description of why this journey was undertaken. Make sure it's clearly identifiable whether this journey is allowable or not for tax. For example, if it's ordinary home-to-work commuting then this is not allowable for tax, so make this clear in the description.
Type of vehicle
Enter what kind of vehicle you made this journey in; car, motorcycle or bicycle.
As you change the vehicle type, the HM Revenue approved mileage rate changes according to what kind of vehicle was used. This is why it's important to choose the vehicle type; car...
...motorcycle...
...or bicycle.
Reclaiming VAT on fuel
You need to be registered for VAT and have a VAT receipt for fuel enough to cover the mileage travelled on this journey if you want to reclaim VAT on the fuel. You can't reclaim VAT on the full cost of the mileage travelled, only on the fuel element. So if you do have a VAT receipt, choose that you want to claim for this mileage, and enter the fuel type of your vehicle and the capacity of its engine. FreeAgent will work out the correct VAT reclaim for you.
Re-billing
You can re-bill this mileage to a customer if it was incurred while working on a particular project. Choose which project you want to re-bill it to, and set the rate at which you're going to charge it to the customer. If you haven't yet set up the project, finish entering the mileage and save it, then set up the project. You can always edit the mileage later and re-bill it, so long as it hasn't been paid for from the company in the meantime.
Regular journeys; recurring
If you know you will be taking this journey again, use the options under Recurring to enter the second and future journeys into FreeAgent now.
Attachment
You may also want to upload an attachment, for example a scanned copy of a fuel receipt, particularly if you are claiming VAT on the fuel element.
Once you've finished entering the mileage, click Create New Expense to save this journey, Create and Add Another to save this journey and start entering another one, or Cancel to close this screen without saving the journey.
That's it. Job done.
The mileage has been added to the list of costs incurred by this user which he or she can expect the business to pay back for.
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