Tracking Mileage

YardPath builds a mileage log that captures the four fields the IRS asks for on every trip, date, business purpose, destination, and distance.

Recorded distances are estimates from your device’s location readings or from map data, not readings from your odometer, so review your trips and correct anything that looks off before you rely on them. Trips to Check gathers the ones YardPath has doubts about, though it only catches what the app noticed, a trip that isn’t on that list hasn’t been checked by anyone. How mileage is calculated walks through the three methods and when each runs high or low. What you must track, and how it’s classified, is between you and your tax professional, YardPath is a recordkeeping tool, not tax advice.

Turn it on

Go to Settings → Mileage and enable location tracking. YardPath will ask for location permission the first time. Tracking respects this setting everywhere, nothing records unless you’ve turned it on.

Automatic recording

With tracking on, tapping a job En Route starts the trip, and In Progress (or Complete) closes it. A Live Activity shows the running trip on your Lock Screen so you always know it’s recording, and a counter shows the deduction value of your miles adding up at the current IRS rate.

Manual trips

Forgot to start a trip? Log it by hand. YardPath dates a manual trip to the job’s date, not to today, so a trip you enter for yesterday’s work lands correctly instead of quietly misdating your records.

Export for taxes

At tax time, export the period’s trips as a mileage PDF (see Finances & reports) and hand it to your accountant for your tax paperwork, no spreadsheet, no reconstructing routes from memory.

Each trip in that export carries a method label, Automatic, Estimated, or Manual, and the cover page explains what each one means. The labels say where a distance came from, not how good it is, What the labels in your exported log mean breaks them down. Work through Trips to Check before you export, since the document itself doesn’t grade its own rows.

How accurate is it?

Every distance is an estimate, and the three methods YardPath uses drift in different directions, corner-cutting on automatic trips, a suggested route rather than yours on manual ones, and a straight line that runs short when you have no signal. How mileage is calculated explains each one and how to spot it.

Privacy

Your location data stays on your device and syncs only through your own iCloud. There is no fleet dashboard and no one else watching where you drive.