Mileage Log in Excel: Track Trips and Reimbursements

A mileage log in Excel is a simple table: one row per trip, with the date, the purpose, whether it was business or personal, and the miles driven. Three formulas turn it into a reimbursement claim: SUMIF totals the business miles, a rate cell turns miles into money, and ROUND keeps the answer in exact cents. This guide is for anyone who drives for work and needs a clean record for an employer or a tax return.

What should a mileage log in Excel include?#

A good mileage log records enough detail that someone else could check each trip. Most employers and tax rules ask for the same basics:

You can add From and To columns, or Start and End odometer readings, if your employer asks for them. Keep one trip per row and never leave the Type column empty, because the totals depend on it. Check your own employer's or tax authority's rules for exactly what they need you to record.

Here is the sample log used in this guide, in A1:D8:

To stop typos such as "Busines", add a drop-down list to the Type column with Data > Data Validation > List and the source Business,Personal.

How to calculate miles from odometer readings#

If you write down the odometer (the car's distance counter) at the start and end of each trip, let Excel do the subtraction. Put Start in one column and End in the next, then subtract:

=F2-E2

If E2 holds 15,230 and F2 holds 15,272, the result is 42 miles. Type the formula once in the first row, then fill it down (Windows: Ctrl+D; Mac: ⌘D). A negative number means the two readings were swapped. A huge number usually means a typo in one reading, so scan the column for anything unusual.

How to total all your miles with SUM#

The total of every trip, business and personal, is a plain SUM:

=SUM(D2:D8)

The result is 263.7 miles. You can also select D9 and press AutoSum (Windows: Alt+=; Mac: ⌘⇧T) to write the same formula. This number is useful for checking your log against the car's odometer at the end of the month. The SUM lesson covers ranges and AutoSum if you are new to it.

How to total business miles with SUMIF#

Only business trips are reimbursed, so add up the miles where the Type is Business. SUMIF checks one column and adds the matching numbers from another:

=SUMIF(C2:C8,"Business",D2:D8)

• C2:C8 is the column to check (Type).
• "Business" is what it must match. Text needs double quotes.
• D2:D8 is the column to add (Miles).

The result is 166.7 miles: 42 + 12.5 + 37.4 + 51.2 + 23.6. Swap "Business" for "Personal" and you get 97 personal miles. Together they make the 263.7 total, which is a quick way to check that no row has a blank or misspelled Type. The same pattern works for any category, as in summing by category in Excel.

How to calculate the mileage reimbursement#

Put the rate per mile in its own cell, then multiply the business miles by it. In this log, G2 holds the example rate 0.67. Use the rate that your employer or tax authority actually sets for the period, because official rates change.

=SUMIF(C2:C8,"Business",D2:D8)*G2

This gives 111.689, which is not a real amount of money. Wrap it in ROUND to get exact cents:

=ROUND(SUMIF(C2:C8,"Business",D2:D8)*G2,2)

The result is 111.69. The 2 means two decimal places. Formatting a cell to show two decimals only hides the extra digits, and they still count when you add many claims together. ROUND changes the value itself, so the total matches the claim form. See ROUND, ROUNDUP and ROUNDDOWN explained or the ROUND function guide for the details.

If you want the amount on every row instead, add a column with =ROUND(D2*$G$2,2) and fill it down. The $ signs lock the rate cell so every row uses G2. Without them, the next row would look at G3, which is empty, and show 0.

How to total mileage by month with SUMIFS#

A monthly claim needs the business miles between two dates. SUMIFS handles several conditions at once. If I2 holds the first day of the month (1 Oct 2026):

=SUMIFS(D2:D8,C2:C8,"Business",A2:A8,">="&I2,A2:A8,"<"&EDATE(I2,1))

This adds miles where the Type is Business, the date is on or after 1 October, and the date is before 1 November. EDATE(I2,1) moves the date forward one month. The result is 166.7, because every trip in the sample is in October. Put more month start dates below I2, lock the ranges with $, and fill down to build a month-by-month summary. The SUMIFS function guide explains each argument, and how to sum by month in Excel shows other ways to do it.

Tips to keep your mileage log accurate#

A mileage log is only useful if you can trust it. These habits help:

1. Log trips the same day. Writing them up weeks later leads to guesses.
2. Turn the range into a table with Ctrl+T (Mac: ⌘T). New rows are then picked up by formulas that use the table's columns.
3. Use real dates, not text. Type a date such as 1-Oct-2026 or use DATE, so SUMIFS can compare them.
4. Keep one rate cell per period. If the rate changes mid-year, add a Rate column and multiply each row by its own rate.
5. Check the totals. Business plus personal should equal the full SUM.

If you also track fuel, parking and tolls, the same layout works for an expense tracker in Excel, and a timesheet in Excel uses the same ideas for hours.

Practise it#

Try the exercise on this page: it combines SUMIF, a rate cell and ROUND in one formula. Then practise SUMIF in a live spreadsheet, where you type each formula and it checks it instantly, and practise rounding money to two decimals so your claims always add up.