Automatic vs manual mileage log
The difference between automatic and manual mileage logs in time, reliability, cost and audit risk. Which one is right for you?
An automatic mileage log records trips for you by reading data from the car, while a manual mileage log is entered by the driver during or after each trip. Both are accepted by Skatteverket, but they differ sharply in time, reliability and audit risk. Here is the comparison head on.
Time
Manual mileage log takes 5 to 15 minutes per day to maintain for an active company car driver. Over a year that is 20 to 60 hours. Automatic mileage log takes about ten minutes per week to review, or 8 to 9 hours per year. The difference is two work weeks.
Reliability
Manual log depends on you actually writing things down every time. Forget a trip and it cannot be reconstructed with certainty. The odometer becomes a guess. The time an estimate. It does not creep in over days, it creeps in over months, and during an audit it shows.
Automatic log is built on data the car has reported. Odometer comes from the car. Time and location are exact. The only thing requiring human input is purpose and driver, and you fill those in later when you have time.
Cost
Manual log is formally free. You need a notebook, a pen or a spreadsheet. In practice it costs time, and time costs money. Counting 30 hours per year as work time, manual log is an expensive solution. Automatic log with MPH DriveLog costs EUR 9 per vehicle and month. Per year that is EUR 108, or less than an hour of work time for most.
Audit risk
Skatteverket looks for three signs of a reconstructed or manipulated log: odometer readings that are inconsistent, purpose fields that repeat identically, and missing individual days in an otherwise regular commute. Manual log is extra exposed to all three. Automatic log with an audit trail is effectively protected from manipulation suspicion, because data is signed at the time of the trip.
Skatteverket’s formal requirements
Both forms are valid if they contain date, time, odometer, start and end, purpose and driver. Those are the five fields in Mileage log according to the Swedish Tax Agency. Skatteverket has no format requirement on medium.
“Skatteverket does not say I have to use an automatic log. Why pay for one?”
Because the manual version is in practice incomplete for most. It is precisely the incompleteness Skatteverket targets during audit. You are not paying for an automatic log, you are paying to skip the gaps.
When manual log can be right
Manual log can be right if you drive very little, say under 10,000 km per year, or if your trips are hyper-structured and you actually write down every time. Then the effort is small and the inconsistencies few. In practice few drivers fit that pattern.
When automatic log is obvious
If you have a Tesla and drive more than 10,000 km per year, especially mixed driving, automatic log is almost a no-brainer. Cost is low, time saving large, and audit risk minimal.
What MPH DriveLog does
DriveLog is an automatic mileage log for Tesla that pulls trips from the car, classifies according to your rules, and keeps an audit trail showing nothing has been manipulated. It is the simplest way to keep a complete log all year.
More on why paper logs often fail in Common mistakes in mileage logs.