Tech Geek

Last week I shared a couple of tools for tracking mileage for reimbursement purposes. I ended with a note that maybe they weren't very good for tracking mileage for IRS purposes because they aren't set up to track odometer readings. That's true for Mileage Calculator, but after an e-mail conversation this week with a new friend, I think Xpenser can be used for this purpose pretty easily.

The key to using Xpenser is setting it up correctly and being consistent in how you use it. Once you set up an account, you need to configure it to use the mileage keyword. To do this, sign in, click on the keywords tab, click the button which says Off in the Mileage box to turn on the mileage keyword, and then enter the reimbursement rate provided by your congregation or employer in the window to the right and click the Set button. The odd part about Xpenser's mileage tracking at the moment is that you cannot enter mileage expenses directly into the web interface. You need to use e-mail, IM (Yahoo, MSN/Windows Live, or AOL), SMS text message, direct message on Twitter, or Jott to have it auto-calculate the mileage amount.

To add a mileage record, you send a message beginning with the keyword mileage, followed by the number of miles, the destination or purpose, and then the odometer reading of your vehicle. I would suggest resetting your trip odometer at the beginning of each trip and at the end of the trip, recording the ending odometer reading. From this, you can calculate the beginning reading. You might also want to record two messages for each trip, the first a zero mileage record with the beginning reading, and the second your ending reading. If you're experienced enough with spreadsheets, you could probably create a formula to do this for you. Xpenser supports exporting into CSV (Comma-Separated Value) files, which you can easily import into Excel, OpenOffice.org Calc, or Google Spreadsheets. It will also let you export QIF (Quicken Interchange Format) files if that's what you want.

At the end of each month or two or at the end of the year, create a new report and move the relevant items from the default report over to the new one. Then print this, turn it in to the treasurer, and set the status on that report to submitted. You may find yourself getting reimbursed or tracking more miles than ever before!

I keep track of lots of expenses and I generally do pretty well at it. I save receipts so I can meticulously match them up with my credit cards online, so I can turn them in for reimbursement, and so I can track them for tax purposes. I yell and stomp my feet whenever my wife forgets to give me a receipt from the grocery store. I could tell you how much we spent buying salt for our water softener. But tracking mileage for reimbursement purposes drives me nuts. I've tried everything, from the little red book calendar to programs on my Palm, but after a few weeks, I'm back to ignoring the miles again. This may not work any better, but I've got two new things to try!

I used to use an application called Quickmile on my Palm IIIc. It worked for tracking reimbursable miles and fuel economy. But when I upgraded to a laptop with Windows Vista, it stopped working. I found it really odd that I couldn't find anything to replace it, and maybe if my Palm was newer it would work with Vista, but I was stuck. I also found that there were times that I didn't have my Palm with me and so the trip didn't get logged. Before I knew it, two weeks had passed! So I wanted something that was with me all the time and let me only enter data once. I also needed a way to review and recreate trips that had happened in the past.

The first thing I discovered, and have been using for awhile, was Mileage Calculator, a mash-up that uses Google Calendar and Google Maps to calculate your mileage. You enter in a default starting address, the XML Private Link to your Google Calendar, and a date range. It gives you a list of all the items and you can delete those that don't have mileage. If you put everything into your calendar (and use Google Calendar), it could be a good solution. I have used it to review and make sure I'm not missing something else. It's easy for me, since I already synchronize my Palm with Google Calendar and almost any trip I take is reflected there. I suppose I could even create a new calendar called Mileage and then track my trips that way. I decided that I didn't like the amount of review work necessary with this method, since there are lots of things on my calendar that don't require any driving. I did like the idea of using Google Maps to calculate mileage for trips I had already taken and have used that to recreate mileage figures after the fact.

For all sorts of reimbursement purposes, Xpenser seems like a good fit and it is my current tool. It is designed to allow you to enter an expense and forget it. The tool allows you to interact with it in a variety of ways. You can send expenses via e-mail, IM (Yahoo, MSN, or AOL), SMS text message, direct message on Twitter, or (my favorite) Jott. Once you set up an account, click on the keywords tab and turn on mileage tracking and enter the reimbursement rate provided by your congregation or employer. Now if I run into town to meet someone at the coffee shop, I reset my trip odometer at the beginning of the trip and when I get back to church I send a message that is as simple as mileage 4 coffee with high schooler. My expense report will have a new line: 5/5/2008 - mileage - 2.02 - (4.0 miles at 0.51) coffee with high schooler. (Even though it says 0.51, it calculates correctly on .505.) At the end of the month, I print out the report and give it to the treasurer and set the status on Xpense to submitted.

P.S. - For tracking fuel economy, another simple tool is MyMileMarker.com. You let it know whenever you fill up and whenever you get an oil change. It tells you how many miles per gallon you're getting.

P.P.S. - If you are tracking mileage for the IRS and not for reimbursement purposes, you need to be careful to record odometer readings and not just trip distance. You should probably stick to the notebook!

As you start to plan your summer adventures you may be planning a road trip with your group. I find that these trips are much less stressful when I, and the other drivers, are armed with directions and maps so that we all know the route we're going to follow ahead of time. I also find that a GPS is extremely valuable while trying to navigate in a city that's new to me.

Before starting any trip with you group, I'd recommend reviewing the pamphlet entitled The Road to Safer Transportation from Church Mutual Insurance Company. It has some suggestions on driver and passenger behavior and special concerns when operating a large van. Once you've got your policies and procedures figured out, investigate your route.

For my test case I am going to plot a route from my church in Kalispell, MT to Field's Point Landing where you get on the Ferry Boat for Holden Village. To add a bit of complexity, I'm going to route via Grace Lutheran Church in Wenatchee, since they are listed as a church that is willing to host people on the ELCA Youth Ministry Network Website. (Click here to see that resource!) We'll stay there overnight before heading to Field's Point to pick up the ferry in the morning. I'll run my basic query through three different mapping services, Mapquest, Yahoo Maps, and Google Maps.

Mapquest is probably the oldest of the mapping services. According to Wikipedia, they were founded in 1967 as Cartographic Services! They didn't start serving maps up on the internet until 1996, which is pretty old in computer time! Here are the steps I used from Mapquest:

1. From the homepage at www.mapquest.com I scrolled down to Directions
2. I entered my starting location (323 Northridge Dr. in Kalispell, MT) and my ending location. Since I don't know the address of Field's Point Landing, I put Field's Point Landing in the Find a Business box and put Chelan, WA in the City and State boxes. I clicked the Get Directions button.
3. I received a map showing potential options for Field's Point Landing. I scrolled down to find the one I wanted and pressed the Select button.
4. This brought up a screen with turn-by-turn directions and a map at the bottom showing the suggested route. I could also select to Avoid certain road types, print the route, link to the page, or send the route to a cell phone or a Garmin GPS.
5. I still needed to add the church stopover, so I scrolled down to the Add Another Stop to your Route box and entered Grace Lutheran Church, Wenatchee, WA and clicked on the Go button.
6. I pressed Select next to the correct Grace Lutheran Church. (They also provided a link to the church website, so I could verify it was the one I was looking for.)
7. This brought up the route, but not quite in the right order, as it had me going to Field's Point and then the church. I clicked the Move Down button next to Field's Point.
8. Finally, I added my starting point in again as Point D. We'll take a slightly different route home than we'll take to get there.
9. Mapquest makes it very easy to avoid segments of the route by clicking the Avoid link to the right of each segment.
10. If you click the Map link next to each segment you will see the map for that segment. Clicking Print will print only those maps that you have selected. I didn't see an easy way to print the maps for each turn.
    

Yahoo Maps has also been around for quite awhile. Their interface takes you straight to a map of your last location.

1. I went to the start page at maps.yahoo.com and I entered the church address as the starting address and then entered Field's Point Landing, Chelan, WA in the Find a Business box.
2. Yahoo couldn't find anything! This was because the map was zoomed into Kalispell.
3. I put Chelan, WA into the destination box and it immediately calculated directions for me. Then I put Field's Point Landing into the Find a Business box and this time I got a list of possibilities.
4. I clicked the Directions To link under Field's Point Landing.
5. Then I clicked the X to remove Chelan, WA as a destination. Interestingly enough, the route changed.
6. I was able to add Grace Lutheran, although not as easily as on Mapquest. Then, I couldn't find an easy way to re-order my stops.
7. If I had a Mercedes Benz, apparently I could send the directions straight to my car!
   

If you've been reading these posts, you'll not be surprised to know that I have had good success with Google Maps. I prefer their non-cluttered interface that doesn't have big flashy ads all over the place. Here's the same process in Google Maps:

1. I went to maps.google.com and put Field's Point Landing, Chelan, WA into the search box.
2. I clicked Get Directions in the pop-up and entered the church address into the Starting Address box. (Actually, since I've used it before, it auto-filled the address once I typed the 323 part.)
3. It presented me a route which was the same as the Mapquest one and probably more user-friendly than that Yahoo one.
4. I clicked Add Destination and entered Grace Lutheran Church, Wenatchee, WA. It gave me a choice of the two Grace Lutheran Churches in the area and I selected the one I wanted.
   
5. In the left hand column I clicked the minus sign to collapse the directions and dragged Grace Lutheran above Field's Point Landing.
6. I clicked Add Destination and put the church back in to go home.
7. Clicking Print brings up turn-by-turn directions with maps of the individual destinations. Clicking Send lets you e-mail the directions.
8. You can also adjust your route by dragging the blue line on the map.
   

Overall, I think Google Maps are the easiest to use and that Mapquest is the most powerful. Any of these services beat trying to unfold a paper map while driving a van!

Wikipedia hosts a comparison of Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, and Live Search Maps from Microsoft.