Remember that the IFTA authority requires that you report all IFTA and Non-IFTA miles that an eligible commercial truck drives in every jurisdiction (states and provinces.) This includes out-of-route miles and bob-tail miles as well as personal miles. For example, when the IFTA return is completed, the amount of total miles for a truck should match the truck odometer miles driven in that period.
With that said, there are basically 4 ways to do this.
- The driver logs his or her odometers. This requires that the driver keep either a clipboard, or a voice recorder handy and writes (or speaks) the odometer reading of the truck as a border is crossed. Another way the driver can do it is to document the route that he took so that it can be recreated using a mapping program later.
ADVANTAGE: it’s free
DISADVANTAGE: getting the drivers to do it consistently - Using a trucker’s GPS (like a Rand McNally TND730) to record the miles.
ADVANTAGE: the driver doesn’t have to write them down
DISADVANTAGE: they aren’t free
DISADVANTAGE: you or the driver has to plug it into a computer to extract the mileage file from it.
DISADVANTAGE: it only records while powered on. So if it breaks or is not turned on, then it isn’t recording those miles. - An on-board GPS truck tracking unit.
ADVANTAGE: on all the time (no driver interaction needed.) This is by far the most convenient and easy way.
ADVANTAGE: you can see where the truck is, how fast it’s going, when it arrived and departed locations using your computer or cell phone
ADVANTAGE: you can pull a state mileage report from your computer without having the truck or device near you
ADVANTAGE: tracks all miles or kilometers
DISADVANTAGE: they aren’t free. - A mapping program that calculates the state mileage on truck routes.
ADVANTAGE: you can recreate the state mileage on your computer
DISADVANTAGE: not free.
DISADVANTAGE: technically, you still need to know the out of route miles that the driver may have taken.