A truck driver's only intellectual asset is their car's available time. Yet, many of the best partners treat their bookkeeping as an afterthought. If you aren't tracking every business kilometre, you're likely under-claiming your car expenses by 15% to 25% based on industry studies in 2026.
In this guide, we break down why logbook tracking is your most important bookkeeping task and how to do it without the headache.
Even if you charge a flat $5k fee for a project, you must still track your kilometres. Why? To determine your Effective Hourly Rate.
Without tracking, both look equally successful. With tracking, you realize Project B was a disaster and you need to charge more for that specific type of route next time.
For most solo drivers, Xero Projects is the perfect internal tool. It allows you to create a project, assign estimated kilometres, and then track mileage directly against it. At the end of the month, one click turns those hours into a professional invoice with full task breakdowns.
đź’ˇ Pro Tip: Set up a "Daily Cap" for your hours. If you're working 10 hours a day but only earning 4, you're hitting "Dead Mile Creep" in your driving. This is often caused by administrative work that isn't being accounted for in your base rate.
The 15-minute phone call with the wholesaler. The 10-minute check of the truck's fluids. These "micro-sessions" represent thousands of dollars in lost annual revenue for drivers. Use a mobile app that syncs with your desktop (like Toggl Track) to capture these fragments as they happen.
Your bookkeeping should also help you understand your Utilization Rate. If you work 40 hours a week but only 20 are billable, where are the other 20 going? If it's strategic lead-finding, that's high-value. If it's manual bookkeeping or chasing invoices, that's low-value work that can be automated.
Our accountants help transport firms set up robust logbook-tracking systems that flow directly into Xero. Stop losing deductible kilometres today.
Talk to a Transport Bookkeeper