5 Things Companies Need to Know about Commuting Mileage

We know that managing company mileage is a hassle. In particular, it can be a pain to set and manage a policy for your team members’ commutes.

Commute policies are really important to get right. If you spend the time picking the right solution for your team, you’ll save yourself time and stress—and you’ll save your company money on reimbursements.

Some teams struggle to understand the commuting mileage rules, while others know the rules but don’t know how to implement their policy in a fast, easy manner.

At Everlance, we built an app that tracks mileage to make managing mileage easier for everyone. So, that’s why we created this guide to commuting mileage—so you can get your commute disallowance policy right. Let’s dive in!

1. Regular commutes aren’t tax deductible

The IRS has made it very clear: Travel between home and a regular job location (e.g., main office) are never tax deductible for employees. As a result, these trips are generally considered ‘personal’ trips.

2. Many companies don’t reimburse for commutes

It’s typical for companies to not offer any sort of reimbursement for commutes to and from a regular place of work, as these are typically deemed as ‘personal’ trips. We see many of our customers follow this standard practice and it hasn’t affected their employee retention.

3. Some states have state-specific laws regarding mileage

While it’s typical in many states to not offer commute reimbursements, it’s important to note that California, Illinois, and Massachusetts now require that companies reimburse mileage for their employees. If your company operates in one of these states, it is important to read through the state-specific laws regarding mileage reimbursement to make sure you are following those guidelines.

4. There are several ways to manage commute mileage

Given the IRS guidelines and the guaranteed company savings of making mileage exempt from reimbursement, many companies opt to implement a commute disallowance policy.

A commute disallowance policy can be implemented in several ways, such as:

• Disallowing a set number of miles per day for all employees
• Disallowing a personal number of miles per day for each employee (aligning with their individual commute)
• Disallowing the first and the last trip of the day

Each method promises to reduce the number of miles eligible for reimbursement, saving your company money. And the good news is that implementing this policy doesn’t have to be complicated! All of these options are possible with Everlance’s new, user-friendly Commute Disallowance feature.

5. Managing commutes doesn’t have to be a hassle!

Good news! Implementing and managing a commute disallowance policy doesn’t have to be a hassle. Everlance has a  feature that modernizes and simplifies how you manage your team’s commutes.

We designed our Commute Disallowance feature based on insights from our customers. They came to us wanting to only reimburse “eligible mileage.” There was no clean way to disallow this mileage from team members reports, so we got to work designing and building a Commute Disallowance feature for teams. Since, we’ve had other companies implement the feature to reduce reimbursement costs and save time on managing mileage.

Things to look for in a commute disallowance solution:

Custom commute settings

Custom commute settings deliver personalized commute disallowance policies, giving operations total control—set a blanket commute disallowance for your entire team or personalized disallowances for each team member.

For example, we have one customer, who sets team-wide commute standards, which only admins can edit. Everlance set up custom commute disallowances for each individual. With a team of over 10,000 drivers, they need the peace of mind that their drivers won’t be changing these settings on an individual basis.

Another Everlance customer has a team with varied commutes. They opted to personalize each employee’s commute disallowance, so every individual’s disallowance matches their personal commute, ensuring accurate and fair reimbursements.

One-click customization

One-click customization delivers fast, easy policy changes, saving your organization time on mileage management.

That’s why we prioritized our simple, straightforward commute disallowance settings. We always love hearing from our customers, and have appreciated hearing that Everlance is “very user friendly."

Dynamic disallowance

Your team members’ mileage varies every day, so you need a commute solution that adjust to that and doesn’t leave your team members with negative mileage.

Our dynamic disallowance formula ensures a fair reimbursement for every employee—each team member’s commute is deducted from the daily available mileage, meaning that only non-commute mileage will be eligible for reimbursement (plus no negative mileage numbers for your team members).

Team members mileage changes every day, and some days they don’t hit their full commute. Everlance automatically deducts only “what’s there”—nothing more, nothing less. This means you and your employees can rely on fair reimbursements.

Customer insight is at the core of how we design and iterate our features. We continue to gather feedback from our customers to improve this feature.

Get started with Everlance Business for free today and explore our Commute Disallowance feature. If you give it a try, we’d love to hear what you think!

Ultimately, it’s definitely worth the investment to set up a clear, customizable commute policy. It will save yourself time and hassle—and it’ll save your company money. And we hope that this guide empowered you to set and implement a successful commute disallowance policy.

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