Julia Doherty at Green Umbrella blogs about MileBug

Just wanted to point your attention to the Green Umbrella blog by Julia Doherty. She's written a great little piece on MileBug:

http://www.green-umbrella.biz/2011/02/a-cool-iphone-app-for-recording-business-mileage-milebug/

I think she's in England, our friends across the pond, so drop by and say hi!

Quick HOW-TO for MileBug Beginners

Here's a repost of a blog entry from last January that I thought might be helpful again:
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First understand that the general idea is that you open MileBug right when you get in the car to go somewhere. You add a trip, enter the data including the starting odometer reading. Then you close it up and drive to your destination. When you arrive, open MileBug and it will automatically take you to the incomplete trip where you now simply enter the ending odometer reading and hit Save. Voila! Now it's in your Trip List.

For the simplest case, focus only on the Trips tab. Don't worry about the others right now. On the top right, there's a "+" button. Simply tap that to add a new trip. You'll see a new screen slide on with different fields for information about the new trip you're about to take. Simply tap on each one to either choose or enter the data for that field. For fields like Business, Destination, Vehicle, etc. you'll be adding a new one to the system by tapping "Add Preset" at the top of the screen that appears when you select Business or one of the others. Simply add the new one, and it will now appear in your set of Businesses, Vehicles, etc. that you can choose from for this trip and all future trips.

If you want to customize a few things, you can do this in the Presets tab. There you can choose among different settings, as well add/edit/move/delete your set of Businesses, Vehicles, Expense Categories, etc. Keep in mind that each business has it's own set of Destinations and Purposes.

Link for MileBug on Android

Unfortunately Android Market doesn't allow direct links to apps from a web page, but here's the Cyrket link that will get you there:

http://www.cyrket.com/p/android/com.izatt.milebug/

Open that link on your device and click the QR code to get to MileBug in the Android Market.

IRS Announces 2011 Standard Mileage Rates

IR-2010-119, Dec. 3, 2010

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today issued the 2011 optional standard mileage rates used to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving purposes.
Beginning on Jan. 1, 2011, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car (also vans, pickups or panel trucks) will be:

• 51 cents per mile for business miles driven
• 19 cents per mile driven for medical or moving purposes
• 14 cents per mile driven in service of charitable organizations

The standard mileage rate for business is based on an annual study of the fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile. The rate for medical and moving purposes is based on the variable costs as determined by the same study. Independent contractor Runzheimer International conducted the study.

A taxpayer may not use the business standard mileage rate for a vehicle after using any depreciation method under the Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (MACRS) or after claiming a Section 179 deduction for that vehicle. In addition, the business standard mileage rate cannot be used for any vehicle used for hire or for more than four vehicles used simultaneously.

Taxpayers always have the option of calculating the actual costs of using their vehicle rather than using the standard mileage rates.

Revenue Procedure 2010-51 contains additional details regarding the standard mileage rates.

http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=232017,00.html
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MileBug Featured at MacCreate

Just got notice from Joanne Carter at MacCreate that MileBug has been listed as part of their Daily iPhone App Digest - 9 December 2010. She notes in there that MileBug rose to #2 last January in the Finance category..let's do it again!

http://iphone.maccreate.com/2010/12/09/daily-iphone-app-digest-9-december-2010/

Odometer Fix submitted to Apple

Thank you all for making us aware of the odometer bug when upgrading to iOS 4.2.1. We have fixed the problem and submitted an update for Apple's review. This new release was submitted on Tuesday, November 23rd, and we anticipate it being available via the App Store by the end of next week.

WORK-AROUND: In the meantime, you can safely use the Number Pad option for data entry in lieu of the odometer picker. Select the Presets Tab at the bottom, choose Settings, and select Number Pad for the data entry.

Our apologies for the inconvenience.

FYI, this release also includes the option of HTML or CSV reports. And the reports will be email attachments so greater amounts of data can be exported in the report.

MileBug 33% OFF Thanksgiving Sale!

It's always fun to have a sale, so why not Thanksgiving? Let's add MileBug to our list of things to be thankful for, and get it at 33% OFF! So through the end of November, MileBug will only be $1.99.

33% OFF thru November 30th!!

Get it now at http://itunes.com/apps/milebug