Claiming Mileage

Driving to a camp, a district meeting or the wholesaler is the one expense with no receipt to photograph. So it either goes unclaimed, or somebody works it out on the back of an envelope. Mileage is now a kind of line on an ordinary expense claim: you state the journey, and Scoutworks works out what you are owed at your group's rate.

There is no separate mileage form and no separate approval route. A mileage line sits on the same claim as your receipts, goes to the same approver, and is paid back the same way.

Where to find this#

Go to Finance → Claims & Payments and click Submit Claim. On any line, the type toggle at the top of the line offers three choices:

• Reimburse me — you paid for something and need the money back.
• Mileage — you drove your own car.
• Pay supplier — an invoice the group needs to pay direct.

Pick Mileage. The Amount box disappears, because you never type the amount on a mileage line.

What you enter#

You can attribute a mileage line to a category, section, event, budget or restricted fund exactly like any other line.

Postcodes are the part that matters for record-keeping — they make the journey identifiable, which a place name on its own does not. Type them in either case; the field tidies them up as you go. A tick appears beside a postcode Scoutworks recognises. If it cannot find one, it says so and you can still submit — check it first.

How the amount is worked out#

The total updates as you type, and the breakdown under the fields shows exactly how it was reached:

• the chargeable miles (your one-way distance, doubled if it is a return trip) multiplied by your group's rate per mile
• plus the passenger supplement, if anyone travelled with you
• the two added together as the line total

That figure becomes the line's amount and rolls into the claim total. Before you enter a distance, the line tells you what your group pays — for example, "your group pays 55p/mile, plus 5p/mile per passenger".

No receipt is needed. There is nothing to photograph when you drive your own car, so a mileage line has no receipt box at all. The group's receipt threshold never blocks it, and you are never asked to confirm that you have no receipt.

Mileage comes back to you rather than to a supplier, so you will be asked for your bank details before your first claim, in the same way as any other reimbursement.

The distance check#

Scoutworks looks up your two postcodes and measures the straight line between them. That is a cross-check, never the figure you are paid on — a real road journey is always longer than the crow flies, so paying on it would short-change you.

If the distance you entered looks off against that straight line, a note appears. It never blocks the claim:

• Shorter than the straight line. That journey is not physically possible, so something has been mistyped — often a return distance entered as one-way. Check the distance, and if you drove there and back, tick Return trip rather than doubling it yourself.
• More than three times the straight line. Usually a typo — 400 typed where 40 was meant. Worth a second look. The note says so plainly, and tells you your approver will see it too.

Short hops are never flagged: below a mile the comparison stops meaning anything, because a one-way system can easily triple a very short trip. If a postcode does not resolve at all, there is nothing to compare against and no note appears.

What happens next#

A mileage line is approved, rejected and settled through the normal flow, alongside every other line on the claim. Your approver sees the journey and the same breakdown you saw. Once the treasurer marks it settled, it lands in the group's accounts as an ordinary reimbursement.

Setting your group's rate#

Group admins set the rate under Finance → Claims & Payments → Settings, in the Mileage Rates section. It sits between Claim Limits and Approver Configuration.

Every group starts at the HMRC approved rate — 55p per mile, plus 5p per passenger per mile — with mileage claims switched on. While you are at or below the approved rate, a worked example under the two boxes shows what a short trip would come to at the rate you have set, so the figure is never abstract.

Paying above the HMRC approved rate#

You can set a rate above 55p a mile, or a passenger supplement above 5p, and Scoutworks will not stop you. It does tell you plainly what it means:

That is the group's decision to make, not Scoutworks'. But the volunteer is the one who carries the tax consequence, so it is worth agreeing before you set it.

One thing Scoutworks does not do: HMRC's approved rate drops for business mileage beyond 10,000 miles in a tax year. Your group's rate applies to every mile claimed here, because no single group can see how much a volunteer has driven for everyone else. That total is the volunteer's own affair.

Changing the rate later#

Every mileage line keeps the rate it was priced at. Change the group rate today and yesterday's claims are untouched — nothing is re-worked-out behind your back, and a claim you have already paid stays paid at the figure you paid it.

New lines use the current rate, as does any line whose journey you change while the claim is still a draft.

What's next#

• Submitting and Approving Expense Claims — the rest of the claim form, receipts, and bank details.
• Reviewing and Paying Expense Claims — the approver and treasurer view, including what a mileage line looks like in the drawer.
• Accounting and Bookkeeping — where a settled mileage line lands in your group's ledger.