How to write a mileage policy your team will actually follow
The perfect PDF policy is useless if nobody reads it. How to write one your team will follow.
Why most policies fail
The typical mileage policy is 8 pages of legalese pulled from a template, signed by HR, and forgotten. When a driver has a question — *can I claim this trip?* — they ask their manager, not the policy. The manager invents an answer. Inconsistency compounds; auditors find it.
A policy that *works* is short, prescriptive, and answers the questions drivers actually ask. It lives where they look (intranet front page, app help screen), not in the HR portal three clicks deep.
The 7 sections that cover 95% of cases
1. Eligibility (one paragraph)
Who can claim mileage. Be specific: 'Sales reps in field roles, technicians traveling between client sites, executives traveling to non-routine meetings.' Not 'employees who travel for business.'
2. Eligible vs ineligible trips (one table)
A two-column table beats three paragraphs. Examples:
| Eligible | Ineligible | |---|---| | Office → client site | Home → office (commute) | | Client site → next client site | Home → first client of day (commute, with exceptions) | | Office → vendor → office | Personal errand on the way | | Airport → off-site meeting → airport | Hotel → restaurant for personal meal |
Make the commute exception explicit: in some jurisdictions, the home-to-first-client trip is reimbursable for employees with no fixed office (California §2802 line of cases). State your rule.
3. Per-km rate (one line, with a link)
'The current per-km rate is X (effective DD-MM-YYYY). The current rate is published at [intranet link]. Rate changes are communicated 30 days in advance.'
Don't bury the rate in a paragraph. Drivers want a number.
4. How to log a trip (one numbered list)
Four to six steps, screenshots if the policy lives on the intranet. Be opinionated: 'Use the Quilometragem app. Tap Start when you leave, Stop when you arrive. Add the business purpose when prompted.' Not 'submit your trips through the appropriate system.'
5. Submission and approval cadence (one paragraph)
Fortnightly is the sweet spot for most teams (per post 105 data). State: 'Submit by Sunday EOD; approval by Tuesday EOD; reimbursement on the next pay run.' Pick a cadence and defend it.
6. Documentation expected (one bulleted list)
For each trip, the driver provides: date, origin, destination, business purpose (specific — 'meeting with Acme Corp re: Q2 contract', not 'sales call'), kilometers (auto-calculated from the app), client/project tag.
The approver checks: business purpose makes sense, the route is plausible, the volume is consistent with the role.
7. Disputes and exceptions (one paragraph)
Where to escalate when a trip is rejected, who has authority to approve out-of-policy reimbursements, and the process for changing the policy itself. Without this, every edge case becomes a Slack DM to the CFO.
What to leave out
- Long preambles about company culture and the importance of accuracy. - References to specific tax statutes (those belong in a separate compliance doc for finance). - Disclaimers and 'this policy may be changed at any time' boilerplate (state it once at the bottom, not in every section). - Glossary of terms that aren't used in the policy itself.
Length target
One to two pages. If the policy runs longer, the operational rules are mixed with compliance rationale; split them.
Tone
Write to the driver, not to HR or legal. Use 'you'. Use short sentences. Use examples. The policy is a manual, not a contract.
Where to put it
Three places, with cross-links:
1. The mileage app's help screen (one tap from the trip-log screen). 2. The intranet page for field operations. 3. The new-hire onboarding checklist (acknowledged with a checkbox).
Not just the HR portal. The HR portal is where policies go to die.
How to refresh
At least annually. Trigger refreshes on rate changes, jurisdiction changes (new state where you operate, new country), and findings from the most recent audit. Track refresh dates so the policy doesn't go stale silently.
A failure mode to avoid
Do not let a single 'final reconciliation' month float free of the rest. If the policy says 'submit by Sunday EOD with no exceptions', you don't get to make exceptions in December because the year is closing. The policy is the policy.
A worked example
A 60-driver field team migrating from a 9-page legacy policy to a 1.5-page rewrite saw:
- Policy questions to managers down 73% (no need to interpret). - Out-of-policy reimbursement requests down 41% (drivers can self-check). - Average submission lag down from 12 days to 4 (the steps are clearer). - Audit findings on inconsistent application: zero (down from 4 in the prior year).
The rewrite cost half a day of an operations manager and an hour of legal review.
Bottom line
A mileage policy that works is two pages, written for the driver, with a table of eligible trips and a current per-km rate. Drop the boilerplate. Cross-link from the app, the intranet, and onboarding. Refresh annually. Watch policy questions and audit findings drop.