Drive Logger

User Manual

iOS App · Version 2025

1. Introduction

Drive Logger is a comprehensive mileage and trip logbook app for iPhone. It lets you record professional and private trips, track expenses, and export your logbook as PDF or CSV — perfect for tax documentation, fleet management, or personal records.

Key features at a glance:

• Record trips with up to 10 waypoints each
• Manage multiple vehicles with photos
• Freely define locations and categories
• Track fuel and other trip-related expenses
• Scan receipts to auto-fill expense data Pro
• Export your logbook as PDF or CSV Pro
• ELSTER-compatible export for German tax returns Pro
• Backup & restore via iCloud, Dropbox, or Google Drive Pro
• Search, filter, and sort your data Pro

2. Getting Started

When you launch Drive Logger for the first time, you will see the onboarding screen. It walks you through four initial steps:

1. Create a vehicle — Add at least one vehicle (name, license plate, starting odometer).
2. Start a trip — Create your first trip and assign it to a vehicle and category.
3. Add a waypoint — Record the first stop or destination of your trip.
4. Try exporting — Open the export screen to see the available output formats.

You can complete these steps directly from the onboarding screen or skip ahead by tapping Continue. The onboarding screen is shown only once; after that, the app opens directly to the main tab bar.

App Navigation

The app uses a tab bar at the bottom with five tabs:

3. Overview Tab

The Overview tab is your dashboard. It shows:

• Pie charts — A breakdown of trips by category and by vehicle (shown when you have more than one vehicle). Each chart displays the total distance in the center and a color-coded legend below.
• Summary row — Total number of trips, total fuel costs, and number of scanned receipts.
• Recent trips — The most recent trips with route, date, distance, and category.

Quick Actions from the Overview

• If no trip is currently active, tap the floating "+" button in the bottom-right corner to create a new trip.
• If a trip is currently active, the button changes to a waypoint icon. Tapping it opens the waypoint editor to add a stop to your active trip.

4. Managing Vehicles

Navigate to the Vehicles tab to see all your vehicles, each displayed as a card with a photo (or placeholder icon), name, license plate, trip count, and total mileage.

Adding a Vehicle

1. Tap the "+" button in the top-right corner.
2. Fill in the details:
   • Image — Tap to take a photo or choose from your library.
   • Name — A descriptive name (e.g., "Company Car"). Required.
   • License plate — Your vehicle's registration number.
   • Start kilometer — The odometer reading when you start using Drive Logger.
3. Tap Save.

Editing a Vehicle

Tap a vehicle card to open the editor. You can change all fields and see read-only statistics (total kilometers, trip count).

Deleting a Vehicle

Swipe left on a vehicle card and tap Delete. A vehicle can only be deleted if it has no trips assigned to it.

5. Managing Locations

Navigate to the Locations tab to see all saved locations. Each location shows its name, full address, visit count, and a green indicator if GPS coordinates are available.

Adding a Location

1. Tap the "+" button in the top-right corner.
2. Fill in the details:
   • Name — A descriptive name (e.g., "Office"). Required.
   • Street, Postal code, City — Address details.
3. Under Position, you can:
   • Tap Show on map to geocode the address and place a pin.
   • Tap Use current location to auto-populate the address fields from GPS.
4. Tap Save. If coordinates are not yet set but an address was entered, the app will geocode the address automatically.

Viewing Locations on a Map

Tap the map icon in the top-left toolbar to open a full-screen map showing all your locations as pins. You can switch between Map, Satellite, and Traffic views. Tapping a pin shows the location name and address.

Deleting a Location

Swipe left on a location and tap Delete. A location can only be deleted if it is not used in any waypoint.

6. Managing Categories

Categories help you classify your trips (e.g., "Business", "Private", "Commute").

1. Go to Settings → Categories.
2. Tap "+" to create a new category, or tap an existing one to edit it.
3. Each category shows its trip count and total kilometers.

Categories can only be deleted if no trips are assigned to them.

7. Recording Trips

Creating a New Trip

1. Go to the Trips tab and tap the "+" button, or tap the floating button on the Overview tab.
2. In the trip editor, fill in:
   • Purpose — An optional description (e.g., "Client meeting").
   • Vehicle — Tap to select from a grid of vehicle chips.
   • Category — Tap to select from a grid of category chips.
3. The trip is created in active (unfinished) state. You can add waypoints as you drive.
4. Tap Save.

Trip Status and Locking

Private Trip Prompt

When saving a new non-private trip whose first waypoint's odometer is higher than the vehicle's last recorded mileage, the app detects a gap and offers to insert an automatic private trip to cover the missing distance.

Deleting a Trip

Swipe left on a trip row and tap Delete. Only unlocked trips can be deleted. A brief undo toast appears at the bottom, allowing you to reverse the deletion.

8. Adding Waypoints

Waypoints are the individual stops along a trip. Each trip can have up to 10 waypoints.

Adding a Waypoint

1. Open a trip in the editor.
2. In the Waypoints section, tap Add waypoint.
3. In the waypoint editor:
   • Location — Pick an existing location, create a new one, or tap Current location to detect your GPS position.
   • Date & Time — Defaults to the current date/time.
   • Odometer — Pre-filled with the vehicle's last known mileage. The app calculates driving distance from the previous waypoint using Apple Maps routing and adds it automatically.
4. Tap Save.

Route Map

Once a trip has two or more waypoints with valid coordinates, a Route section appears in the trip editor showing a map with the driving route. Waypoints are color-coded:

• ● Green — Start
• ● Orange — Intermediate stop
• ● Red — End

9. Tracking Expenses

Record fuel costs, tolls, parking fees, maintenance, and other expenses for each trip.

Adding an Expense to a Trip

1. Open a trip in the editor.
2. In the Expenses section, tap Add expense.
3. Fill in:
   • Type — Fuel, Electricity, Parking, Toll, Maintenance, or Other.
   • Amount — The cost in your local currency.
   • Liters / kWh — Shown for fuel and electricity types.
   • Date and Odometer reading.
4. Tap Save.

Scanning Receipts Pro

Photograph a receipt and the app will automatically extract the amount, date, and fuel quantity using on-device text recognition. Recognized values appear in green and are auto-filled into the corresponding fields.

Standalone Expenses

You can also record expenses without assigning them to a trip right away. The app automatically tries to match the expense to the best trip based on date. You can see the automatic assignment reason and override it manually by tapping Change trip. If no matching trip exists, the expense is cached and will be automatically assigned later.

10. Active Trip Quick Bar

When you have an active (unfinished) trip, a floating quick bar appears at the bottom of every tab. It shows the vehicle name and current route, along with action buttons:

11. Searching and Filtering Pro

Trip Filters

On the Trips tab, tap the filter icon to open the filter sheet:

• Date range — Enable and set a start/end date.
• Vehicle — Filter by a specific vehicle.
• Category — Filter by a specific category.
• Status — All, active only, or finished only.
• Lock state — All, locked only, or unlocked only.

A search bar at the top of the trip list lets you search by location name, vehicle, or category.

Vehicle & Location Filters

The Vehicles and Locations tabs also offer filter and search capabilities, allowing you to quickly find specific entries.

12. Exporting Your Logbook Pro

1. On the Trips tab, tap the export icon (square with arrow) in the toolbar.
2. In the export screen:
   • Select years — Tap one or more year chips. Use "Select all" to include everything.
   • Choose format:
     • PDF — A printable logbook document with trip details and summary tables.
     • CSV — A comma-separated file compatible with Excel, Numbers, etc.
     • ELSTER (PDF) — A tax-compliant format for German ELSTER submissions (Germany only).
3. Tap Export.
4. Choose how to share the file:
   • Save — To the app folder, iCloud, Dropbox, or Google Drive.
   • Send via email — Attaches the file(s) to a new email.

13. Backup and Restore Pro

Navigate to Settings → Backup.

Creating a Backup

Back up your entire database to:

• iCloud — Saved in the app's iCloud container.
• Dropbox — First connect your Dropbox account, then upload.
• Google Drive — First connect your Google account, then upload.

Restoring a Backup

1. In the Restore backups section, select the source (iCloud, Dropbox, or Google Drive).
2. Available backups are listed with name and date.
3. Tap a backup to restore. Confirm in the alert dialog.

14. ELSTER Integration (Germany) Pro

Available only when the device region is set to Germany and Drive Logger Pro is active.

Tax Classification

When editing a trip, an ELSTER section appears where you can set:

• Trip type — Private, business, or commute.
• Business partner (contact) — Pick from your device contacts or enter manually.
• Business partner name — Free text field.

ELSTER Export

1. Open the export screen and select one or more years.
2. Choose ELSTER (PDF) as the format.
3. Optionally tap Map ELSTER fields to review or adjust the field mapping.
4. Export as usual.

15. Settings

The Settings tab provides access to:

• Categories — Manage your trip categories.
• Backup — Back up and restore your data.
• Delete all data — Permanently removes all trips, vehicles, categories, and locations. A confirmation dialog is shown before deletion.
• Version — Shows the current app version.

16. Drive Logger Pro

Drive Logger Pro is a one-time in-app purchase that unlocks advanced features:

You can purchase or restore Drive Logger Pro from the onboarding screen, the export screen, the backup screen, or the expense editor.