Getting started with JoltMile

What it is

The short version of setting JoltMile up so the figures it gives you are about your car and your driving rather than about an average one.

Before your first shift

1. Download JoltMile from the App Store and finish account setup in the app. It asks which platforms you drive for, what you drive, what it runs on and how you pay for insurance. Every one of those changes a number later.
2. Check Settings, Vehicle & fuel. The fuel price is kept at the UK average for you, but the MPG is yours and the default is a guess. Even a rough real figure beats it.
3. Check Settings, Insurance. Left as "not tracked", insurance is left out of your costs entirely and every hourly rate comes out higher than it is.
4. If you have a PAYE job as well, add it under Other income with the tax from each payslip. JoltMile then knows the job has used your personal allowance, and takes the tax your employer already paid off the bill.

None of it is compulsory. The shift wizard tells you which of the three are unset before you log anything, and what each one changes if you leave it.

Your first week

• Press Start shift every time you set off, including on the bad days. A week with one quiet Tuesday in it is the honest week.
• Record your commuting miles. They are not claimable, but they burn fuel, and leaving them out makes your hourly rate look better than it is.
• Put expenses in as they happen. Parking, a phone mount, a platform fee. Doing it in January from memory is how things get missed.

What to ignore at first

Your tax estimate is close to meaningless in week one. It works from your running profit across the tax year, and with three shifts logged it is estimating from almost nothing. It becomes useful once there is a month or two behind it.

Your hourly rate needs about a week before it says anything. One shift is a data point, not a trend.

The free plan

The first 10 shifts are free. After that, logging more needs a subscription, bought in the app through the App Store or Google Play. Nothing you have already logged is ever taken away or hidden if you do not subscribe: you keep your records, your exports and your backups.

Mistakes to avoid

• Leaving the default MPG in place. It is the single biggest lever on your fuel cost.
• Logging a whole week as one shift. Per-shift records are what let you see which days and platforms actually pay.
• Waiting until you have time to set it up properly. Log a shift today and fix the settings after - past shifts keep the settings they were logged with, but a shift you never logged is gone.