FBT car logbook

• Week 1, Monday. A paper logbook goes in every glovebox. By Thursday, the first ute out each morning has a page of blank lines.
• Week 12, Friday, 4 pm. Someone rebuilds three weeks of trips from calendars, fuel receipts and memory, in one sitting.
• The odometer moved 5,000 km in twelve weeks. The trips written down add up to 3,800. Nobody knows where the other 1,200 went.
• Page after page of purposes that just say "business". The ATO says that on its own isn't enough.
• Tuesday, 7 am. The ute changes hands for the week. Nobody writes it down; three weeks later nobody knows whose trips were whose.

For

• Employers whose cars, including utes that count as cars for FBT, are also used privately, and who want an FBT operating cost method logbook.
• Cars with a Teletrack-connected tracker, or ready to have one fitted.
• Fleets that know who's driving. A driver ID tag scan or PROSTART® pre-start sign-in (priced separately) in the 12 hours before a trip names the driver; otherwise it's the car's default driver, if one is set.
• Teams where drivers can check their own trips on a phone and the office reviews the rest.

Not for

• An individual's own tax return. The income-tax logbook method runs on different dates and rules.
• Working out FBT, a car's taxable value, operating costs or business use for the FBT year, or deciding which vehicles need a logbook. Those stay with you and your adviser.
• A hands-off logbook. The rules make a first guess, but business trips away from known places need a purpose, and someone has to check the trips.

• A trip reaches a driver's page when it's matched to their login: a tag scan or pre-start sign-in in that car in the 12 hours before it, the car's default driver, the office's choice, or their own claim.
• My trips shows the last 14 days, with the trips that need something first, and goes back up to 120 days.
• Each card says where the trip went, when, how far and in which car, and why it was marked that way, such as "Why private? Commute: home to Depot".
• One tap switches a trip between Business and Private. The purpose box suggests "Travel to <site>" for job sites and, room permitting, purposes used before. A business trip with no purpose is flagged in red.
• A driver the office lists as the car's default or a regular driver can claim a trip with no driver recorded ("I drove this"); otherwise only the office changes the driver.
• The page tells drivers that their employer's administrators can see all trips, including private ones. Others can too (see Privacy and access).

• A card for each car: days through its logbook period, whether the odometer readings are in, business use % and how many trips need attention ("All reviewed" when none do, not that anyone checked them).
• Filter by vehicle, dates, Business or Private, who set it and Needs attention: the last 14 days to start, up to 400 days at a time.
• Change any trip outside a locked period, saved on the spot: Business or Private, purpose or driver. Tick a run of trips to mark them Business or Private in one go, or give trips that shared a purpose the same one.
• Needs attention flags a business trip with no purpose, a trip with no driver, and a trip that has dropped out of the tracker data.
• Every change a person makes to a trip's Business or Private, purpose or driver goes in its Trip history: who, when, old and new value. A late purpose shows as late.
• Logbook vehicles lists the enrolled cars, their default driver and last sync, and enrols more. On the map, a logbook car's trips show Business or Private and purpose, linking Administrators and Editors to the Review page.

• Commute: a direct trip between the home set for the car and a workplace (the depot or office) is Private. The setting can be unticked per car, which makes new trips like that Business; check with your adviser before you untick it.
• Known place: a trip starting or ending at a job site, customer site, other business place or workplace is Business at any time, with a purpose filled in such as "Travel to <site>". These aren't flagged: read them before you lock.
• Outside work hours: any other trip that starts on a day off, or outside the car's work hours, is Private.
• Within work hours: everything else is Business, and stays flagged until someone adds what it was for.
• Night shifts: work hours can run past midnight, but each trip is checked against the work days ticked for the calendar day it starts, so check trips just after midnight at the start or end of a run of night shifts before you lock.
• The commute rule only catches a direct trip between home and a workplace. With a stop, between home and a job site, or ending at home in work hours, a trip can start as Business. Check trips to and from home before you lock.
• Set per car: work days and hours (Monday to Friday, 06:00–17:00 by default), home, workplaces, other business places and drivers.
• Active customer sites with a location count as job sites by default, as do Teletrack Dispatch job locations on the job's shift days, for every logbook car, not just the one rostered. Either can be switched off per car.

• The ATO expects purposes at the end of each trip or as soon as reasonably practicable, and readings at or soon after the period's start and end: check with your adviser before relying on a back-dated period.
• An Administrator or Editor enters the opening and closing readings, typed in from the odometer (photo optional) or read from the car in one click where its tracker supports it. That's the car's latest reading, so take it on the day.
• Where the car doesn't report a dashboard odometer, the page shows the tracker's GPS estimate for reference only; it can't be saved as a reading.
• Each journey's odometer start and end is calculated from the opening reading plus the tracker's distance, not read from the car, and the logbook says so. Where the car reports a dashboard odometer, you can snap each day's first reading up to it (off by default), but the logbook doesn't mark which readings were snapped.
• Business use % = business km ÷ (closing − opening reading), with kilometres the tracker didn't record counted as private. It's the period's figure, not the FBT year's reasonable estimate. The app doesn't check the two readings against each other, so check both before you lock.
• Lock period stays disabled until the period has ended and every day is final, both readings are in (not the GPS estimate), and every business trip has a purpose. The page lists what's missing.
• Only an Administrator can lock, freezing the figures and every trip in the period and keeping the logbook PDF with its SHA-256 fingerprint. Reopening also needs an Administrator and a written reason, and is recorded in the period's history with the earlier PDF, which can't be downloaded from the page.

• The cover: employer, vehicle, registration, opening and closing odometer and where each came from, total, business and private kilometres, business use %, the period, and "These classifications are defaults, not tax advice."
• A declaration for the employee and employer to sign on paper. Read its wording with your adviser first: it calls the period's business use % "a reasonable estimate of its business use", the ATO's term for the FBT year's figure, which Teletrack doesn't work out.
• A method note: how journeys were recorded and classified, that per-journey odometer readings are calculated, and how business use is worked out.
• Every journey: date, start and end time, calculated odometer start and end, kilometres, Business or Private and who set it, purpose, driver, and where it started and ended.
• A Changes section: edits to those journeys and car events dated inside the period, with when, who, from what, to what and the reason.
• The Excel file has Summary, Journeys and Changes sheets, with kilometres as numbers and the Why? for every trip.

• The FBT car logbook tile on the Reports page runs for one enrolled car or many, as Excel or PDF: up to 400 days, 25 cars as PDF or 200 as Excel. It builds in the background and is emailed to you too.
• Opening and closing readings, and business use by odometer, appear only when the dates match a logbook period exactly; a period that's still running is cut off at today, so it won't match. Any other date range shows business use of the kilometres recorded, though its PDF is still headed "Operating-cost method logbook": for the logbook, use the period's own.
• Automatic reports email the trips as Excel, weekly (Mondays, for the previous Monday to Sunday) or monthly (on the 1st, for the previous month), at a time you choose. They're a running record, not a period's logbook: no opening or closing reading.
• Saved reports keeps runs, downloads and scheduled sends, with their files for 90 days. Locked period PDFs are kept on the period, outside that clean-up, but no retention period is promised, so download and keep them.
• In Asset Control, an enrolled car's Reports menu opens its logbook report, and its History tab has a Logbook view.

• Administrators and Editors whose access covers a car run its logbook; only Administrators lock or reopen. User/Operator logins fix their own trips on My trips, and can view the car's logbook settings and periods without changing them.
• Private trips are visible to the employer. Administrators and Editors see every trip in full; anyone who can see the car on the map or in Asset Control, including other drivers, sees each trip's Why?, Business or Private, purpose and driver.
• My trips tells drivers only that their employer's administrators can see all trips, so tell your drivers who else can see their car.
• A driver's home circle is left off the map and the geofence pickers for logins with no Administrator or Editor access in the organisation. Only the circle is hidden: trip routes, addresses and the Why? still show, and so can the circle's name.
• The PDF and Excel list private trips too, with their places, and can't leave them out yet. Odometer photos and locked PDFs are kept in private storage, behind a permission check.
• Each organisation's logbook is its own; the client picker can't widen it. If a car moves to another organisation, its logbook is switched off at the next sync. The previous employer keeps its history, open to people with organisation-wide access, but a period that hadn't ended can no longer be locked. The new owner starts afresh.

A plain summary of the ATO's FBT guide for employers (chapter 4 on record keeping, chapter 7 on car fringe benefits): not tax advice, so check with your adviser. The ATO doesn't publish an official logbook, and Teletrack has no ATO approval, endorsement or class ruling.

• ATO: at least 12 continuous weeks (or the whole time you held the car, if shorter), representative of its business use and stated in the records. Teletrack: needs 84 days or more, so it can't set a period for a car you held for less than 12 weeks, and prints the period. Whether it's representative is for you and your adviser.
• ATO: odometer readings at the start and end of the period, made at or soon after those times. Teletrack: typed in from the odometer or read from the car where its tracker supports it, with the source printed beside each. Nothing checks a reading's date against the period, and the PDF doesn't print it, so take them on the day.
• ATO: for each business journey, the dates it began and ended, the odometer at the start and end, the kilometres and the purpose. Teletrack: the start date, start and end times, calculated odometer readings, the tracker's kilometres and the purpose; a journey that runs past midnight shows its start date only.
• ATO: a purpose that describes the journey; "business" on its own isn't enough. Teletrack: won't lock while a business trip has no purpose, but can't judge whether one describes the journey, and rule-filled ones like "Travel to <site>" pass that lock check without anyone typing them. Ask your adviser whether they're enough.
• ATO: entries at the end of a trip or as soon as reasonably practicable. Teletrack: records journeys automatically, but nothing prompts anyone for a purpose. Each change a person makes to a trip's Business or Private, purpose or driver is time-stamped, so a late entry shows as late; a purpose the rules fill in, including after Re-apply rules, isn't logged.
• ATO, for electronic logbooks: tracking with the opening odometer entered; each journey's date, time, distance and use; a weekly report in English; and checks, ideally on the day or weekly. Teletrack: records each trip's date, times, distance and Business or Private from the tracker, holds the opening reading entered for the period, and can email a weekly Excel report of the trips; kilometres the tracker misses count as private. It can't make the checks happen, and no screen, report or history shows that a check was done.
• ATO: odometer readings at the start and end of every FBT year (1 April to 31 March) you use the method, or the part of it you held the car. Teletrack: an automatic overnight reading on those dates, only if the tracker reads the dashboard odometer, and on eastern and central time the 31 March one comes before that day's driving; others can't be typed in. Keep your own for every car.
• ATO: business use for the FBT year is a reasonable estimate; a logbook alone isn't enough unless it's kept for the full year, and the estimate takes in the logbook, odometer and other records, and any change in use. Teletrack: gives the period's figure only; the estimate, the written election, costs and taxable value stay with you and your adviser.

• No reminders and no app: nothing emails, texts or pushes drivers for a purpose, and My trips is a web page that needs a data connection, with no offline mode.
• It doesn't work out FBT, a car's taxable value, operating costs or a full-year business use estimate.
• It doesn't track when a car needs a new logbook (the ATO says one can be kept for up to five years if there's no major change in the pattern of use), carry the business use % into later years, or move a logbook to a replacement car.
• It can't record a logbook period shorter than 12 weeks, which the ATO allows for a car held for less than 12 weeks of the FBT year.
• FBT-year readings on 1 April and 31 March are automatic only for cars that report a dashboard odometer, and can't be typed in for other cars. They come from an overnight job, not the end of the day, nothing alerts you when one is missing, and they don't show on the period page or the logbook cover.
• Per-journey odometer readings are calculated from the tracker's distance, not read from the car, and each journey shows its start date only. The opening and closing readings aren't checked against each other or the period's dates, so check them before you lock.
• It checks that every business trip has a purpose, not that the purpose describes the journey, and rule-filled purposes such as "Travel to <site>" pass that check.
• Commutes with a stop on the way, trips between home and a job site, and trips home in work hours can all start as Business. Check trips to and from home before you lock.
• It doesn't record that anyone checked a trip: "All reviewed" on a car's card means no trips need attention. If you need a record of your weekly checks, keep it yourself.
• Private trips are listed in the PDF and Excel, with where they started and ended. There's no option yet to leave them out.
• No retention period is promised: keep your locked PDFs. The ATO asks for FBT records to be kept five years from lodging the relevant FBT return, and a logbook relied on in later years is a record for those years too; check with your adviser.
• Trips arrive within about 15 minutes from trackers on Teletrack's current data connection. Older connections, which can include CalAmp units, update overnight or when the office refreshes the day: ask us which applies to your cars.