App builder

A mileage log built around your showings,
not a blank spreadsheet.

Describe a normal week of driving and Netiva builds a web app that captures each trip’s route, purpose and miles, then totals the year at the mileage rates you enter.

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Starter prompt

Build a mileage log web app for a residential real estate agent who drives to showings all week. I sign in and add a trip in a few taps: date, vehicle, a from and a to picked from saved places such as my brokerage, the title company and my listings, the miles, the purpose and who it was for. Keep a places list, a vehicle list with start- and end-of-year odometer readings, a rates table with the dates each rate covers, and the method chosen for each car. Show a year summary of business miles by purpose and vehicle, valued at the rate in effect on each trip’s date; for a car on actual expenses show its business share of total miles instead.

Build it in Netiva Paste the prompt into a new workspace and adjust it to your business.
Overview

Who this mileage log is for

Agents drive for a living: two showings across town, a lockbox swap, the title company, then back out for a listing appointment at six. Those miles pile up faster than anything else in the business, and most of them get rebuilt in December from a calendar and a fuel app. A mileage log built with Netiva captures each drive while it’s still fresh — date, route, miles and a purpose that keeps commuting and personal miles on the record but out of the business total — and totals the year at the rates you entered.

Key features

What your mileage log can do

  • Trips saved before you pull away

    Add a drive while it’s still in front of you: pick the vehicle, where you left from, where you arrived, the miles and what the trip was for. Each entry saves under your own sign-in, so two agents sharing the app keep separate logs.

    • A quick-add form you finish in a few taps before you set off
    • Round trips entered once and counted both ways
    • An earlier trip copied onto today for drives that repeat
    • A running week total on the first screen

  • Saved places, not typed addresses

    The brokerage, the title companies you close with, the inspector’s office and every active listing live in a places list, so logging a drive is two picks rather than two addresses typed out by hand.

    • Places tagged as office, listing, client or vendor
    • Sold listings archived so the pickers stay short
    • Miles filled in from a maps provider’s API with your key
    • Gate codes and parking notes kept on the place

  • Business, commuting and personal apart

    Every trip carries a purpose — showing, listing appointment, inspection, closing, office, commute or personal — and the year totals count only the business ones. Saved views pull up one month, one car, one client or one purpose.

    • Commuting and personal drives logged but left out of the total
    • Saved views by month, vehicle, purpose or client
    • The collection assistant relabels a batch of trips at once
    • Business share of total miles from your two odometer readings

  • Rates by date, totals by year

    Rates can change mid-year, so each is its own record with the dates it covers. The year page values a standard-rate car’s business trips at the rate in effect that day, and gives a car on actual expenses its business share of total miles.

    • One row per rate, with its dates and where you copied it from
    • Year totals by purpose, vehicle and month
    • A Friday email with the week’s trips and any empty day
    • Every total still linked to the trips behind it
Data model

The collections behind it

Netiva keeps your records in built-in collections. Here’s a starting structure — the agent adapts it to your prompt, and you can change it any time.

Trips

One record per drive, with the four things a log has to show.

  • Trip date (required) Date
  • Vehicle (required) Relation to Vehicles
  • From (required) Relation to Places
  • To (required) Relation to Places
  • Miles (required) One leg, from the odometer or a maps lookup Number
  • Purpose (required) Showing, Listing appointment, Open house, Inspection, Closing, Office, Commute, Personal Text
  • Client or property Who you met or the address you drove to, so the reason is on the record Text
  • Round trip (required) Yes or No; Yes counts the miles twice in every total Text

Places

The stops you drive to often, ready to pick from a phone.

  • Name (required) Brokerage office, Riverside Title, the Oak Street listing… Text
  • Address (required) Text
  • Place type (required) Office, Listing, Client, Title or escrow, Vendor, Home Text
  • Suggests purpose The purpose the quick-add form fills in when you pick this place Text
  • Active (required) Yes or No; closed listings go to No and drop out of the pickers Text
  • Access notes Parking, gate code, which door the lockbox is on Paragraph

Vehicles

Each car you drive for work, with the numbers your preparer asks for.

  • Name (required) Daily driver, sign truck, spouse’s car… Text
  • Year, make and model (required) Text
  • Owned or leased (required) Owned or Leased Text
  • First used for business (required) The date the car became available for business use Date
  • Method (required) Standard mileage rate or Actual expenses; the year page follows it for this car Text
  • Odometer at start of year (required) The reading on January 1, or the day the car first went to work Number
  • Odometer at end of year Filled in at year end; with the start reading it gives total miles beside business miles Number
  • Active (required) Yes or No Text

Mileage rates

The rates you type in, each with the stretch of dates it covers.

  • Rate name (required) Business, second half of 2026 Text
  • Cents per mile (required) Number
  • Applies from (required) Date
  • Applies through Left blank while the rate is the current one Date
  • Use for (required) Business; each trip is valued with the business rate whose dates cover the day you drove Text
  • Copied from Where the number came from, such as the IRS notice you read it in Text

Required field. Types are Netiva collection field types.

Screens

Pages and screens to start with

A typical first version. Ask the agent for more, or annotate the preview to change any of them.

  • This week

    Today’s drives at the top, the rest of the week under them, miles so far and one big button to add the next trip.

    Signed-in users

  • Add a trip

    Vehicle, from, to, miles, purpose and client in one phone-sized form, with a round-trip switch and a button to repeat an earlier drive.

    Signed-in users

  • Places

    Offices, title companies, vendors and current listings with their addresses and access notes, and a switch to archive the sold ones.

    Signed-in users

  • Vehicle

    One car’s miles by month and purpose, its two odometer readings, total miles beside business miles and the method you chose for it.

    Signed-in users

  • Rates

    Every mileage rate you entered with the dates it covers, so a year that changes rate mid-stream holds two rows instead of one.

    Signed-in users

  • Year summary

    Business miles by purpose, vehicle and month, valued at the matching rate for a standard-rate car and shown as a share of total miles for one on actual expenses, commuting apart.

    Signed-in users
How it works

From prompt to a live mileage log

  1. Describe how you drive

    Tell Netiva which cars you use for work, the stops that come around every week and how little you want to type at the wheel. The agent drafts collections for trips, places, vehicles and rates.

  2. Load your regular stops

    Put the brokerage, the title companies you close with and your live listings into the places grid, or paste the addresses and let the collection assistant draft the rows for you to check.

  3. Log a real afternoon

    Open the preview on your phone and record an actual run of showings. Wherever the form asks for one tap too many, annotate it in the preview and the agent reshapes it.

  4. Publish before the next drive

    Publish in one click, sign in from the car and switch on the Friday email. Later changes are checkpointed, so an edit you don’t like rolls back to an earlier point with your trips intact.

Why Netiva

Netiva vs a traditional build

Building a mileage log with Netiva compared with a traditional build
Criterion With Netiva Traditional build
Recording a drive A trip saved from the phone before you pull away, with its purpose attached A calendar note or a photo of the odometer, typed up months later
Applying a mileage rate Each trip valued at the rate whose dates cover the day you drove it One rate pasted over a whole year of miles at the bottom of a spreadsheet
Getting started Describe what you need in chat and watch it take shape in a live preview Hire developers, or stitch together templates, plugins and a hosting plan
Content and data Built-in collections with nine field types, bound straight to your pages Set up and connect a separate database or CMS
Making changes Ask the agent; every change is checkpointed and reversible File a ticket, wait for a sprint, redeploy
Hosting and domain Global hosting and automatic SSL; connect a custom domain from the Starter plan Buy hosting, then install and renew SSL certificates yourself
Code ownership Clean production code you own and can export Locked into a template, plugin or agency setup
Examples

Ways teams use it

  • A solo agent covering two counties

    Saturday showings run from one town to the next and back for a price discussion. Each leg is its own trip with the listing it belonged to, so the year total reads as a record of where the miles actually went rather than a round number.

  • An agent with a sedan and a sign truck

    The car used for showings and the truck used for sign installs and staging drops are separate vehicle records, each with its own odometer readings, its own monthly miles and the method chosen for it when it first went to work.

  • A part-time agent with a weekday job

    The morning drive to the day job is logged as commuting and stays out of the business total, while evening showings and weekend open houses are business trips with a client or an address attached to each one.

Good to know

Before you build

  • The rates are yours to type in

    Trips are valued with rates you enter, each with the dates it covers. Business rates change, and can change mid-year. Check the current IRS notice before you close out a year and add a rate row for each stretch of dates.

  • Nothing is detected for you

    A Netiva app runs in the browser, so it can’t sense a drive starting or read your location while it’s closed. You add each trip, which is also what keeps the log timely. A maps provider’s API with your own key can fill in distances between saved places.

  • Commuting isn’t business driving

    IRS Publication 463 treats travel between home and a regular place of business as commuting, and travel between two work locations as business driving; a qualifying home office changes it again. You pick the purpose, your preparer decides how it’s reported.

  • The method is set per car

    For a car you own, the standard mileage rate has to be chosen in the first year the car is available for business use, and choosing it for a leased car means keeping it for the whole lease. It isn’t available at all if you run five or more cars at once.

Compliance note

A mileage log is a record for you and your tax preparer. This app totals the miles and rates you enter — it doesn’t calculate tax, decide which drives are deductible or give tax advice. Rates change, sometimes in the middle of a year, so you enter each one with the dates it applies to and check it against the current IRS notice. What lands on a return is your preparer’s call.

FAQ

Questions about building a mileage log

What does a mileage log have to show for each trip?

Publication 463 describes records covering each trip’s date, mileage, destination and business purpose, plus the vehicle’s total miles for the year, and says a record kept at or near the time you drive carries more weight than one prepared later. The quick-add form captures date, vehicle, from and to, miles, purpose and the client or property before you’re out of the driveway, and the vehicle page holds the odometer readings. Whether that’s enough for your return is your preparer’s call.

Can the app track my drives automatically?

No. Netiva builds web apps that open in your phone’s browser, so nothing installs and nothing runs between drives. You add each trip, which is what keeps the record timely anyway. If you’d rather not read the odometer every time, connect a maps provider’s API with your own key and let it fill in the distance between two saved places.

How does the log handle a rate that changes mid-year?

Each rate is a record with the dates it covers, so one year can hold more than one. For 2026 the IRS set the business rate at 72.5 cents a mile through June 30 and 76 cents from July 1, which is two rows on the rates screen. The year page values each business trip at the rate whose dates include the day you drove, then totals by purpose and vehicle.

Do drives to my brokerage office count as business miles?

That’s your preparer’s call, and the log is built to make it answerable. Publication 463 treats driving between home and a regular workplace as commuting, and travel between work locations as business driving. Give office runs the commuting purpose and they stay on the record but out of the business total, so nothing vanishes and nothing gets counted twice.

Can I log more than one car in the same app?

Yes. Every trip picks a vehicle, and each vehicle keeps its year, make and model, whether you own or lease it, the date it first went to work and the method chosen for it. Enter the odometer at the start and end of the year and the vehicle page shows total miles beside business miles. The standard mileage rate isn’t available if you run five or more cars at once.

Can I take my mileage log somewhere else later?

Yes. Netiva writes clean, framework-standard code you can read, edit and export whenever you want, with no proprietary runtime, and every change is checkpointed so a bad edit rolls back. Your trips sit in collections you can filter and sort, and you can ask the agent for a year export page your preparer downloads as CSV.

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Drafted with AI assistance from Netiva’s product pages and reviewed by the Netiva team. Example data models, screens and prompts are illustrative starting points, not customer projects.

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