Expenses and receipts

An expense belongs to a trip

An expense does not float in a separate report: it hangs off the trip that caused it. Open the trip, add the expense. Three fields are enough — an amount, a date and a description, like "I-95 toll" or "garage downtown."

These add to the mileage allowance in your totals. The IRS is explicit: the standard mileage rate already covers gas, oil, maintenance and depreciation, so you do not deduct those on top. But parking fees and tolls are deductible separately, on top of the rate. Leaving them off means giving up a deduction you are entitled to.

Attach the receipt

To each expense you can attach the receipt: a photo of the ticket, a downloaded PDF. Kilevo accepts images (JPG, PNG) and PDFs, up to 10 MB per file.

Kilevo does not read the receipt for you. There is no automatic recognition, no amount lifted off the photo: you type the amount and the date, and the file backs them up. That is deliberate. In a tax record, an amount misread from a blurry photo is worth less than one you checked yourself.

A single trip can carry several expenses: the toll out, parking on site, the toll back. Each has its own amount, date and, if you add one, its own receipt. They all show under the trip and count toward its total.

Where your files live

Receipts are not in a public folder reachable by a guessed URL. They sit on a private disk, outside the web root. No direct link exposes them.

To open a file you go through an authenticated controller that checks your rights on every request: you own the trip, or you manage its owner, or you are an administrator. Anyone else is denied, even with the exact link. The security and privacy page covers the rest of how we handle your data.

Merged into the PDF, not beside it

When you export your log, receipts do not go out in a separate folder of photos. They are merged at the end of the PDF, each one preceded by the trip's date, start, destination and amount.

Your preparer, your employer, or the IRS if it ever asks, gets one document: the trip detail, the mileage math, then the receipts, in order, tied to their trip. Nothing to reassemble. The PDF export page describes how the document is laid out.

Removing an expense

You remove an expense from a trip whenever you want: it drops out of the totals and its file is no longer attached to the PDF. Only the owner of the trip can do this, on their own trips.

What the IRS expects as substantiation, and how long to keep it, is covered on the supporting documents page.

Get started

Attaching a cost to the right trip, with the receipt to match, takes a few seconds and saves you rebuilding an expense report at month-end. Create your account and add your first receipt.