When you use your car for either private and business purposes, be sure to keep a digital record of all your business trips, especially if you’re an entrepreneur. This is true for many reasons, a few being that you as a business owner have a number of responsibilities on top of the personal ones, with regards to compliance and taxation. By keeping an electronic log over your travels, you not only make life easier for yourself when filing tax reports, but you also have solid proof in terms of what counts as private driving, and what is for business.

Chances are that if you’re reading this, you’ve been told you need to use an Electronic Logging device because you’re in the trucking business, an entrepreneur with many hours on the road, or something similar. Especially insurance companies require vehicles to use ELD Devices, and some companies won’t offer you any type of insurance on your leased vehicles without such a device. Not only do the modern ELD’s track milage, but the more advanced also have traffic crash information, sort of like a black box on the airplanes.

An electronic logging device can therefore also help with insurance claims, as there will exist a record of how fast you were going when the accident took place for instance. And while the initial cost of acquiring and installing an ELD can be prohibitive for those not required by law to use them, there’s actually another good incentive for entrepreneurs to install one. Seeing as how a large portion of the accounting aspect will be automatically taken care of, over time ELD’s save money on bookkeeping and by storing all data electronically, saves on storage or archiving costs as well.

And for vehicle Fleet owners and operators, using ELD’s can be a crucial aspect in managing a successful business. In addition to documenting the use of each car, it also provides fleet administrators with a unique tool to continually monitor the mileage of the cars in the fleet automatically, outputting costs for fuel and maintenance along the way. This gives the fleet administrator, a unique and real-time overview of the internal fleet, that in turn allows the fleet to be optimised on the basis of live data. This can ultimately help to free up capital and reduce the balance of the individual car dealership, rental company or any other company operating a fleet of automobiles or trucks.

The post Electronic Logging Devices for Entrepreneurs appeared first on Incredible Planet.