Fuel, tyres, a toll notice, an insurance premium, the software you pay for - every cost of running the fleet is an expense. Recording them all is what keeps your figures honest, and Fleetola records some of them for you.
Record an expense
- Open Payments and switch to Outgoing - every expense, with a period picker for this month, this quarter or all time. Click Add expense.
- Say what it applies to: one vehicle, or General for a cost of the business as a whole. A vehicle expense shows on that car's Money tab and counts against what it earns.
- Pick the category - Servicing, Insurance, Repairs, Tyres, Rego, Cleaning, Software, Fuel, Tolls or Other.
- Describe it, enter the amount, and leave Includes GST ticked only if the price has GST in it. Untick it for GST-free costs - most government charges.
- Save. The expense is dated the day you record it.
Tip: Pick the category and the GST answer carefully - both lock the moment you save, so a recorded cost cannot change its tax meaning later. Editing an expense can change its description, amount and vehicle, never those two.
Where to find it: Payments → Outgoing → Add expense
Your expenses feed the Tax page. Expenses come off your taxable income - net of any GST portion, which is claimed back separately - and the GST credits on your BAS are claimed only from expenses marked Includes GST. So a cost you never record overstates your income, and a GST tick on a GST-free cost claims a credit you are not owed.
The expenses Fleetola records for you
Log a service with its cost and a Servicing expense books itself against that car. Record registration books each amount as its own Rego expense - the state's fee GST-free, the CTP and inspection with GST. They are already in the list, so never add them again by hand.
A vehicle's money in one place
Open a vehicle and its Money tab is that car's ledger. Purchase & setup holds what you paid to buy and transfer it - two figures from the vehicle's edit form, kept as facts about the asset and never booked as expenses. Below them sit the car's own expense history and a quick form to add one.
Where to find it: Vehicles → the vehicle → Money
Rent collected is every paid rent record on that car's contracts, ended ones included, and it follows a vehicle swap - the car the renter was actually in earns the weeks it was driven, not the car named on the agreement. Bonds are left out: a bond is money you owe back, not money you earned.
The same tab records income tied to the car - Vehicle sale, Parts sale, Insurance payout or Other - and Net on this vehicle is rent, plus anything charged on that car's contracts (tolls, damage, cleaning, fuel), plus that income, minus its expenses. Sold a car, or an insurer paid out? Record it here, then mark the vehicle Sold if it has left the fleet.
Tolls and fines
The straight answer first: Fleetola does not import toll statements or rebill a renter automatically. Each notice is typed in by hand, and passing the cost on is a second step.
Log each notice in Fines & tolls. It works out who had the car at the moment on the notice and lays out the details the authority's nomination form asks for.
A toll you pay yourself and keep is a Tolls expense against the car.
- Open the renter's bond: click the bond amount on the contract, or find it under Bonds in Payments.
- Click Add deduction, pick Toll or Fine, and name the notice in the reason.
- The deduction comes off what is refundable, and your reason stays on the bond's history.
The deduction's category is a money fact. Damage, cleaning and other count as taxable income; Toll and Fine are pass-through - money collected for the road operator - and the Tax page leaves them out of your GST and taxable income. A renter who squares up with you directly is recorded with Record payment, under Other income.