Driving for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart or Grubhub? There is a dedicated driver setup that unlocks two reports built for exactly this work. Here is the whole thing, start to finish.
1. Turn it on
Go to Settings → "Set up ExpenseBot for what you track" → "Rideshare / Delivery Driver" → Activate.
That one step unlocks both driver reports. Once it is active, the same card's button changes to "View reports" and takes you to your reports list, where both appear under Tax Reports.
2. Get your trips in
You have two ways in, and they work together:
- Import your platform's trip history. Download your trip CSV from the driver app (Uber's is under Tax Documents / Trip Statements) and import it. ExpenseBot reads the trips and the summary rows, so you are not typing anything in by hand.
- Let Gmail find the expenses. Gas, maintenance, car washes, phone bills and accessory purchases mostly arrive as emailed receipts. Connect Gmail once and those are pulled in and categorized automatically from then on — no forwarding, no photos for anything that came by email.
Anything paid in cash, or a paper receipt from a garage, gets photographed the usual way.
3. Run the Vehicle Deduction Optimizer
This is the report most drivers should run first, because it answers the question that decides how much tax you pay: standard mileage or actual expenses?
You have to pick one method, and you cannot claim both for the same vehicle in the same year. The Optimizer totals it both ways from your real trips and receipts and shows you which one produces the larger deduction, mapped to Schedule C line 9 in the US or T2125 line 9281 in Canada.
Two things worth knowing before you choose:
- The standard rate is set by the IRS (or CRA per-kilometre rate in Canada) and can change mid-year — when it does, the rate that applies is the one in force on the date you drove, so a full year may need each period totalled separately. ExpenseBot applies the rate matching each trip's date rather than one rate for the whole year.
- Your first-year choice can lock you out of switching later on the same vehicle. This is worth getting right the first time rather than fixing next April.
4. Generate the Audit-Ready Mileage Log
The deduction that gets disallowed is almost never one you were not entitled to — it is the one with no proper log behind it. The Audit-Ready Mileage Log produces the per-trip record in the format the IRS (Pub 463) and CRA expect: date, distance, destination and business purpose for every trip.
The requirement that catches drivers out is that the log has to be contemporaneous — made at or near the time of the trip. A log reconstructed from memory in April does not satisfy it, which is the reason to import trips as you go rather than at filing time.
5. What to hand your tax preparer
Both reports plus the expense sheet. The Optimizer tells them which method you are claiming and why; the mileage log substantiates it; the sheet carries the rest of your deductible costs. That is the complete package for the vehicle portion of your return.
Related
- Deciding between the two methods in more depth: ask about the Vehicle Deduction Optimizer.
- What makes a log survive an audit: ask about the Audit-Ready Mileage Log.
- Platform-specific walkthroughs exist for Uber and DoorDash drivers.
Tax calculations are estimates — always confirm with your tax professional.