IFTA Spreadsheet with Audit Check

About this system

Most IFTA trouble is not bad arithmetic. It is a gap.

A trip nobody wrote down. A state breakdown that does not quite add up. A receipt that went through the wash in a shirt pocket. The quarter looks finished, because there is nothing there to say otherwise — and that is exactly the problem. Incomplete records are the most common finding in an IFTA audit, and they are the hardest thing to fix afterward, because by then you cannot remember the load.

This is a mileage and fuel record that checks itself.

What Makes It Different

Every other spreadsheet in this category adds up what you typed. This one looks for what you did not.

Enter your trips and your fuel as you go. Behind them, eight checks run continuously on your own data:

Odometer continuity — the end reading of one trip has to be the start of the next. When it is not, a trip was run and never recorded, and the workbook tells you which two rows do not meet and by how many miles.

State miles that do not foot — your jurisdiction breakdown is checked against the trip's own odometer. If they disagree, one of them is wrong and so is the return.

Missing required fields — unit number, both odometer readings, origin and destination by city and state, routes of travel, dates. A record missing any of these is not a record.

Fuel purchases that are incomplete, receipts you no longer hold, fuel bought in a state where you logged no miles, and a fleet MPG that cannot be true.

Each one names the row. You fix it while it is still fixable.

The Example File Has Three Things Wrong With It On Purpose

A demonstration where everything passes proves nothing. So the filled-in copy holds one truck's quarter — 28 trips, 26 fuel stops — with three faults left in deliberately: a missing trip that shows up as a 412-mile odometer jump, a state breakdown 37 miles short, and a fuel purchase with no receipt. Open the AUDIT CHECK tab and watch it find all three and name them. That is what it will do with your records.

The Return, Done Properly

All 58 IFTA jurisdictions — the 48 contiguous states and the 10 Canadian provinces. Alaska, Hawaii, DC and the Canadian territories are not IFTA jurisdictions and are correctly left out.

Separate surcharge lines for Indiana, Kentucky and Virginia. Those three charge a surcharge on the fuel you burn there; it is not collected at the pump, and you can never claim tax-paid gallons against it, so it is always owed and never a credit. Leave those lines out and you under-file. The totals deliberately exclude the surcharge rows from mileage so nothing is counted twice.

Pick the quarter once and the whole worksheet follows it — miles and gallons both.

About The Tax Rates, Straight

This workbook does not carry them, and that is deliberate. Rates change every quarter across 58 jurisdictions, and the upcoming quarter's table is often still provisional partway into it. A file shipped with rates baked in would file you a wrong legal return within months and never mention it. You enter the current quarter's figures from the official source, and the workbook tells you exactly where to get them, free.

The Other Tabs

Setup, filled once. Trip record, with every field an audit asks for. Jurisdiction miles. Fuel receipts. The audit check. The return. An audit pack listing what an auditor requests and whether you could produce it today. A retention tab showing when each quarter's records are finally safe to let go of. And a reference tab with the rules and where to verify them yourself.

What Arrives

• The workbook, ten tabs, blank and ready for your records
• The same quarter filled in, with the three faults left in so you can see the checks work
• An OPEN ME FIRST card that gets the file open on any device

WILL IT OPEN?

Excel 2016 and newer, Microsoft 365, Excel for Mac, and Google Sheets. No macros, no add-ons, nothing to install. Built deliberately without the newer Excel functions that break on import into Sheets, so it converts cleanly. No subscription that can lapse and lock you out of your own quarter, and no vendor that can take it offline.

One warning worth more than the rest: the Etsy app cannot download files at all. It will show you the order and even a download button, and nothing usable will happen. Use a browser — the included card walks you through it on iPhone, Android and desktop, and swiftbudgetco.com/open has the same thing. Still stuck, message the shop with your order number. A real person answers.

Honest Limits

It does not file your return. Almost nothing at any price does — most jurisdictions accept their own portal or mail, and the software in this market calculates and hands you the numbers, exactly as this does.

It is not legal or tax advice. An audit is a legal process; if you get one, talk to somebody who does this for a living. Take complete records with you, which is the entire point of this file.

It does not store the receipts themselves. It tracks which ones you said you hold. Keeping the paper is still your job.

And it cannot know about a trip you never wrote down. What it can do is show you that the odometer does not line up, on the day it happens, while you can still reconstruct it.

Your files stay in your Etsy account permanently. Re-download any time, any device, no cost.