Do you know where your ELD data is?

In the era of ELDs, one thing hasn’t changed from the days of paper logs: motor carriers have to be able to provide six months of ELD records during an audit—with documents to back up their accuracy. These documents can include:

• Bills of lading or invoices that show the start and ending location for each trip

• Dispatch records or trip reports

• Expense receipts (meals, lodging, fuel, etc.)

• Records from electronic communications and dispatch systems

• Payroll records or settlement sheets

In order to be valid, says Transflo, the leading provider of ELDs and digital workflow solutions for the trucking industry, a supporting document must include the driver’s name plus three items that GPS captures automatically: date, time, and location.

In many cases, you can use the same documents and records of duty status (RODS) to substantiate a deductible expense claim on an income tax return, or distance calculations for fuel taxes reporting (under the International Fuel Tax Agreement) and prorated vehicle registration (International Registration Plan).

The thing to remember is that a safety auditor only needs six months of HOS records. The IRS, IFTA, and IRP have different timetables:

• The IRS suggests that you keep documents to support a business expense claim for seven years.

• Fuel tax and registration auditors want GPS data going back four years for IFTA and five and a half years for IRP. An auditor may ask to see raw GPS data to verify the calculated distance on your IFTA or IRP report. Remember that hours of service and distance-based tax reports are very different. One focuses on the driver, the other on the truck. The No. 1 thing to keep in mind is that you can’t simply use the vendor’s distance-by-jurisdiction report for your returns. When missing GPS points because of poor coverage or some other signal issue create gaps in distance records, you should be ready to provide actual documents—trip sheets, dispatch records, receipts—to close those gaps and support your claim. Make sure your device and vendor can support you with the records and raw data you’ll need during an audit. There is no such thing as an “IFTA-approved” ELD.

With ELD providers, you’re not just evaluating a device. Ask your provider about access to all the logbook and GPS data you’ll need when an auditor requests them. Six months of data may not be enough.