CareLineLive can automatically calculate your mileage and/or travel time between two visits and/or to and from home, based on your mileage settings and what's enabled in your carers and clients' contracts.
What's the difference?
Despite being separate (but related) concepts, there are three keywords that sound so similar they're often confused: journey, mileage, and travel time. The difference between the three keywords is that:
- Journeys are the route you decide to take to arrive at one address from another
- Mileage is the total distance - in miles or kilometres - a journey takes to complete
- Travel Time is the total time - in minutes or hours - a journey takes to complete
How is mileage and travel time calculated?
In the same way you can check Google Maps to find the best route between two addresses, CareLineLive uses Google Maps to calculate the mileage and travel time based on the optimal route between the planned addresses at the time. The mileage and travel time calculated may vary based on the carer's default transport type and the route taken may change if Google Maps sees a more optimal or accurate route.
ℹ️ Mileage and travel time may differ from typical journeys on certain dates if public transport routes change or road closures and traffic jams are detected.
The mileage and travel time estimates won't adjust to fit the size of the gap between visits. For example, if the gap between two visits is 30 minutes but Google Maps calculates the travel time as only 20 minutes, then the travel time will be 20 minutes. Likewise, if the gap between two visits is only 10 minutes but Google Maps calculates the travel time as 20 minutes, then the travel time will still be 20 minutes.
ℹ️ If the gap between visits is large enough, it may assume the carer went home and came back between visits. Read more on the maximum gap, minimum gap for paid commute, and other thresholds here: Mileage Settings.
Carer and client addresses
All mileage and travel time calculations are dependant on clients having addresses in CareLineLive. Mileage and travel time to and from home calculations are highly dependant on both clients and carers having addresses in CareLineLive.
⚠️ No client or carer addresses means no mileage and/or travel time between visits and to and from home will be calculated, respectively
Read more about the ins-and-outs of carer and client addresses - including best practices, handling house moves, checking locations are recorded correctly, and more - here: Carer & Client Addresses.
ℹ️ Two consecutive visits at the same address will have 0 mileage and 0 travel time
Transport types
You can change the primary transport for a carer too by choosing Carers in the main navigation, opening their carer record, selecting Profile in the sub-menu, scrolling down to Other at the bottom, and clicking Edit to change the Primary Transport:
Transport types are heavily considered when calculating mileage and travel time for journeys. For example, a transport type of car must only take roads, while a transport type of walking can take footpaths, can't take motorways, and will have significantly more travel time (because walking is slower than driving).
Mileage settings
You can change the units, default mileage rates, and mileage thresholds on a per team basis in Settings → Travel → Mileage.
Read more about the mileage settings available here: Mileage Settings.
Service contract types
If you go to Clients → Service Contract Types, and click on a service contract type here, you'll find a section called "Carer mileage".
Read more about service contract types here: How to create Service Contract Types.
There are three options you can enable here:
Enable carer travel payments
When disabled, no mileage or travel time will be billable or payable, regardless of any mileage settings or the carers' contracts. However, when enabled:
- The carer can be paid any mileage and/or travel time for visits using this service contract, as long as it's enabled inside the carer's contract too
- The client can be charged back any mileage for visits using this service contract, as long as "Charge client for mileage" enabled inside this service contract too
Charge client for mileage?
When disabled, the client won't be charged for any mileage or travel time, even if the carer is paid mileage. However, when enabled, the client will be charged for whatever mileage the carer does at the same rates as the carer will be paid for that mileage.
Use custom mileage rates for client charge?
When disabled, the client will be charged for mileage at the same rate the carer's paid for mileage. When enabled, you can alter the rate per mile/kilometre that the client will be charged for each transport type, without affecting what the carer is paid for mileage.
Mileage bands
You can create mileage bands to charge different rates for varying distances. For example, you could charge £0.55 per mile for car journeys up to 20 miles, but a discount of £0.45 per mile for car journeys up to 50 miles.
Service contracts
If you go to Clients in the main navigation, open a client's record, and go to Contracts in the sub-menu, you can use the three dots to edit a service contract. Here, you can override specific mileage and/or travel time rates for just this client without affecting other clients on this service contract type.
The mileage and travel time settings will appear in the Billing section though:
Carer contract types
Once carer travel payments are enabled in the client's service contract, you can edit the carers' contracts to choose if they're paid for mileage and/or travel time. If you go to Carers → Contract Types, and click on a contract type here, you'll find a section called "Pay for travel" inside "Payment Calculations".
Read more about carer contract types here: How to create Carer Contract Types.
Pay mileage?
If enabled, the carer will be paid for their mileage between visits. It'll also open the option to include mileage to and from home at the bottom, if needed.
Use custom mileage rates?
By default, your carers will be paid using the mileage rates in Settings → Travel → Mileage. If enabled, you can choose to use different mileage rates for just carers on this contract type. You can also create mileage bands to pay different rates for varying distances, similar to the mileage bands in the client's service contracts.
Read more about default mileage rates here: Mileage Settings.
Pay for travel time?
If enabled, the carer will be paid for their travel time between visits. It'll also open the option to include travel time to and from home at the bottom, if needed.
Pay for travel time using hourly rate?
If enabled, travel time will be paid per hour. If disabled, travel time will be paid per minute instead.
Amount per hour travelled
If left blank, it'll use the default hourly rate on the contract for travel time payments. For example, if the default hourly rate is £16 per hour and they're travelling for 15 minutes, then the carer will be paid £4 for the journey.
If a number is entered here, it'll use this number as the travel time rate, instead of the default hourly rate.
Maximum travel duration
This restricts how much travel time is payable for each journey. For example, if there's a limit set to 5 minutes:
- If a journey lasts 6 minutes, then the carer can only be paid for 5 minutes
- However, if the journey actually lasted 4 minutes, then the carer will just be paid for 4 minutes
Include mileage to and from home?
By default, only mileage between visits is paid. However, you can tick this to also pay for mileage to and from home.
By default, CareLineLive will only pay mileage to and from home at the start and end of the day. However, this behaviour can be customised with the "Minimum Gap for Paid Commute" option found in Settings → Travel → Mileage.
Read more about mileage settings here: Mileage Settings.
Include travel time to and from home?
By default, only travel time between visits is paid. However, you can tick this to also pay for travel time to and from home.
By default, CareLineLive will only pay travel time to and from home at the start and end of the day. However, this behaviour can be customised with the "Minimum Gap for Paid Commute" option found in Settings → Travel → Mileage.
Read more about mileage settings here: Mileage Settings.
Minimum journey
By default, the minimum journey is 0 miles, meaning all mileage and/or travel time to and from home is paid, regardless of the distance. However, you could increase the "Minimum journey" option if you'd only like to pay mileage and/or travel time to and from home for journeys above a certain distance. For example, if the minimum journey is 5 miles, then only journeys to and from home that are 5 miles or longer will be paid.
You can setup one minimum journey for mileage to and from home and a separate minimum journey for travel time to and from home. Either way, the minimum journey is always measured in miles or kilometres.
Only pay difference
If unticked, the carers are paid their mileage and/or travel time to and from home as long as it's over the minimum journey. However, if ticked, the carers will only be paid for the mileage and/or travel time to and from home minus the minimum journey. For example, if the minimum journey is 5 miles and a journey is 12 miles, then the carer will be paid for 7 miles.
You can choose to pay the difference just for mileage to and from home, just for travel time to and from home, both, or neither.
Carer contracts
If you go to Carers in the main navigation, open a carer's record, and go to Contracts in the sub-menu, you can use the three dots to edit a carer contract. Here, you can override specific mileage and/or travel time rates for just this carer without affecting other carer on this contract type.
The mileage and travel time settings will appear in the Travel Payments section though:
While mileage must be explicitly enabled in the contract even if it's disabled in the contract type, travel time will only be enabled in the contract if it's disabled in the contract type if either "Travel time: amount per minute travelled" or "Travel time: amount per hour travelled" is enabled.
Overriding travel settings per visit
If you open the Overview tab of a booking, click the three dots next to a carer, and choose Change travel settings...
...you can choose to override a carer's transport type for just this one booking, enabling carers to take different transport types as needed, rather than only ever using the primary transport type:
You can also choose to override the contract and pay or not pay mileage for just this one booking, no matter what the contract says, if it's ever needed. By default, it'll be set to use the settings in the contract though.
Not what you're expecting?
Sometimes, mileage and travel time may show different figures than what you may expect. Here's some areas to check if this happens:
Have you provided addresses for your carers and clients? (Otherwise, figures may be too small. This can be done through the Profile tab in their record by clicking the + icon in the top right.)
Are the pinpoints for each address positioned correctly on the map? (Otherwise, figures may be too large. To do this, click the three dots next to each address, choose Update location, and drag the pinpoint to the correct location.)
Have you selected the correct transport type? (Otherwise, travel time may be significantly different than what's expected. You can change this in the carer's record under Other at the bottom of their Profile tab, using the Edit button.)
Are your bookings completed and confirmed? (Otherwise, the bookings - and their mileage and travel time - can't be payable or paid. You can do this in Bookings → Incomplete and Bookings → Unconfirmed.)
Have you ran payroll yet? (Otherwise, mileage and travel time can't be considered paid yet.)
Are your bookings already inside a payroll run? (In this case, you may need to recalculate the payroll run to retrieve the latest mileage and travel time data.)
Is mileage and travel time enabled in the carer and clients contracts? (Read more about enabling mileage and travel time above.)
Are the mileage thresholds suitable for your needs? (Read more about the mileage thresholds here: Mileage Settings)
How fast does mileage and travel time update?
When you make a change that impacts journey data, the mileage and travel time figures are not always recalculated instantly. Instead, the recalculations may be queued for processing, and may take longer to update if there are more processes to perform behind-the-scenes than normal.