Celcom offers a new cellphone service from Mobile Gateway Solutions that allows users to log business and personal travel details in a few keystrokes.
Mobiletripsheet is a mobile and Web-based application that records kilometres travelled, fuel costs and other expenses that will be required to claim a tax deduction, according to a press statement.
Siegfried Roux, sales director at Celcom, says mobiletripsheet is essentially a vehicle logbook on a cellphone. “Instead of a traditional paper-based logbook with all its problems, your cellphone becomes the recording device for all your business mileage.
“With SARS further tightening up the rules regarding the claiming of business expenses, mobiletripsheet automates the recording process and enables the user to produce the detailed reports that SARS requires in order to claim back from SARS against the travel allowance.”
From the beginning of the tax year on 1 March 2010, individuals will have to submit a detailed logbook in order to claim a tax deduction for business mileage.
Mobile generation
According to John Ramsey, Europe, Middle East and Africa director at Mobile Gateway, mobile services such as mobiletripsheet form part of an emerging business trend: “There are over six billion people in the world, 1.2 billion Internet users and over 3.5 billion cellular phones. As phones have gotten smarter, the opportunity has opened up to offer business applications on mobile phones.
“The cellphone has become a delivery platform for personal and business data as well as an information retrieval platform. Oh, and you can also use it as a telephone.”
Ramsey says the South African market is primed for these kinds of offerings and the take-up rate of tools like mobile applications in the consumer and business environment is high. “As a community we are very quick to embrace technology. The business and consumer public make technology decisions in a heartbeat - if we like it, we use it.”
He adds that while desktop-based business applications still have their place in the economy, as workers become more mobile there will be an increasing need for mobile applications. “Mobiletripsheet is just one of a portfolio of mobile products that we have launched in SA and abroad.”
DIY data input
Mobiletripsheet is designed to ease the process of automatically capturing comprehensive travel information as it allows users to enter kilometre readings from start to finish, allocate whether mileage was for business or personal purposes, record exact departure and destination times, as well as log fuel purchases and other expenses.
“Mobiletripsheet is going to radically revise the tax landscape in SA by removing the pain from this process,” says Roux.
According to Ramsey, the mobiletripsheet application allows individuals to use their cellphones as personal data input terminals. “Once users have captured the transaction on their phones, they can upload it to a server and access a personal management interface. From here, they can edit the report and add more detailed information.”
Users will also be able to export data to Microsoft Access and Excel from the Web interface and print it in logbook format for filing as part of their annual tax return.
“Unlike paper-based logbooks that can get dropped, chewed-up or lost, mobiletripsheet transactions stay on your phone until deleted, so once you upload them to the server they are stored in two places.” He adds that a Web-based backup function keeps logbook information secure.
Mobile Gateway's other services include mobilesales and mobilejobcard, mobile and Web-based applications aimed at sales teams and industry call centres respectively.
Mobilestripsheet is a subscription-based service available on any GSM network and was specifically developed for SA, although other countries such as Australia and Malaysia have expressed interest.
Ramsey says the fact that Mobile Gateway is a local company offers certain benefits. “We developed all these applications ourselves so there are no costs we don't control. We have no external licences to worry about and aggressive pricing compared with similar products overseas.”
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