Property Depreciation Excel Template – Free (2026)
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Drive In Drive Out Expenses Excel - Free Template
Track DIDO trips, receipts, GST, deductible amounts and reimbursements in one Excel sheet for mining and remote site workers.
This drive in drive out expenses Excel template tracks trips, receipts, GST, deductible amounts and reimbursements for remote-site workers and payroll teams. It includes a DIDO expense log, a summary dashboard and instructions sheet.
Use it when you need to sort out flights, fuel, accommodation and incidentals across multiple sites, especially where some costs are partly reimbursed by the employer and some are claimable. The workbook keeps the figures in one place so you can reconcile each trip properly.
The template is set up for practical bookkeeping, not fluff. You can see each trip by employee, site, dates, amount excl. GST, GST paid, total amount, business use percentage, deductible amount and net claimable amount.
The key benefits of this Excel template
- Tracks each DIDO trip with Trip ID, employee, home city, work site and site name.
- Captures amount excl. GST, GST paid, total amount and reimbursements in one row.
- Shows deductible amount and net claimable so you can work out what is actually deductible.
- Helps you separate flight, fuel, accommodation and other travel costs by expense category.
- Keeps trip records tidy for reconciliation and year-end review.
- Supports multiple workers and multiple sites without mixing up claims.
- Gives you a quick summary view for checking total travel spend across the workbook.
Step-by-step guide
- Open the DIDO Expenses sheet and enter each trip on its own row. Use one line per expense so the claim stays easy to check.
- Add the employee name, home city, work site city, site name and travel dates. These fields help you tie each claim back to the right project or roster period.
- Record the amount excl. GST, GST paid and total amount from the receipt. If the cost was partly private or partly reimbursed, enter the correct business use percentage.
- Fill in the reimbursement amount and let the net claimable figure show what is still outstanding. That keeps your claim from being double counted.
- Use the notes column for things like trip delays, partial receipts or manager approval. A short note now saves a lot of back-and-forth later.
- Check the Summary Dashboard sheet to review totals and spot unusual amounts before lodging a claim or closing the month.
- Read the Instructions sheet if you want a quick refresher on how to use the workbook consistently each week or pay run.
What is included
One-line trip log for DIDO expenses across multiple workers.
Columns for departure and return dates, plus nights away.
Separate fields for GST, deductible amount and employer reimbursement.
Expense category field for flights, fuel, accommodation and other travel costs.
Notes field for exceptions, missing receipts and approval comments.
Summary Dashboard sheet for quick review of totals.
Instructions sheet to help you keep the file consistent.
How workers and bookkeepers use this DIDO tracker
This template suits the people who end up sorting remote travel costs in real life: a bookkeeper in a small mining contractor, an office manager at a sparky business, a payroll officer in a civil crew, or a sole trader running their own claims. It is especially useful when staff are flying in for a 7-day swing, driving long distances to site, or booking accommodation before a project starts.
Take a chippie with 4 employees working on a site 420 km from home. If one worker has a $850 return flight, $320 of accommodation and $180 of fuel over a week, the amounts can be split cleanly instead of dumped into one vague travel total.
Why DIDO claims need a proper log
A DIDO job often creates mixed costs: some fully business-related, some partly private, and some reimbursed by the employer. If you do this by memory at the end of the month, you miss details like which site the trip was for, or whether the $120 taxi was for the crew or just one employee.
Where the summary helps
The summary view is handy at pay run time or before month end, when you want to see what has been spent without trawling through receipts. That matters when you have 12 trips in a fortnight and need to know whether travel is running at $3,500 or $9,800 before the next invoice goes out.
That same summary also makes it easier to separate employee travel from taxable amounts before preparing the withholding totals for the next pay run.
The Australian rules that sit behind travel claims
For most businesses, GST is still 10%, and you need the right tax invoice details if you want input tax credits. A valid tax invoice should show the supplier’s identity, ABN, the words Tax Invoice, the date, what was supplied, and GST shown separately on invoices over $82.50.
For travel that is partly private or partly reimbursed, the deduction should reflect the business portion only. If a $500 motel bill was shared 80/20 between work and private use, the business deduction is $400, not the full amount.
Records the ATO expects
The ATO expects you to keep records for 5 years, so DIDO receipts, booking confirmations and approval notes need to stay accessible. That includes the flight itinerary, fuel receipts, accommodation invoices and any employer reimbursement record that explains the net claim.
Why the payroll side matters
If travel is being paid through payroll, the reimbursement and any allowance should be handled properly with PAYG withholding and STP reporting where required. For employees on remote-site work, the extra cost can also link into Fair Work conditions, award provisions and any site-specific travel allowance under the roster or contract.
Where DIDO claims usually go wrong
The biggest mess is mixing deductible travel with reimbursed travel. If the employer has already paid the $850 flight and you still include it as a claim, you have doubled the cost and blown out the month-end numbers by the full $850.
Another common problem is forgetting the GST split. On a month with $6,600 of travel spend, missing the GST component can easily throw off your input tax credit by hundreds of dollars, especially once accommodation and flights are involved.
Missing receipts and fuzzy descriptions
If the receipt just says card purchase with no supplier name or date, the claim becomes harder to defend. At audit time, a clean log with receipt number, description and site name is far better than trying to piece together a card statement from three months ago.
Wrong business use percentage
A 50/50 split is not a guess you want to make casually. If a worker used a private car for a 600 km return trip and only 480 km was for the site transfer, the deductible amount should reflect the business share, not the full fuel bill and tolls.
How to make this spreadsheet part of your routine
The easiest way to keep this working is to make it part of the same routine you already use for the pay run or monthly reconciliation. If you leave DIDO entries until quarter end, receipts go missing, notes get vague and the claim takes twice as long to sort out.
Simple habits that save time
- Enter each trip as soon as the worker returns, before the receipt pile grows.
- Use the same site names and expense categories every time so reporting stays clean.
- Copy the previous month’s format rather than rebuilding the log from scratch.
- Use conditional formatting or a quick visual check to flag blank dates, zero amounts or missing receipt numbers.
When to move on from a spreadsheet
If you are handling dozens of workers, multiple sites and heavy reimbursement traffic, a spreadsheet will eventually slow you down. Once the claims start needing approvals, attachments and audit trails at scale, it is usually time to move to proper software like Xero or MYOB and keep the spreadsheet as a backup report only.
Frequently asked questions about this template
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File format
Excel (.xlsx)
Compatible software
Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice
Price
Free