Tracking kilometres and travel for support work (2026)

By Kim Matthews · Runs two disability support businesses · Founder, Sparks Scribe

Ask a room of support workers which part of billing they dread, and travel is usually near the top. The shift itself is straightforward. It is the kilometres to and from it, the non-labour travel code, and the tolls and parking that get underclaimed, forgotten, or bounced back by a plan manager. Small money on a single trip, real money over a year.

I come at this from the other side of the desk. I run two disability support businesses and I hire the workers who do the driving, so I see travel go wrong in two predictable ways. One, the worker never records the kilometres, so a claim they were entitled to quietly disappears. Two, the kilometres get recorded but land on the invoice under the wrong code, or without an agreement behind them, and the whole line gets sent back. Both are avoidable, and the right app plus one good habit is most of the fix.

So this guide asks a narrow question rather than ranking everything by feature count: which apps actually keep a kilometre log, and which get a correct, coded travel line onto the invoice? I look at six by name: Sparks Scribe, ShiftCare, EasyAs, Astalty, Bugal and Visualcare. One disclosure that shapes everything below, I make one of them. Sparks Scribe is my product, built in Australia by Sparks Support Pty Ltd, and I am also a parent of NDIS participants, so I have felt this admin from a few angles. Read my verdict on Sparks Scribe knowing that, and check every competitor claim against the vendor's own current pages. Everything about the other five was collected from their public websites and help centres in July 2026, and where I could not confirm something I say so instead of guessing.

Where does travel quietly cost support workers money?

Two places, mostly. The first is the unlogged trip. If you finish a shift, drive home, and never write the kilometres down, that claim is gone by the next day, because you will not reconstruct it accurately a fortnight later when you sit down to invoice. Over a busy month of driving to clients, that is a meaningful amount of unclaimed travel.

The second is the bounced line. Travel that gets logged but is billed under the wrong item, or without the participant's agreement recorded, or with the vehicle running cost and the travel time muddled together, is the kind of thing a plan manager kicks back. Now you are re-issuing an invoice and waiting another cycle to be paid. The apps worth using are the ones that reduce both risks: they make the log easy enough that you actually keep it, and they put the code and the distance on the invoice so the line is right the first time.

How does NDIS travel and kilometres actually work?

It helps to know there are two separate claims hiding inside the word "travel", because an app can handle one and not the other. Provider travel labour is the time you spend driving to a participant to deliver a face-to-face support, billed against the same support item as the shift, using the Provider Travel service type. Provider travel non-labour is the running cost of the vehicle, claimed per kilometre against its own non-labour travel item code.

Both have to be agreed with the participant in advance, and both need to be itemised clearly on the invoice so a plan manager can see what they are paying for. The NDIS sets a maximum per-kilometre rate for provider travel in its Pricing Arrangements, and that figure moves, so the current price guide is the thing to check before you bill, not an app's default. No tool removes that responsibility from you. This is a plain-English description of the rules as they stood in July 2026, not financial advice.

What I look for in a travel and kilometre app

When I weigh one of these tools for the workers I hire, I am really asking five things:

• Is there a kilometre log? A place to note the trip, its distance, date and reason as you go, kept apart from the invoice, so the evidence exists if a claim is ever queried.
• Does a coded travel line reach the invoice? This is the one that saves real minutes: a travel line that turns up already carrying the item number and the kilometres, instead of you chasing the non-labour travel code by hand every time.
• Is there room for tolls and parking? Non-labour travel is more than kilometres. Tolls and parking are their own expense lines, and the receipts have to live somewhere.
• What does one person truly pay? The real monthly figure for a sole trader, not a per-seat headline that quietly assumes you are a team of five.
• Who is the tool really for? Software built for agencies drags its travel features toward fleets and rosters. Software built for one person drags them toward getting the line onto that person's invoice.

Everything below is measured against those five. Prices and features change, so treat this as a starting point and confirm on the vendor's own pages before you commit.

1. Sparks Scribe: the travel line lands on the invoice, already coded

My product · Travel line on invoices from the $15 Essentials plan (incl GST) · Dedicated kilometre log on the $20 Vault plan · 14-day trial, every feature on, no card · iOS, Android, web · Data held in Australia

Straight to the disclosure, because it colours the verdict: I make this one. I built Sparks Scribe for the independent worker rather than the agency, and travel sits in two connected places. The first is the invoice itself. While you are building it, choosing Add Travel writes a travel code and the trip distance in kilometres onto the invoice as its own coded line, so the item number is filled in for you instead of looked up. That lives inside NDIS-coded invoicing, which starts on the $15 Essentials plan, so billing travel does not push you onto a dearer tier.

The second place is the kilometre log, which comes with the $20 Vault plan. It is where you record trips as they happen, kept apart from any single invoice. Vault also carries a Receipt Vault, and that is where tolls and parking belong: they go onto an invoice as a separate expense line through Add Expense, with the receipt filed alongside. Log for the record, invoice for the coded line, vault for the receipts.

Now the two limits I would want a reader to know before they trust me. Sparks Scribe does not follow your driving by GPS; you type the distance in and it codes the line. And because you set your own rates, it applies the correct travel code but will not police the NDIS per-kilometre ceiling for you. Checking that figure against the current price guide stays your job.

For the record: a 5.0 rating on the Australian App Store, more than 90,000 shifts booked through the app, data held in Australia, and a 14-day trial with every feature switched on and no card at signup.

My verdict: for a solo worker who just wants the travel item number and the kilometres to appear on the invoice without a manual lookup, this is the cleanest fit. Travel billing is on the $15 plan, the kilometre log is on the $20 Vault plan. It does not track your driving by GPS, and it will not apply the price-guide cap on your behalf.

2. ShiftCare: GPS mileage tracking, priced for a team

GPS mileage tracking, to-shift and in-shift · Invoices hours, mileage and expenses, separately if you want · Every plan carries a five-licence minimum; invoicing is on Professional, roughly $65 to $75/month ex GST for one person (July 2026)

ShiftCare is care-management software written for agencies, and its public help centre is specific about travel. It says you can invoice a mix of hours serviced, mileage in kilometres and expenses, and split those onto separate invoices if you want. It also runs GPS mileage tracking that reads distance off the phone for both the drive to the shift, which is provider travel, and driving during the shift, which is client transport.

For one person the obstacle is the packaging, not the feature. ShiftCare bills per licence and sets a floor of five licences on every plan, even on an account with a single user, and invoicing only appears on the Professional plan. Put together, that lands a sole worker at roughly $65 to $75 a month excluding GST, depending on billing, as collected in July 2026. You are effectively buying a five-person account to get a mileage line onto your own invoice.

My verdict: the GPS tracking and the mileage invoicing both exist, but the five-licence floor makes ShiftCare a costly route for one person to bill travel. It is built for teams and priced for teams.

3. EasyAs: attaches the travel item number, but invoicing only

Invoices travel kilometres and attaches the correct travel item number · No trip log or shift notes on any published page · $19.95/month on the website, $19.99 via in-app purchase · GST treatment not stated · iOS and Android

EasyAs is an NDIS invoicing app, and its public pages stick to that one job. On travel, the site says a provider can invoice travel kilometres where the NDIS item number in use permits it, and that the app attaches the correct travel item number to the support type being billed. So the code and the travel line are sorted at the moment you raise the invoice.

The gap, on every published page and store listing I read in July 2026, is that there is no trip log and no shift-note writing; nothing on the site points to a kilometre log or progress notes. So an EasyAs user still records the kilometres elsewhere and carries the number across. The entry price is listed at $19.95 a month on the website, or $19.99 through in-app purchase, and the pages do not say whether that includes GST.

My verdict: if the whole of your need is a correct, coded travel line on an invoice, EasyAs does that and you can set it up yourself. What it will not do is hold the kilometre log behind the claim, so you get the invoice half of the job and supply the log yourself.

4. Astalty: add travel as a charge, no automatic kilometre log verified

Travel added as a further charge inside case notes, with the support type named · $30/month for the support-worker profile, $64 for a standard seat · Automatic kilometre log and distance-to-invoice not verified from public pages (July 2026)

Astalty is aimed at NDIS support coordinators and providers. On travel, its own guidance sits in the case-noting section: you can attach notes and further charges such as travel to a case note and say which support type applied. That is a charge you add by hand to a note, tagged with the support type.

What I could not pin down from Astalty's public pages is the exact thing this piece is about, an automatic kilometre log that captures trips and then feeds a travel code and distance onto the invoice. The public material leans on a demo rather than describing an automated travel-to-invoice flow, so I am leaving it unverified either way as at July 2026. On price, a standard seat is $64 per user a month and the restricted support-worker profile is $30.

My verdict: you can add travel as a charge and name the support type, but an automatic kilometre log, or a distance that fills the invoice on its own, is not something I could confirm from Astalty's public pages in July 2026.

5. Bugal: expense tracking, no kilometre log listed

Public feature list includes invoicing and general expense tracking · No kilometre log or coded travel-line-on-invoice on the public pages (July 2026) · Free plan capped at 2 invoices a month, or Solo at $35/month · GST treatment not stated · Web-based

Bugal is built for Australian independent support workers, and its public feature list runs through service agreements, client and shift management, invoicing and expense tracking, shift notes and reports, and financial reports. General expense tracking is on that list, which helps with receipts.

What the public pages do not carry, as at July 2026, is a dedicated kilometre log, mileage tracking, or a travel code and distance that appear on an invoice; none of that is named. I could not verify a purpose-built travel-to-invoice feature, and I was not willing to read one into the general expense-tracking line. Bugal calls itself web-based, with a free plan capped at two invoices a month and a Solo plan at $35 a month; the pages do not say whether those prices include GST.

My verdict: the listed expense tracking covers receipts, but a kilometre log and an automatic coded travel line on the invoice are not things I could confirm from Bugal's public pages.

6. Visualcare: kilometres as a rostering output, built for organisations

Rostering that produces outputs including kilometres travelled and service line items · Built for provider organisations · Pricing not published, quote on application · Solo self-serve workflow not verified

Visualcare is Australian care-management software written for provider organisations, the NDIS among the settings it serves. On travel, its public materials describe rostering that handles travel and allowances and turns out timesheets, kilometres travelled and service line items. So kilometres do come out of the system, but on the organisation-and-rostering side of it.

That framing is the whole issue for a sole trader. Visualcare is made for organisations rostering staff, not for one person raising their own invoice, and it does not publish a price; it works on a quote. I could not verify a solo, self-serve kilometre-to-invoice path or a public figure from its pages in July 2026, so for a person working alone this is likely more platform than the task calls for.

My verdict: kilometres show up as a rostering output for organisations, which is a different job from one worker putting a coded travel line on their own invoice. Pricing is on application, and a solo workflow is not something I could confirm.

The apps side by side

Collected from public pages in July 2026. "Kilometre log" means a place to record trips separate from the invoice. "Travel code and km on invoice" means a coded travel line that appears on the invoice with the distance.

All details collected from each vendor's public website or help centre in July 2026 and simplified for comparison; prices and features change, so check the vendor's own pages before deciding. "Not verified" means I could not confirm the detail from official public pages and chose not to guess.

Frequently asked questions

Once the kilometres are handled, the next job is the paperwork around the shift itself. Here is my guide on how to write NDIS shift notes, with examples.

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