In order to track my miles, hours, pay, fuel costs, and taxes, I created a spreadsheet in Google Sheets called the Dasher Tracker. Every time I end my Dash, I update my Dasher Tracker spreadsheet through my Google Drive app. The spreadsheet has built in formulas that automatically calculate your average hourly wage, average fuel cost, and taxes owed per quarter. This spreadsheet also works for Grubhub, Uber Eats, Post Mates, and other deliveries platforms. You can request a copy of my Dasher Tracker template here.
How to use the Dasher Tracker
The Dasher Tracker contains a 365 day table where you enter data in the yellow highlighted cells. At the end of each Dash or delivery, open the Google Drive app on your phone and open your copy of the Dasher Tracker. Go to the current date in Column A and enter in your total earned, total miles driven, total minutes worked, and total cash tips. The spreadsheet will automatically track your average hourly pay and your average cost of fuel.
In order to track your estimated quarterly taxes using the IRS cost per mile method, update the highlighted cells shown below. The federal tax rate is sitting at 15.3% as of 2021 and the IRS deducts $0.575 per mile. The tax rate can potentially change every year or every few years so keep an eye out for updates from the IRS tax laws for self-employed contractors. You can also enter the average cost of gas per gallon and your car’s average miles per gallon. If your car does not tell you what your average fuel economy is, you can look up the information online.
For tax purposes, you will also need to track your mileage and what percentage of your driving is used for personal use versus business use. At the start and end of each year, make it a practice to document your car’s odometer reading. As you fill out your daily earnings, mileage, and time, the estimated quarterly taxes will automatically update. Any negative number means you don’t owe anything and you may receive a tax refund.
I like to use TurboTax Self Employed to do my taxes. You can visit TurboTax directly from the Dasher Tracker spreadsheet by clicking on the TurboTax logo. Once you click on the logo, the link to TurboTax will appear.
Affiliate Link Notice: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you decide to purchase or sign up for a product through my referral links. While you can sign up through any other means, it would help support the blog if you sign up through my links. Thanks.
