You can charge for travel by setting it up as a billable item and using quantities on invoices. This guide walks through the most common ways practices handle travel fees, including charging by time or distance, recording travel details, and keeping things compliant with reporting or funding requirements (for example, NDIS in Australia).
Decide how you want to charge for travel
Before setting anything up, decide how you usually charge for travel. Most practices choose one of these options:
By distance (e.g. per kilometre)
By time (e.g. per minute or per 15 minutes)
As a flat travel fee
We'll go through how to approach each of these using billable items and quantities.
Create a billable item for travel
The key to charging for travel is creating a billable item that represents the smallest chargeable unit.
For example:
Distance-based:
Billable item name: Travel – per kilometre
Price: your per-km rate
Quantity on invoice = number of kilometres travelled
Time-based:
Billable item name: Travel time – per minute
Price: your per-minute rate
Quantity on invoice = number of minutes travelled
Flat fee:
Billable item name: Travel fee
Price: flat amount
Quantity stays at 1
To create a billable item, head to Settings → Finances → Billable items. For more information, check out this guide: Set up billable items
Add travel to an invoice using quantities
Once your travel billable item is set up, you can add it to an invoice like any other item.
Add a payment from the appointment on the calendar or edit an existing invoice to include the travel expense
Add the travel billable item
Enter the travel time/distance in the Quantity field
This works whether the invoice is created at the time of the appointment or later. If you've raised the invoice before the appointment, you can edit it afterwards to reflect the actual travel time or distance.
Travel expenses for Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) claims are handled slightly differently where the first 10km travelled shouldn't be added to the invoice. If you're submitting DVA claims, please refer to this guide instead:
Automatically include travel on certain appointments (optional)
If travel is commonly charged for specific appointment types (e.g. home visits), you can relate the travel billable item to those appointment types.
This means the travel item will automatically appear on the invoice when you create a payment for that appointment.
To do this:
Go to Settings → Appointments → Appointment types
Open the appointment type
Add the travel billable item under related billable items
Here's a guide on how to set this up: Relate billable items and products to an appointment type
Once your travel billable items are set up, charging for travel is as simple as adjusting the quantity on the invoice. This gives you a consistent way to record and charge travel costs, while keeping your invoices and reports accurate.