Vehicle Log Book Format Free A4 and Excel — 31 days on one sheet
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What a vehicle log book records
Nine columns per day and four totals at the foot. Anything more and it stops getting filled in.
- Date
- Every day the vehicle exists, not only days it moved. A blank row is information too.
- Route or purpose
- Where it went and why. For a government or company vehicle this column is the audit trail.
- Opening odometer
- Read at the start of the day, before it moves.
- Closing odometer
- Read at the end of the day, before anyone else takes it out.
- Kilometres run
- Closing minus opening. Derived, so a mismatch is visible rather than plausible.
- Diesel litres
- Litres, not just rupees. Without litres there is no mileage.
- Diesel amount
- So the sheet reconciles against the fuel bills in the same envelope.
- Km per litre
- Derived per day as a sanity check, judged on the month total.
- Driver
- Who drove it. Mileage differences between drivers on the same route are real and measurable.
At the foot: total kilometres, total litres, total spend, and the month's average km per litre. That last figure is the one that tells you whether a truck is getting worse.
How to keep a log book worth keeping
A log book filled in from memory at month end is worse than none, because it looks like evidence and is not.
- Read the odometer daily
- Not per trip. A daily figure means a missing day shows up as a jump you cannot explain.
- Record diesel where it was filled
- Litres and rupees, at the pump. The bill goes in the same envelope as the sheet.
- Leave blank days blank
- Do not carry a reading forward to fill a gap. An idle day is a fact worth recording.
- Name the driver every day
- Especially where a truck has more than one. It is the only way to attribute a mileage change.
- Total the month, then judge
- Kilometres over litres for the month. Never a single day, and never an average of the daily figures.
- File the sheet with the bills
- One envelope per vehicle per month. The sheet without the bills is half an argument.
How to work out mileage correctly
Divide the month's total kilometres by the month's total litres. Not the daily figures, and not the average of the daily km/l column — those are two different numbers and only the first is honest.
The reason is that a tank is rarely empty at a reading. Fill 60 litres on the 3rd and drive 300 km before filling again on the 9th, and the 3rd shows 5 km/l while the 9th shows something else entirely, depending on where the needle happened to sit. Across a month those errors cancel out. Across a day they are most of the number.
This is also why the tank-to-tank method beats both: fill to the brim, note the reading, drive, fill to the brim again, and divide the kilometres by the litres it took to refill. Do that once a quarter on a truck you are suspicious about and you have a figure nobody can argue with.
What a log book is actually for
Four uses, and only one of them is about mileage.
- Depreciation and tax
- An unbroken kilometre record supports a claim on a commercial vehicle, and is what an assessing officer asks for first.
- Insurance claims
- After a total loss or theft, the log book is the strongest evidence of how the vehicle was used and what condition it was in.
- Resale
- A buyer paying for a low-kilometre truck wants proof. A log book is worth real money at sale.
- Catching a truck going bad slowly
- Mileage rarely collapses; it drifts. Month-on-month averages catch a drift that a single bad tank never would.
Log book vs trip sheet
Fleets often keep one and assume it does the other's job. It does not.
| Vehicle log book | Trip sheet | |
|---|---|---|
| Unit | One vehicle, one month. | One trip, one vehicle. |
| Question it answers | How has this truck been used and how is it running? | Did this trip make money? |
| Tracks money | Diesel only. | Every cost, and the freight. |
| Tracks mileage | Yes, as the point. | Only if the fuel columns are used. |
| Who fills it | Whoever has the keys, daily. | The driver, on the road. |
| What it supports | Depreciation, insurance, resale. | Pricing a lane, paying a driver. |
Both are on this site, and a fleet past about three trucks wants both — they answer different questions and neither substitutes for the other.
Log books for government and company vehicles
A government department vehicle log book carries more than kilometres. The route-and-purpose column becomes the substantive record: who authorised the trip, who travelled, and on what official business — because the log is what an audit examines when it asks whether a vehicle was used for its sanctioned purpose.
The same applies to a company car assigned to an employee, where the split between official and personal running has tax consequences for both sides. The format on this page has a route-or-purpose column wide enough to write in properly, which is the one thing most log book templates skimp on.
Paper log book or spreadsheet?
The reading has to be taken at the vehicle, which means something physical in the cab or a phone in someone's hand. A printed sheet on a clipboard is still the most reliable way to capture a daily odometer reading, because it does not need charge, signal or a login.
The spreadsheet earns its place afterwards. The Excel version on this page derives kilometres from the two odometer readings and km/l from kilometres and litres, so a transposed digit shows up as an impossible mileage rather than becoming history. Most fleets that keep good records use both: paper in the cab, entered weekly.
What does not work is the spreadsheet alone, filled in from fuel bills at month end. It produces a total that is arithmetically correct and tells you nothing about any particular day.
When the paper stops being enough
A log book answers questions about one truck. The questions that matter at five trucks are comparative — which vehicle's mileage is drifting, which driver is behind it, whether the drop tracks a route change or a service that was skipped. That means putting twelve sheets side by side, and nobody does it.
Fleetbooks takes the odometer from the GPS feed rather than a pen, so the kilometre trail is complete without anyone remembering, and reconciles diesel against it per truck and per driver. The log book becomes a report you can look at rather than a folder you maintain.
Questions operators ask
What should a vehicle log book record?
Per day: date, opening and closing odometer, kilometres run, route or purpose, diesel in litres and rupees, and who drove. At the foot of the month: total kilometres, total litres, total spend and the average km per litre — that last figure is what tells you whether a truck is getting worse.
How do I calculate km per litre from a log book?
Divide the month's total kilometres by the month's total litres. Not the daily figures and not the average of the daily column — a tank is rarely empty at a reading, so any single day mostly measures where the needle sat. Across a month those errors cancel.
Is a vehicle log book required by law in India?
Not as a general requirement for a private goods vehicle, though commercial operators must maintain records supporting their accounts, and government departments mandate log books for official vehicles. The practical reasons are stronger: depreciation claims, insurance claims and resale all rest on an unbroken odometer trail.
How often should the odometer be read?
Daily, at the start and end of the day, rather than per trip. A daily reading means a missing entry appears as a jump you cannot explain, whereas per-trip readings leave gaps that look legitimate. It also takes ten seconds.
What is the difference between a log book and a trip sheet?
A log book covers one vehicle for one month and answers how it has been used and how it is running. A trip sheet covers one trip and answers whether that trip made money. The log book tracks diesel only; the trip sheet tracks every cost and the freight. A fleet past three trucks wants both.
Can I keep a vehicle log book in Excel?
Yes, and the Excel version here derives kilometres and km/l so a transposed digit shows up as an impossible mileage. The reading still has to be taken at the vehicle though — most fleets that keep good records use paper in the cab and enter it weekly.
What is the tank-to-tank method for checking mileage?
Fill to the brim, note the odometer, drive normally, then fill to the brim again and divide the kilometres covered by the litres it took to refill. Because both readings are at a known fill level, the figure is not distorted by where the tank happened to sit. Worth doing once a quarter on a truck you suspect.
What mileage should a loaded truck return?
For a 20–25 tonne truck on Indian National Highways, roughly 3.5 to 5 km per litre loaded, depending on terrain, load factor and how it is driven. The absolute number matters less than the trend for that specific vehicle on that specific lane.
Does a log book help with depreciation claims?
Yes. An unbroken kilometre record is what supports a depreciation claim on a commercial vehicle and is typically the first thing asked for. It also establishes business use where a vehicle could plausibly be used privately.
Should I record days the vehicle did not move?
Yes, as a blank row with the date. An idle day is information — it is utilisation, and it is what stops a gap in the dates from looking like a missing entry. Never carry a reading forward to fill the gap.
How many months should one log book cover?
One month per sheet is the practical unit, because the totals and the monthly average are the figures you actually use. Keep twelve sheets per vehicle per year in one folder with the fuel bills.
Who should fill in the vehicle log book?
Whoever has the keys that day, at the vehicle. Not the office at month end from fuel bills — that produces a total which is arithmetically correct and tells you nothing about any particular day, which is the only thing a log book is for.
When the paper stops being enough
A vehicle log book on paper works until you need to know which ones are still unpaid, or how this month compares to last. That is a search through a stack. Fleetbooks issues the document, numbers it, and holds the answer — alongside the trip it belongs to and what that trip actually cleared.