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Journal

Marisa Potgieter
  • Updated

FCPlus Journal module manual

FCPlus Journal module

The Journal module allows users to organize trips from the Trips module as Business or Private and add the necessary descriptions.  

If, due to technical reasons, the odometer reading data in FCPlus differs from that in the vehicle, the reading can be corrected in the Journal module.

The primary purpose of the Journal module is to:

  • Organize trips from the Trips module as Business or Private.
  • Journals simplify the record-keeping of trips that is mandatory for taxation requirements.

The Journal module main view

The Journal module's main screen consists of two sections:

  1. The "Journal List" on the left-hand side, and
  2. The "Journal Details" on the right-hand side

The Journal list displays all the completed trips—Journal entries in an organization for the selected period. The Journal details display the enhanced information of the selected Journal from the Journal's List.

Note: Below, all the journal entries display the total distance and number of entries split by Business or Private Trips.

The Journal details 

When a Journal entry is selected from journal list, the details are displayed on the right-hand side. 

In journal details you can edit following data about the trip:

  • Driver: Choose a driver from drop down list.
  • Route: Change information about the route or add additional information.
  • Trip type: Choose a trip type from drop down list.
  • Note: Add a note
  • Remember: You tick on the check box near Remember, following trips ending in this location will be automatically entered into the Journal with same note and purpose.
  • Purpose: Choose a purpose of a trip - business or private.
  • Odometer after: If odometer data differs from a vehicle, you can update it here.

The details displayed include several editable fields relating to the purpose of the trip and fields to correct the odometer and fuel reads.

The left-hand side screen/panel in the journal screen displays a list of all the completed trips for a selected time frame. 

Journals can be searched and filtered by vehicle name, time, and journals that match a particular route. 

Import trip purpose 

Inport trip purpose is a unique import feature for filling journals automatically with predefined data.

For example, when a user has been a long time outside the country, writing his trips to a notebook manually, and wants to fill Journal after that automatically.

You can download an example of Import trips to Journal.csv from here (click the "Download" button to save and open it). Row 2 is a hint row , please remove it from the CSV file before import.

Follow the steps below to use the Import Trip purpose button:

  1. Click on the Import Trip purpose button.
  2. A pop-up window will appear.
  3. Select Import CSV file, as necessary.
  4. Alternatively, click the +Newbutton in the pop-up window.
  5. Add driver and vehicle details manually in the pop-up window with the start, end dates and purpose of the trip as private or business.

Once the files are imported, the user is notified via e-mail.

Journal list filter

You can filter Journal List by clicking on the drop-down and adding a tick to a suitable option from the column list.

  • Let's review the filters in the columns of the Journal List below:
  • Date: Date of the Journal entry or Trip.
  • Time: Time of the Journal entry or Trip.
  • Route: Route of the Trip.
  • Length: Length of the trip in km.
  • Purpose: Purpose of the trip as private or business.
  • ID: ID of the trip, which is the row number of the trip in the database.
  • Start odometer: Reading of the odometer at the beginning of the trip.
  • End odometer: Reading of the odometer at the end of the trip.
  • Remember: You can make a Journal entry to be remembered so that all trips starting from the exact locations can automatically move to Journal.
  • Trip type: It displays the kind of trip.
  • Driver: Driver of the trip.
  • Fuel consumption est: The consumption of the fuel estimated for the trip.
  • Drive duration: Duration of the trip in minutes.
  • Stop duration: Displays the stop duration of the trip.
  • Note: Note related to Journal entry, for example, auto entry.
  • Fuel remaining: The fuel remaining in the tank after the trip.
  • Fuel in tank(Est): The fuel left in the tank after the trip.
  • Exp: Any expenses attached to the trip.
  • Journal form: Name of the  Journal form attached with the trip.
  • Vehicle Id-ID of the vehicle is associated with the vehicle and is picked up from the object settings.
  • Vehicle name -Name of the vehicle and is picked up from the object settings.

Distance calculation and end-odometer assigning for Trips and Journal.

First system creates segments from sequencial logpoints. Each segment has start time, end time, type (possible values - stop,idling,driving) and length which is calculated in following logic.

  • Between each sequencial GPS lat/lon pair in points consisting a segment, distance is found with mathemathical formula and summarized to GPS-distnace of a segment.
  • Between each log-point odometer value distance is calculated using simple (current_point_odometer - previous_point_odometer logic) and summarized to Odometer-distance of a segment.
  • Between each log-point GPS tracker device distance value distance is calculated and summarized to Device-distance of a segment (not all trackers provide it).

As Odometer and GPS are different measuring systems there is allways difference (1-5% mostly) between those three distances. We want to use odometer distance if possible, but since there are sometimes issues with it in incoming data, some decisions are made to decide what to use as final Segment-distance.

Storing the final Segment-Distance:

  • If vehicle has hasCanBus and useCanDistance - use Odometer-distance;
  • If Odometer-distance is empty use Device-Distance;
  • If Device-distance is empty use GPS-Distance;
  • Quality check fallback: If the distance ends up being calculated from CANDistance, or Device-distance and distance is > 5km and differs from GPS distance by more, than 10%, use GPS distance.

Not regarding the distances used the Begin and End Can odometers are saved to segment if they exist.

Next sequencial Driving segments are summarized to Trip.

If there is short stop or idiling (duration configurable) in between Driving segments, this idle/stop time is summarized also into Trip.

Trip end odometer is taken from: last segment end odometer, if it has value.

Next, if trips are moved to Journal - then Journal distance is taken from the trip distance, but Journal end odometer is taken from previous Jorunal records end-odometer + current trips distance.

To make Journal record distances and odometer not deriving from vehicle odometer - once in a day days last trips Journal end odometer is fixed by vehicles known end-odometer and the distances of the Journal records are slightly corrected - so that previous days end odometer + current days Journal distance = precicely current days end-odometer.

Month closing actions

The feature is designed and used by Lithuanian companies to keep track of their fuel expenses, odometer values, and used fuel during the month. This data is then presented to Lithuanian tax authorities. The data is used for a report called "Universal trip report LT (odometer)."

The data is posted to the Journal using the settings below: 

  1. "Action complete day" sets a grace period after which the Journal checks trips for the previous month to make sure none was lost. This number also determines when the actions checked below are meant to be taken. (The grace period is usually 2-4 days; for example, on Feb 2, the system will go back to Jan trips and make sure every last trip was recorded)
  2. "Fix odometer" and "Fix fuel odometer" take the last odometer and fuel level values of the previous journal trip of the month and use these values in the LT-specific fuel accounting report. The system registers the previous trip of the month in step 1 and takes the canbus values from the odometer and fuel at the end of that trip. (The exact values will be used as starting values for next month)

"Add month last trip into journal" does not affect anything and is built for client convenience if they want to automatically set each last month trip as business or personal (assuming the driver goes home in the evening so that it may be considered as personal trip straight away, but 99,99% we set "business" because usually state and government entities can have only business trips). Value NO means no purpose will be assigned, but the trip will still be added to the Journal.

Journal locking

Journal lock allows organization to prevent drivers from editing their trips information after certain time.  E.g. prevents from editing trips made in previous month.

If ‘Journal lock  day‘ is set to 3, then on 3rd day of each month, Journal will be locked for previous month. When users try to edit the trips for previous month – upon hitting ‘save’ they will see the error notifying them that Journal is locked for that period and can no longer be edited.

‘Journal locked until’ field should be left blank when setting up Journal lock. That field will be populated automatically upon enabling Journal locking and saving.

Use case: I want to give my drivers 2 days to make whatever changes they need to their trips for the previous month. On Jan 1, 2024 I set ‘Journal lock day’ as 3. After saving (might be a few mins later), ‘Journal locked until’ field is automatically populated with date Jan 31, 2024. Meaning that next month – February – drivers will have Feb 1 and Feb 2 to adjust their trips for Jan 2024. Starting from Feb 3, 2024, all January journal entries will be locked and upon trying to save changes driver will see the message that Journal is locked for all entries up and including Jan 31, 2024. Next month Journal will be locked on Mar 3, 2024 to prevent any changes from being made to February trips.

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