Vehicle trip sheet in Lithuania: form and template

The vehicle trip sheet (kelionės lapas) is one of those documents whose layout a company copied from somewhere years ago and never touched again. Usually it is an old paper blank or an Excel file handed from one accountant to the next. This article covers whether the form is set anywhere, which fields it needs to hold up in a tax audit, how long to keep it, and an Excel template you can download.

Is the trip sheet form set by law?

No. There is no mandatory trip sheet form, and for profit tax purposes the trip sheet is not a required document at all. In its commentary on Article 17 of the Profit Tax Law, the State Tax Inspectorate (VMI) explains that the company itself decides which documents, signed by responsible persons, record fuel consumption: trip sheets, fuel write-off reports or consumption reports. The printed blanks you can still buy are one option, not a requirement.

But "no set form" does not mean "nothing needed". The company must always be able to show that the car was used for the business and that the costs were actually incurred. That is why most companies keep a trip sheet anyway: there is no better document for the job, and it reminds drivers that fuel is being counted.

Which fields a trip sheet should have

VMI's commentary and Article 13 of the Accounting Law together give a fairly clear list. At the top of the sheet:

• •company name and registration code;
• •document title and date or period (usually a month);
• •car make and registration plate;
• •the driver – the employee the car is assigned to;
• •the fuel consumption norm approved by the company's manager.

In the table, for each trip or day: the date, the route (from and to), the purpose of the trip, the odometer reading at start and end or the kilometres driven, and the fuel that distance needs at the approved norm. At the bottom, the month's fuel balance: opening balance, fuel added during the month, fuel used, closing balance. Then the signatures: the person who filled in the sheet (position, name) and the manager or authorised person who approved it.

If an employee's job is constant travel and other documents (invoices, waybills) already show where they went, the route can be described more briefly. That is the company's call, so it is worth writing the decision into the company's internal procedure rather than keeping it in someone's head.

A trip sheet template (Excel)

One sheet per car per month is enough. Download ours below, or build your own in Excel or Google Sheets:

• •Top: company and code; "Passenger car trip sheet" and the month; car and plate; driver; norm in l/100 km.
• •Columns: Date | From | To | Purpose | Odometer start | Odometer end | Km | Fuel at norm, l | Fuel added, l.
• •Bottom: opening fuel balance | total added | used at norm | closing fuel balance.
• •Signatures: filled in by (position, name, date) and approved by.

Two formulas prevent most mistakes: km = odometer end − odometer start, and fuel at norm = km × norm / 100. Always take the opening balance from last month's closing balance, never from memory.

Where trip sheets usually go wrong

• •The opening fuel balance does not match last month's closing balance. One copying error, and the mismatch carries through every month after it.
• •A gap in the odometer between months: February ends at 48,210 km, March starts at 48,650 km. Where did 440 km go?
• •"Fuel added" does not match the fuel card invoice, because the driver wrote the fills down from memory.
• •The sheet is signed only by the driver, or not at all, although each trip has to be approved by responsible persons.
• •The same route, "Vilnius – sites – Vilnius", entered for the whole month.

The last one costs the most: in an audit, the route is what shows whether the fuel was used for the business. We covered how to justify fills and fuel norms in more detail in our article on fuel write-offs.

How long to keep trip sheets

If the trip sheet calculates the fuel used and its value, it confirms a business transaction – it is an accounting document – and is kept as one: for 10 years. Paper or electronic makes no difference: an accounting document can be electronic, as long as it carries all the required details and shows who approved it.

When Excel stops being enough

A template works well for one or two cars. With ten or more, the same work repeats every month: collect the sheets from drivers, check the fills against the fuel card invoice, recalculate the balances and chase signatures. In Ezura, each car gets its trip sheet every month: fills from fuel card invoices land on it by themselves, the odometer and fuel balance carry over from last month, the driver fills in the route on a phone or computer, and the manager approves the sheet. If a submitted sheet has a mistake, the accountant unlocks it for correction with a note on what to fix.

How the fills get from the invoice onto the sheet is covered separately, in our article on filling trip sheets from fuel invoices.