What Is a Taxi Receipt?

An article in Statista stated that the revenue projection for the ride-hailing and taxi business in 2021 is 258,384,000 USD. With the 11.02% annual growth rate expectation, the experts reported a revenue projection of 392,580,000 USD in 2025. In the same year, the number of ride-hailing and taxi segment users should reach up to 1,635.3 million. These figures are great indicators that getting into the business will most likely boost your fortune.

If the taxi business is what you want to get into as a business venture, one of the important tools that you need to prepare is a taxi receipt. A taxi receipt is a document that you can provide to your passengers as proof that they paid a fare for a trip. Aside from being proof of the payment, it also proves that your passenger traveled from a place to another. In most cases, you are going to give this receipt to the customer once you reach the destination.

How to Properly Create a Taxi Receipt Template?

Through a POS machine, you can easily print a taxi receipt. However, just like a store/shop receipt, to make your taxi receipt valid it needs to be in a proper format, which you are going to learn in this section.

Step 1: Put a Header

Any receipt should have an expressive header for the reader to easily make out. That does not exclude the taxi receipt. You can either hire a graphic designer to design it for you or do it on your own through the many logo creator tools available in the market. Many taxi companies also prefer to use a simple header that contains only the name of their company, address, and contact information, which are the most important information for a header.

Step 2: Include the Customer Information

Next to the customer information, it would be a great idea to enter the name of the customer and contact information. Most mobile app vehicles for hire, usually have information about the customer. However, if your taxi business is more traditional, which means, you only pick up random passengers that you find along the road or outside the establishments, you can skip this part.

Step 3: Assign a Unique Identification

If you are using a POS machine, the machine itself will provide unique identification. It is best to put this detail after the customer information. You may also consider the date and time of the transaction as a unique identification. However, most taxi companies assign a separate receipt number that serves as identification.

Step 4: Make the Pick-Up and Destination Address More Subtle

Needless to say, the information about the pick-up and destination are a few of the most important items that you should include in a taxi receipt. Thus, it is best to make it more expressive. Your best bet is to add a space before and after this section. You can also put a horizontal line as a border or put this section in a box.

Step 5: Emphasize the Amount to be Paid and the Actual Amount Paid

Another item that is equally important with the pick-up and destination addresses is the total amount that the customer needs to pay, which will depend on the distance that the cab covers to arrive at the destination. This information is what the passenger will try to look at first. Therefore, it would be a big help if you emphasize this item.

Step 6: Put a Note Field

For some reasons, most especially if you are operating in a mobile app vehicle for hire, the customer may need to add a note about the booking that he or she has to make. For instance, their area is not located on the map that the app uses. The passenger may give additional instructions. It can also be that the passenger asks you to approach a certain person or asks you to wait up for 5 minutes. Adding this field will ensure that your template will not get messed up.

Essential Parts of a Taxi Receipt

The name of a taxi company – Most of the time, the name of the company is the first thing that that you can see in a taxi receipt just like real estate receipts or any type of receipts. Most taxi receipts always have the name of the company on top of the paper along with the company logo.Company address – After the name and logo of the company, most likely, you will see the company address. This item is especially important because if your customer will have questions or concerns, they can use this information to reach out to your office.Company’s phone number – Speaking of concerns, not everyone has the luxury to travel anytime. Thus, providing the phone number in the receipt will allow the customers to directly call your office for any concerns.Date and Time – For certain reasons, such as accounting purposes, it is essential to include the date and time in the taxi receipt. It is also useful in times of disputes. Through the date and time, you can easily retrieve a certain transaction and its details.Receipt Number – For more unique identification, aside from the date & time, you can also rely on the receipt number to retrieve the information about a certain transaction. If you are using a POS machine, then the machine will automatically provide this detail.Pick up address & Destination address – The pickup address is the address where a driver picks up the passenger and the destination address is where the driver drops the customer.Fare – Provided by a taxi machine, the fare should also appear in the taxi receipt, which varies to the distance covered by the cab.Driver’s name & Cab number – A taxi receipt should also have a driver’s name and the cab number to ensure that the customer knows who drivers the car. This is especially important during disputes. Aside from the disputes, these details are also important for the customers to know who to call if they accidentally left their valuables in the cab.Discounts – Depending on which country you are located in, taxi drivers may have to give a certain classification of people discounts. Other companies even provide discounts voluntarily. For instance, according to seniorliving.org, Amtrak provides a 10% discount to people over 65 on most of their trains. For proper documentation, your taxi receipt should include this information.

FAQs

Why is a Taxi Receipt important?

As we have mentioned earlier, a taxi receipt serves as proof that the passenger paid for a fare and proof that he or she traveled to a certain destination. Aside from that, these receipts also play a crucial role in accounting purposes. It also an essential item in case of disputes, which, as a businessman, you have to always take into consideration. Another benefit of using a taxi receipt is in an event that a passenger accidentally left a valuable item in the cab, he or she can easily reach out to your team and have the lost item returned to him or her. This capability will surely earn your business a good reputation, which, in turn, contributes to good branding for your business.

Why should you consider using a POS machine for your taxi?

While creating a written taxi receipt is fine, using a template for an instant print will make your life and the customer’s easy. Imagine the amount of time writing the items for the taxi receipt that it takes to receive, it will be a lot if you combine it to the amount of time that you have to spend in counting the money you receive from the passenger and returning the change. For all you know, your passenger is in a hurry. If it is the case, you are still earning the money but there is a big chance that your customer will not book a cab from your company again. By using a POS machine that automatically prints a taxi receipt, you can avoid this situation.

Is a handwritten Taxi Receipt acceptable?

Yes. Printed receipts look more professional, clearer, and organized. However, it does not make handwritten taxi receipts any less in terms of validity. For legal and other purposes, you can use handwritten, school receipts, taxi receipts, or any type of receipts. For instance, you can use printed receipts for Internal Revenue Service adherence.

How long can you keep a Taxi Receipt?

Just like any business, keeping records, such as taxi receipts has a limitation. According to IRS or Internal Revenue Service, as a businessman, you can keep records, such as taxi receipts, for up to 3 years from the date you filed your original return or two years after you paid the tax, whichever is later. You can keep records for up to seven years only for bad debts deduction or if you wish to file a claim for worthless security. You can also keep these records for up to 6 years if you fail to submit the income reports that the government requires, which involves more than a quarter of the declared gross income in the tax returns. You can only keep the records indefinitely if you don’t file a return or if you are going to file a fraudulent return.

Another reason why you may want to keep taxi receipts and other records are for insurance purposes. It is a known reason why businessmen keep records longer than the IRS requirements. Insurance companies may require you to do so. A rule of thumb is to make sure to double-check all your receipts after these documents have served their purpose for tax payments. These documents may still be useful for other things.

What is the difference between a Taxi Receipt and an invoice?

While it is true that a receipt and an invoice seem similar, they are two different documents. An sample invoice is created by a seller/business person to inform a buyer about the amount of payment that one has to pay. Along with the total amount that the buyer is yet to pay, the document also contains all the items and the details involved that result in the total amount. Additionally, most of the time, it contains instructions of how the payments should be done, the name of the customer, etc. Most importantly, it should also include “Invoice” as a title.

On the other hand, business people provide receipts, such as used car sales receipts and taxi receipts as proof that they received a payment from a buyer. Depending on the type of the receipt, a receipt generally contains customer information, store information, the title of the document that indicates the document is a receipt, order number/receipt number, payment mode & details, details of the goods and services, discounts, taxes, and the total amount paid.

Other Types of Receipts That You May Need as a Taxi Business Person

If you are managing a taxi business, aside from the taxi receipts, you may also need to use other types of receipts, such as the following:

You can use these taxi receipts for accounting purposes, which is also essential in creating business analytical reports. You can also use these documents to do your responsibility as a taxpayer. There are still other important things that you can do with these documents, but the point is providing such documents is a crucial part of doing a taxi business. In this article, you have learned how to create one and other important things about creating this type of document.