Amperlo vs spreadsheet
Plenty of EV drivers start cost tracking in Excel, Google Sheets or a Notion table. That is sensible. A sheet is free, flexible and already on your laptop. The question is not whether spreadsheets are “wrong”. It is when mixed charging — public networks, home tariff, marina prepaid blocks, VAT lines and maintenance — turns the sheet into unpaid admin.
Amperlo is a mobile-first EV cost logbook: honest numbers for your EV. You log charges, miles and receipts; it turns that into cost-per-mile, savings versus a petrol baseline you set yourself, and VAT-reclaim-ready reporting. This page compares that shape of product to a DIY sheet — without pretending every driver needs software on day one.
Why do EV drivers start with a spreadsheet?
Because the first month of EV ownership looks simple enough for a grid.
You buy the car. You charge mostly at home. You jot kWh from the wallbox app, maybe a couple of public top-ups, and an odometer reading at the month end. A column for date, a column for kWh, a column for pounds, a column for miles. Divide energy cost by miles and you have a rough pence-per-mile. That is more honest than a press-release “average EV cost”, and it took an hour to set up.
Sheets also absorb whatever you invent. Loyalty discounts, a free charge at a friend’s house, a marina meter photo you meant to file later — you can always add another column. Accountants sometimes prefer a CSV export you control. For a single domestic tariff and a handful of sessions a month, that workflow is fine. Many drivers never need more.
The trap is assuming the sheet stays that simple. Public network emails arrive with different VAT treatments. Home units sit on a time-of-use rate while marina shore power arrives as a prepaid kWh block with a countdown meter. Tyres, MOT and insurance live in a separate tab you forget to open. By the third quarter you are reconciling artefacts, not analysing costs.
Amperlo exists for that later stage: when the ledger shape matters more than the blank canvas. Until then, a careful sheet is a valid tool — just be honest about how much of your Sunday it is consuming.
When does a spreadsheet stop being enough?
It stops being enough when the shape of your charging outruns the structure you built.
Mixed sources with different economics. Home energy is a tariff rate. Public energy is a session receipt, often with reclaimable VAT. Marina shore power is frequently a prepaid block: you buy a lump of kWh, watch a meter count down, and need a blended rate plus a burn-rate style sense of how many nights remain. Gratis charges are £0 energy but still matter for kWh and miles. A flat “cost / kWh” column collapses those into one misleading average unless you maintain labels, VAT splits and block balances by hand — every time.
Receipt archaeology. Sunday evening: Electroverse-style emails in the inbox, a marina meter photo from Friday, an odometer note in your phone, and a tyre invoice in Downloads. The sheet can hold all of that. It will not draft fields from a snap or a forwarded email for you to review. You type. You re-type when you misread the receipt. You discover the VAT line three weeks later when the accountant asks.
Cost-per-mile is not one number. “What does this EV cost to run?” is at least three questions: electricity only (Energy); energy plus maintenance such as service, tyres, MOT and insurance (Running); and running plus depreciation (TCO). Spreadsheets can compute all three if you keep the maintenance ledger and depreciation assumption in sync. Most DIY sheets quietly answer only Energy and call it “running cost”. That understates ownership.
VAT for business use. Public and marina charges often need an ex-VAT / VAT / inc-VAT split so reclaim paperwork is usable. Home and gratis usually have nothing to reclaim. Encoding that correctly in columns, then keeping every row consistent, is where sheets drift. One forgotten “inc” vs “ex” and the monthly export lies.
Mobile friction. Logging at the charger wants one-handed use on a phone. Spreadsheet mobile apps exist; they are still grids in the rain. People batch-log at home instead, which means missing sessions and approximate miles — the opposite of an honest logbook.
Rule of thumb: if you charge on one home tariff, few public sessions, and you enjoy the sheet, keep it. If you mix marina blocks, public VAT lines and maintenance into the same “cost” story, the sheet is asking for a product shaped for those rows.
What does Amperlo do that a sheet struggles with?
Amperlo is structured for EV cost tracking as a ledger, not as a blank workbook.
Typed charge sources. Sessions are Marina, Public, Home or Gratis. Labelling sources keeps blends honest. Mixing them without labels is how “average cost” lies to you.
Three cost-per-mile modes. Energy, Running (energy plus maintenance) and TCO (running plus depreciation). Same car, same period, three answers — because the question changes. You pick the mode that matches what you are asking. Articles that quote a single “EVs cost Xp/mile” figure usually pick the flattering mode. Amperlo keeps all three visible.
Savings vs petrol you define. You set mpg and pump price. Amperlo compares your EV cost-per-mile against that baseline. When pump prices move, you update the baseline so the comparison stays honest rather than frozen to last year’s garage receipt. No invented “you’ll save £X a year” headline.
Prepaid block tracking. For marina shore-power or a home tariff balance sold in blocks, you track the purchase (kWh, rate, cost, VAT where relevant), meter readings of kWh remaining, and derived views: blended rate across blocks, burn-rate style projection, and nights-remaining style estimates. That is the niche almost nobody bothers with in a generic sheet — and the reason a marina morning photo of the meter display is a first-class input, not an afterthought.
Receipt parsing as draft, not auto-truth. Snap or email a receipt; parsing can draft fields (kWh, cost, VAT, network, discount, tariff) into a session for review. You confirm or correct before it becomes truth in the stats. Stats are computed from source rows. Parsing is a convenience. The product is the logbook and the numbers it produces.
Trips and a maintenance ledger. Named trips cover a date range or an odometer range so a holiday or a work week has its own cost view. Service, tyres, MOT, insurance and similar sit in the same product as charges — which is what makes Running and TCO modes more than a slogan.
VAT ex/inc on public and marina. Costs can be stored with an ex-VAT / VAT / inc-VAT split to support VAT-reclaim-ready reporting for business use. That is bookkeeping with clear definitions, not a promise that every regional tax regime is modelled.
Mobile-first logging. Built for one-handed use at the charger. You still use network apps to find and pay for a plug — Amperlo is not a charger finder. It is for after (and sometimes during) the charge: what did that kWh cost, and what does that mean per mile?
A spreadsheet can approximate parts of this with enough formulas and discipline. Amperlo is for people who are done maintaining that discipline by hand.
Can I keep using a spreadsheet alongside Amperlo?
Yes. Plenty of drivers do, at least for a while.
Common patterns:
- Amperlo as the live logbook, sheet as an occasional export destination for your own archive or for someone who insists on Excel.
- Sheet for long-term depreciation assumptions or tax notes that sit outside day-to-day charging, while sessions, miles, receipts and prepaid blocks live in Amperlo.
- Parallel run for a month while you check that cost-per-mile and savings vs petrol look like the sheet you trust — then retire the duplicate entry.
What usually fails is dual entry forever: typing the same public receipt into both places. Pick a system of record for sessions. Let the other tool consume exports or summaries when needed.
Amperlo does not claim to replace every spreadsheet in your life. It claims to replace the messy EV cost tab — especially when marina blocks, VAT lines and mixed public tariffs make that tab monthly archaeology.
How do I move from my sheet into Amperlo?
No shame required. You already did the hard part: caring about real numbers.
A practical migration path:
- Start free on amperlo.com — no card. Free covers one vehicle, sessions and mileage, marina prepaid-block tracking, and cost-per-mile / savings vs petrol basics.
- Add the vehicle and set your petrol baseline (mpg and pump price) so savings comparisons mean something from the first week.
- Log forward from today. The next public charge, home session, marina meter reading or gratis top-up goes into Amperlo while you are still at the cable. Do not wait for a perfect historical import before logging new truth.
- Backfill what matters. You do not need every historic row. Prioritise: recent odometer readings; open marina prepaid blocks and remaining kWh; a few months of public receipts if VAT reclaim is live; major maintenance items that should sit in Running / TCO. Gaps are normal. The numbers get more trustworthy as the ledger fills.
- Use receipt intake where it helps. On Base, snap or email receipts so parsing drafts fields for review. Confirm before save. On Free, manual session entry still builds an honest Energy view.
- Keep the old sheet read-only for a reconciliation period. Compare Energy cost-per-mile and your petrol baseline. When you trust the logbook, stop writing new rows in the sheet.
- Upgrade only when the sheet’s missing pieces bite — more vehicles (Base is up to three), receipt parsing and email intake, named trips, maintenance ledger depth, full cost modes and VAT reporting. Check amperlo.com/pricing for live amounts in GBP, USD or EUR.
You are not “failing” at spreadsheets if you leave them. You are choosing a ledger shaped for how EV charging actually looks when it is not only home overnight.
Is Amperlo only for complicated charging setups?
No. Simple setups work. Complicated setups are where the product pulls ahead of a blank sheet.
If you charge almost entirely at home on one tariff, log occasional miles, and rarely touch public networks, Free-tier session logging and cost-per-mile basics may be all you need — or your existing sheet may still be enough. Amperlo will not invent drama to sell you complexity.
It becomes clearly useful when any of these show up:
- Regular public charging with receipts and VAT lines
- Marina shore-power prepaid blocks and meter countdowns
- A mix of home, public, marina and gratis in the same month
- Business mileage where reclaim-ready splits matter
- Wanting Running or TCO views that include service, tyres, MOT and insurance — not just electricity
The voice and many workflows (VAT reclaim, marina shore-power, UK public networks) are aimed at UK EV drivers who care about running costs. The site supports GBP, USD and EUR. That is not a claim that every regional tax regime or network is fully modelled — use the features that match how you actually charge and reclaim.
Amperlo is not fleet- or enterprise-first. Small multi-vehicle households and light business use fit the Base plan’s vehicle quota. Large fleets and SSO-first procurement are a different conversation. It is not “AI magic” as the headline. Receipt parsing helps you avoid typing; you still confirm the draft. The value is the honest ledger.
What does it cost to try Amperlo instead of another tab?
Another spreadsheet tab costs £0 and some of your evenings. Amperlo’s Free tier also starts at £0 — no card — on amperlo.com. Free includes one vehicle, sessions and mileage, marina prepaid-block tracking, and cost-per-mile and savings vs petrol basics.
Paid Base covers up to three vehicles, with extras such as receipt parsing, email intake, trips, the maintenance ledger, and full cost-mode / VAT reporting. Always check amperlo.com/pricing for the live figure in GBP, USD or EUR, plus trial terms and any per-extra-vehicle rate. Do not rely on a remembered screenshot; pricing pages move.
There are no invented SLAs here, and no guarantee that switching will “save you money” versus petrol — that depends on your mpg, your pump price, your tariffs and how you drive. What you buy is clearer bookkeeping and less Sunday reconcile work.
Amperlo is a product of FXRM Services Ltd.
Where do I start?
If your sheet still takes ten minutes a month and you trust it, keep it. If Sunday looks like Electroverse-style emails plus a marina meter photo plus an odometer note and you are tired of stitching them, open amperlo.com, start free, and log the next charge while you are still standing at the cable.
When you need more vehicles or receipt intake, pricing is one page. Honest numbers for your EV — that is the point of leaving the DIY tab when it stops being DIY and starts being unpaid data entry.