Running your ledger

Sign in with Google. No password to create or remember, and the account you first sign in with owns the data you enter. Once you're in, FlightLedger asks for two things: the aircraft you fly, and the businesses (entities) that use them. Everything else builds on those two records.

An aircraft is identified by its tail number. Add the year, make and model so your exports read cleanly for your CPA. An entity is a business that uses the aircraft: an LLC, an S-corp, a sole proprietorship. Link each aircraft to the entities that fly it. If one LLC owns the plane and a separate operating company uses it, that's two entities, each linked to the aircraft. Your plan sets how many aircraft and entities you can add. Free covers one of each. Owner and Pro raise the limits. Flight Department is unlimited.

Every flight records a date, aircraft, route, and hours. The field that matters most is purpose: business, personal, training/currency, or repositioning. Business flights ask for what the IRS expects under §274(d): which entity benefited, who was aboard, and the business reason for the trip. Fill it in while it's fresh and you won't be reconstructing it from memory in March. Training and repositioning hours are inherently ambiguous, so FlightLedger allocates them in proportion to your business/personal split instead of making you guess. You can add expenses to a flight while you're logging it, including receipt photos: fuel, landing fees, transient hangar.

Expenses can be attached to a flight or logged on their own (insurance, annual, hangar rent). Each one gets a category and an amount. On paid plans, photograph a receipt and FlightLedger reads the vendor, date and amount for you. Complex receipts can be split into separate lines, each with its own category: fuel, ramp fee, hangar. Deleting an expense archives it for 90 days. If you remove something by mistake, you'll find it under Archive on the Expenses page and can restore it.

At the end of a period, enter the airframe's true Hobbs or tach total. FlightLedger checks it against what you've logged. Any gap gets treated as personal time. That's the conservative call, and it's what lowers your business-use percentage rather than inflating it. Reconciling is what closes that gap between your logbook and your tax record. If you've logged flights but haven't reported a period total, the dashboard assumes 100% business use and flags that assumption so you know to go fix it.

Invite a co-owner to a specific aircraft and they see only that aircraft's flights and expenses. Invite a CPA or bookkeeper to a specific entity and they see what rolls up to that business, not your personal flying. Sharing is available on Owner, Pro and Flight Department. Flight Department throws in unlimited viewer seats for accountants.

Every screen that lists data exports to CSV: flights, expenses, the business-use allocation summary. The allocation export shows total hours, the business/personal split, how ambiguous hours were treated, and the deductible share of each expense category. This is what your accountant is going to ask for. If your subscription lapses, your records stay readable and exportable for 12 months. Your logbook is yours; you don't lose access to it.

Is FlightLedger tax advice? No. It's a record-keeping tool. Your CPA decides what's deductible; FlightLedger makes sure the underlying record is complete and consistent.

Does it replace my pilot logbook? No. It's a business record of aircraft use. Keep flying your logbook of record as you always have.

Can I track more than one aircraft? Yes, on Pro (two) and Flight Department (unlimited).

What if I forget to log a flight? Add it later with the correct date, or reconcile the period against your Hobbs total and the unlogged time is accounted for as personal.