RaceTrips user guide

Where to find things

Getting started

Welcome to RaceTrips

Where in the app: Welcome screen and Product Tour

RaceTrips is a racing income-and-expense tracker built for the tax side of racing. Treat racing as a business (an LLC or DBA), record what you earn and spend on every trip, and RaceTrips turns it into a Schedule C style summary.

What RaceTrips does

• Tracks every trip. A Trip Report holds one race weekend: prize money, expenses, travel miles, finish positions and tags.
• Tracks income and expenses outside trips too. Sponsor money, merchandise sales, used-part sales, season pit passes and other stand-alone items.
• Logs receipts in a snap. Smart Scan reads a receipt photo with AI and fills in the amount, name and date.
• Shows your season. Cash flow, income and expense breakdowns, race results and average cost to race.
• Gets you tax-ready. A year Tax Summary mapped to IRS Schedule C lines, plus a Custom Report Builder. The Tax Summary tab emails the report and a zip of the year's receipts; the Custom Report Builder has no email option.

The Product Tour

The eight-page tour plays automatically after you register. Tap Next (top right) to advance or Skip (top left) to jump into the app. You can also swipe between pages in either direction, and a row of dots shows where you are. On the last page both disappear and you tap Take me to the App. The pages are:

1. Taxes suck. Don't overpay them. Racing is a business.
2. Track income and expenses. Trips, rainouts, income events and additional expenses in one calendar.
3. Log receipts in a snap. Smart Scan.
4. Gain insights about your season. Key metrics, custom reports by tag, AI suggestions.
5. Understand your cost to race. Per-trip prize money vs. expenses.
6. Use templates and tags. Reuse common trips, tag everything.
7. Keep more money in your pocket. Schedule C details at tax time.
8. Try it before you commit. The free trial gives you 8 free Trip Reports, unless RaceTrips sets another number.

Create an account and sign in

Where in the app: Welcome, Register, Login and Forgot Password screens

Create a free account with your name and email, or log back in. Your email address is also your username.

Register

1. On the welcome screen ("Keep more of your racing prize money.") tap Register.
2. Enter Your Name, Email and a Password (at least 6 characters). Tap the eye icon to show or hide the password.
3. Optionally enter an Invite code (up to 10 characters) from a friend. Leave it blank if you do not have one.
4. Tick I have read and agree to the Terms and Conditions. If you leave it unticked you see "You need to accept the terms".
5. Tap Create Account. You are signed in and taken straight to the Product Tour.

If registration fails (for example the email is already in use) a Registration failed dialog shows the reason returned by the server.

Log in

1. Tap Login on the welcome screen (or Already have an account? Login on the register form).
2. Enter your E-mail and Password and tap Log In.
3. A Login failed dialog explains any problem.
4. Don't have an account? Create Account at the bottom of the login form switches to the register form.

Once you are logged in the app remembers you. The next launch plays the splash animation for about three and a half seconds, then opens My Race Trips directly.

Forgot your password?

1. On the login form tap Forgot Password?
2. Enter the email address of your RaceTrips account and tap Request password reset.
3. A Password reset has been sent dialog appears; tap OK to return to the login screen and follow the instructions in the email. An unknown address shows Password reset failed.

Verify your email

After registering you should receive a verification email. Until you verify:

• My Profile shows a red Verify email bar with a Send Again button.
• The Upgrade to Premium screen shows "To continue, you need to verify your email" instead of the purchase list.

Navigating the app

Where in the app: Bottom bar, side menu and common controls

RaceTrips has four main screens on the bottom bar, a big green + button for adding things, and a side menu for everything else.

Bottom bar

Side menu (☰ top-left)

• Upgrade to RaceTrips Premium opens the purchases screen.
• Tax Report opens Reports on the Tax Summary tab.
• Manage Tags and Manage Templates.
• My Profile (also reachable from the round profile icon at the top-right of the Trips screen).
• Other Apps by RaceYear promotes RacePrep (maintenance tracking) with a Download button to the App Store or Google Play.
• Replay Product Tour.
• Tutorial Videos and Help and Feedback open raceyear.app pages in your browser (marked with an external-link icon).
• Sign Out.
• The footer shows the app version.
• The header at the top of the menu shows the RaceTrips logo beside a "brought to you by" panel: your sponsor's logo if your account has a sponsor promotion, otherwise the RaceYear apps banner.

Controls you will see everywhere

• Green check (✓) in the top-right saves a form.
• Green + in a line-item form saves and immediately clears the form so you can add another item ("Item Saved" toast).
• Trash icon deletes the item you are viewing. Every delete asks Are you sure? first and cannot be undone.
• Pencil icon edits the trip's basics (name, dates, tags).
• Pull down to refresh on the Trips, Trip Report, Alerts, Reports, Profile and Purchases screens. Season reloads when you change the year or return from the + button.
• A thin progress bar under the title bar shows while data is loading on some screens: Season, Reports, the Trip Report page, the trip and line-item forms, and My Profile.
• Selection pages. Fields such as Category, Start position, Finish position and Trip Template open a full-screen list. Tap a row to pick it; the selected row shows a filled green circle.
• Date pickers open the standard calendar picker. Trip dates can range from 2020 to 2030.

Your free trial and editions

Where in the app: Trips headline panel, Season and Reports lock panels, Upgrade to Premium

RaceTrips is free to try with a limited number of Trip Reports. Paid access is sold per tax year as a RaceTrips YYYY Edition.

The free trial

• New accounts start on the Free Trial. The trial includes 8 free Trip Reports (the exact number is set by the server and shown in the app).
• Every normal trip and rainout you create uses one trial report. Deleting a trip gives it back.
• The headline panel at the top of My Race Trips tracks your status:
  • "Maximize your tax deductions. Start Your First Trip" before your first trip.
  • "You have N FREE trip reports remaining. Get Premium" while reports remain.
  • "Trial Completed. Unlock your season. Get Premium" once they are used up.
• The trial progress strip (a row of document icons, green for used, gray for remaining) appears in My Profile and on the purchases screen; the same strip in the upgrade dialog draws the used icons in the gold trial color.
• Only trip reports and rainouts count; additional income and expenses do not use a trial report. There is no time limit on the trial.

What happens when the trial runs out

• You can still add Trip Reports, expenses, income and miles. Your data keeps being recorded.
• Season Snapshot charts and stats are replaced by an Upgrade to unlock advanced stats panel. It reports how many trip reports you completed and how much taxable income savings you found. The taxable-income savings panel stays at the top of Insights, and My Season keeps the tag filter and the MY TRIP REPORTS month grid above the panel.
• Reports (Custom Report and Tax Summary) are replaced by Upgrade to unlock your tax reports.
• Tab labels in Season and Reports show a small lock icon: open while the trial is active, closed once it has expired. Tapping the lock icon on a chart opens the Ready to upgrade to Premium? dialog.
• If you have created more reports than the trial allows, Profile and Purchases show "You've created N more Trip Reports than your free trial allows."

Editions (paid years)

• Each edition unlocks one tax year (for example RaceTrips 2026 Edition) as a one-time purchase through the App Store or Google Play.
• Owning any edition ends the trial. Years you have not bought show a Get Ready for YYYY! panel in Season and Reports, and the Trips headline reads "New Year! Don't miss a trip. Get YYYY" for whichever year the calendar is showing.
• The year selectors in Season and Reports list the current year plus every year you can buy or have bought.