Core Concepts

A short glossary of the terms Comma uses throughout the app.

Shift

A shift is one continuous work session — from the moment you open the app and start tracking until you end the session. A shift belongs to one primary platform and one vehicle.

Shifts have:

• Start and end time
• Gross revenue + tips
• Active mileage + dead mileage
• Duration (total elapsed) and paused seconds
• An optional GPS route
• Notes

A shift can span multiple platforms if you toggle platforms mid-session. Each platform’s online time, earnings, and trips are recorded separately in shift platforms sub-records.

Platform

A platform is a gig app you work on — DoorDash, Uber Eats, etc. In Comma, a platform is a named entity with a color, optional logo emoji, and per-platform settings like your target hourly rate.

You can:

• Activate/deactivate platforms to control which ones appear in filters and shift creation
• Set a custom hourly rate target per platform
• See per-platform earnings breakdowns in Analytics

Active miles vs. dead miles

Comma distinguishes two kinds of miles driven during a shift:

Active miles — miles driven while you are on a delivery (from the moment you accept an order to the moment you drop it off). These are the miles the IRS considers directly attributable to the delivery job.

Dead miles — miles driven while waiting for orders or commuting to a hotspot. Dead miles are still deductible as business mileage (the IRS allows all business-purpose miles), but tracking them separately gives you a more accurate picture of your true cost per delivery.

Comma separates these using GPS speed. When you tap “First Order Received” at the start of a shift, the app switches from dead-mile mode to active-mile mode. You can toggle this manually at any time during a shift.

Gross revenue vs. net earnings

Gross revenue — the total amount deposited by the platform, including base pay and any bonuses.

Tips revenue — customer tips (often paid separately, especially on Uber Eats and DoorDash).

Net earnings — gross revenue + tips, minus all deductible expenses logged for that period. Comma shows net earnings in the Dashboard header and Analytics charts.

Deductible expense

An expense that reduces your taxable self-employment income. The IRS (and CRA, HMRC equivalents) allow gig workers to deduct ordinary and necessary business expenses.

In Comma, every expense has a deductibility percentage (0–100%). Most gig-work expenses are 100% deductible; mixed-use items (like a phone plan used for both work and personal) get a partial percentage.

Standard mileage rate vs. actual expenses

When deducting vehicle costs, you pick one method per vehicle per tax year:

Standard mileage rate — Multiply total business miles by the IRS rate (e.g. $0.70/mile for 2025). Simple, no receipts needed.

Actual expenses — Deduct the real cost of gas, insurance, maintenance, and depreciation, pro-rated by the business-use percentage of your total miles. More paperwork, potentially higher deduction.

Comma supports both. Set the method in Tax Center → Vehicle Tax Profile. The standard rate is pre-filled with the current year’s IRS rate.

Reconciliation status

Shifts can be in one of three states:

If a shift shows as pending_reconciliation, open it, review the GPS data and earnings, then tap Confirm to mark it reconciled.

Sync vs. backup

Comma uses these terms precisely:

Backup — A point-in-time snapshot of your entire database, encrypted, and uploaded to Google Drive as a single file. Manual, one-directional. Restoring a backup overwrites your local data.

Sync (coming soon) — Continuous, automatic, non-destructive. Changes from Phone A and Phone B are merged using a Last-Write-Wins strategy. Neither phone is ever wiped. See Cloud Sync.

XP and badges

Comma has a lightweight gamification layer:

XP (experience points) — Earned by logging shifts and expenses consistently. XP accumulates over time and never resets.

Badges — One-time unlocks for milestones like your first 5 shifts, hitting $5,000 in net earnings, or maintaining a 7-day streak. Badges are displayed on your profile.

Streak — A counter of consecutive days you logged at least one shift. If you miss a day, the streak resets (frozen days can be set to pause it, e.g. scheduled days off).

Feature flags

Some screens in Comma are gated by feature flags. If a feature isn’t visible in your navigation, it may be turned off for your region or toggled off in Settings → Developer → Feature Overrides.