Ten years of trips on a napkin
The client has travelled a lot. They send photos of every passport page with stamps, some illegible, some from a passport that expired years ago. They add a list typed from memory with approximate months. There is an email with flight confirmations for some trips and not others. The caseworker builds a spreadsheet, row by row, counting days between dates and adding them up across periods.
Then the client remembers a trip they forgot. The spreadsheet formulas break when a row is inserted. A trip that crossed a period boundary was counted wrongly. It is fiddly, slow and exactly the kind of work where one typo matters.
Why spreadsheets struggle with this
Counting days abroad is conceptually simple and practically messy. Trips overlap with period boundaries. Departure and return days have to be treated consistently according to how your advisers want them counted. Evidence is incomplete. Clients remember trips in batches, so the list changes several times.
Each caseworker builds their own spreadsheet with their own formulas. Nobody checks the formulas, and nobody can easily see whether two caseworkers are counting the same way. The result is only as good as the person who built it on the day.
Clients with dual nationality or several passports add another layer. Trips may be stamped in one passport and not the other, and some borders do not stamp at all, so the list relies on the client's records and memory as much as on the documents.
What manual counting risks
| Issue | Effect |
|---|---|
| Formulas differ between caseworkers | Inconsistent figures across the firm |
| Rows inserted late | Totals that silently stop being right |
| Evidence not linked to trips | Hard to check where a date came from |
| Trips remembered late | Recalculation and rechecking each time |
| Hours of senior time | Careful counting that could be done by software |
It also creates tension with clients. When a figure changes because a trip was added or a formula corrected, the client may worry that the firm does not have a grip on their history.
A travel history tool with checks built in
- Clients enter each trip in a simple online form: departure date, return date, destination and reason, with the option to upload a stamp photo, boarding pass or booking confirmation against it.
- Dates are validated as they go in, so return before departure, overlapping trips and impossible dates are caught straight away.
- Your advisers configure the counting settings, such as how departure and return days are treated and which periods to total over. The tool applies those settings consistently to every client.
- Totals are shown for each period your advisers select, with any period over a threshold your firm sets highlighted for an adviser to review.
- Every trip shows the evidence attached to it, and trips without evidence are listed so the caseworker can decide what to ask for.
- When the client adds a forgotten trip, everything recalculates, and the change is logged with the date it was added.
The tool counts according to settings your advisers choose. It does not interpret rules or say what any total means for an application.
Figures you can trust and check
Every client's travel history is calculated the same way. Caseworkers check trips and evidence, not formulas. Late additions are simple. Advisers review the highlighted periods and make the judgement, with every figure traceable to a trip and its evidence.
The history also stays on file, so a returning client only adds trips since their last application.
Does your team count trips like this?
- Clients send passport stamp photos and memory lists
- Each caseworker has their own absence spreadsheet
- Totals are recalculated whenever a trip is remembered
- Evidence is not linked to the trips it supports
- Nobody checks the spreadsheet formulas