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Addresses and Google

How MoveBoard finds addresses, works out miles and drive times with Google, handles Canadian postal codes, and how to use your own Google key.

3 min readChecked October 16, 2026

Every address in MoveBoard goes through Google. That's how a ZIP code turns into a city and state, how the miles and minutes between stops are worked out, and how the map links know where to go.

What Google does for you

  • Finding addresses — what you type (a street, a ZIP code, a postal code) is turned into street, city, state or province and ZIP.
  • Directions — the fastest route from each address to the next: office → start → stops → destination → office. The miles and minutes between each pair, and the day's totals, come from it.
  • Travel time and mileage in the price — the quote's travel time and long-distance miles use those directions. See Travel time explained.
  • Map links — the map pin opens directions to an address in Google Maps; the map icon opens the whole route.

Directions and addresses already looked up are remembered, so the same trip is never asked twice.

Canada

Typing a ZIP fills the city and state in every address form — orders, carriers & agents, company and branch info, storage facilities and tenants, staff records, invoices, box deliveries and the customer's portal. When one ZIP or postal code covers several towns (common with Canadian rural postal codes), the office screens and the box order page show the towns under the ZIP box as buttons: press the right one. A city you typed yourself is never replaced; if the ZIP belongs to another town, MoveBoard offers that town under the box instead.

Canadian postal codes work everywhere a ZIP code does, written A1A 1A1. A bare postal code is looked up together with its country so Google finds the right place. Distances can be shown in kilometres — see Kilometres and units.

Your own Google key

MoveBoard uses its own Google key for all of this, so there's nothing to set up. If you'd rather use your company's own, make one in Google Cloud Console › APIs & Services › Credentials, with the Maps and Places APIs switched on, and send it to MoveBoard support to save for you. Then your own key is used.

Good to know

  • Google's look-ups happen on MoveBoard's server; your key never reaches anyone's browser.
  • If Google refuses your own key (it expired, is restricted, or billing is off), MoveBoard's key steps in for now so addresses keep working, and Company info says your key isn't working. Your saved key is never changed; once it's fixed in Google Cloud Console, it takes over again by itself. If you make a new key, send it to MoveBoard support to save.
  • An address Google can't find still saves as you typed it — but its miles and travel time can't be worked out until it's corrected.
  • Changing an address recalculates the miles, minutes and travel time on the order.
  • No ZIP? Type the town's name in an order's address and pick it — its ZIP fills in (see Addresses and stops). A new order whose address is only a town and state ("Kintnersville, PA") — made by Ed, the AI Receptionist, your website form or the office — gets that town's main ZIP too.

If something goes wrong

  • The city and state don't fill in from the ZIP — check the ZIP (five digits) or postal code (A1A 1A1). On a staff record the box says Not found when there's no such ZIP.
  • Miles look wrong — open the route in Google Maps from the map icon and check each address is the right one.