Review and Reconciliation

Once data start flowing into Position Green, we always recommend to review and reconcile the data. Data might come from difference sources, and there is always a change of double-reporting. Here are some suggested steps on how to do that.

PS: We would always suggest to include someone from accounting/finance/CFO in this process.

Suggested review checklist

From every ERP integrations we get accounting data, and depending on how you financially account for you expenses the data will be classified in different ways. 

Suggested list of actions the first time you set up an integration:
- Sync the integration for the whole completed last accounting year (Usually the whole last year, but some companies have deviating fiscal year. Use the standard from you company.

- Verify that the total amounts are as expected from your accounting/CFO. Note that we usually exclude some transactions based on the account code, e.g. accrual accounting which is not a part of the GHG protocol standard. This may cause the total costs interpreted by Position Green to deviate from what accounting/CFO considers the real costs. Optimally, verify the accounted amounts per account code, and verify with the general ledger.

- Verify that the accounting codes are included in the integration and that they match your selected account settings.

- Verify that we receive supplier name. Check the list of biggest suppliers and verify with accounting.

- Verify your biggest transactions by sorting on CO2e in the transaction table.

- Verify that we receive ny additional accounted dimension you are interested in. Some companies care about their emissions per project, others in emissions per customer or product they sell. This data is usually accounted as dimensions in your accounting, and we will read them as "lables". 

- Then verify that we have found the correct industry and country for your supplier. We would suggest following the Pareto principle (80/20 rule) when verifying your data. There is little value in verifying every single datapoint and emission source. Verify your biggest 20% suppliers or 20% accounts, whose usually represent 80% of your emissions.

Once this is all verified and reviewed it is safe to set up a regular sync for the integration. Any changes you have done to integration settings in the review process will be remembered and used the next time we get data from your integration.

General info about data we receive

Both integrations, activity capture and manual uploads get normalized into our data model that is designed to

Transaction/Voucher ID: 

- Used to identify the transaction, and to avoid double counting of data. We use Transaction ID to run duplications checks to avoid double accounting over the same period.

- If this is wrong there is a risk of double reporting, as the duplication check will not work as intended

- We would advice you to verify that we do receive ta Transaction ID of each transaction, and that it is unique per transaction

Supplier name and org number

- The name of the supplier linked to the transaction. This is used both to find the right spend factor and GHG category, but also to group all purchases from one supplier together. Also, to be able to link emissions to a supplier is an important step to be able to work with your Scope 3 emissions, as 

- If this is wrong or missing, the EEIO algorithm would be less accurate, and there would be a risk of the model not remembering the work you put into categorising the emissions correctly not to be remembered the next tim we get data from that supplier.

- We would advice you to verify that all transactions have a supplier and that the supplier name is correct. If this is wrong, check if they are registered correctly in the ERP system or contact support. 

Accounting code

- The financial accounting code used to account the expense. This is used for classifying the purchase into the right GHG category. Note that we do not use accounting code to classify the emission factor, as the supplier and product purchased is a more accurate way of finding the emission factor.  Read more about this in account settings.

- Verify that the account codes received matches with the accounting standard you have selected in account settings.

Currency and transaction amount

- This is used for spend estimations, but also to understand costs of activity based emission sources.

- Verify that we read the correct amounts by verifying that the total amount matches your expected total costs, and consider doing some random sample chekcs.

- If currency is missing we will use the standard currency selected for your company. We always normalize different currencies to USD to compare transaction amounts and for spend emission calculations.

Dimensions/Labels

- Most ERP systems use some kind of dimensions to group and categorize transactions, like departments, projects, locations, offices, customers or products. We pick up these and store them as different label types.

- Verify that we pick up the dimensions you are interested in.