How to Upload Supplier Expenditure Data
The fastest way to get a baseline understanding of your footprint is to look at where your business spends its money. By uploading your supplier expenditure for the financial year, CarbonTrail automatically categorizes your spend into over 200 different emissions categories.
Using science-backed multiplication tables/emission factors, we estimate the kilograms of emissions for every dollar spent. While we will add more precise activity data later, this provides a fantastic first draft of your emissions profile!
A Note on Data Security: We know your financial data is highly sensitive. CarbonTrail aligns with global security standards to ensure your data remains safe, is accessible only to you, and is never shared with your sponsor.
What You Will Need
Before uploading, you need to export your expense data from your accounting software. Because all accounting tools handle exports differently, you may need to spend a few minutes figuring out how to generate this report in your specific system.
Your exported data must be grouped per supplier and per currency for the financial year. Grouping by currency is a critical step that allows us to give you the most accurate emissions numbers possible for your international spend.
We've attached the template to this help guide so you can get started.
Step-by-Step Guide
Once you have completed your initial onboarding steps and reached the Measurement Roadmap, follow these steps to upload your data:
Click the Add accounting data button.
Select Upload supplier spend.
Click the provided link to download the CarbonTrail CSV template.
Format your exported accounting data to match the CSV template.
Click Upload supplier CSV and choose the completed file from your computer.
Map the fields from your CSV (supplier name, currency, subtotal, and total) to the corresponding fields CarbonTrail is expecting.
Click Next to begin the import.
CarbonTrail will now import, analyze, and categorize your expenses. This process usually takes about 5 to 15 minutes (or slightly longer for very large files), making it a great time to go grab a coffee!
Need help?
Exporting data looks a little different in every accounting platform. If you run into any issues formatting your CSV or exporting your data, please reach out to the CarbonTrail team by clicking the chat icon in the bottom right corner. We have worked with many different accounting tools and are ready to help you get it sorted!