Your chart of accounts decides which spend Avarni reads for your Scope 3 calculation.
What file do you need?
Prepare your chart of accounts as a flat table with three columns:
Column | Contents |
Account Code | The code your finance system uses |
Account Name | The description of the account |
Account Type | Asset, Liability, Equity, Revenue or Expense |
Flat means one row per account, with no grouping, indenting or merged cells. If your finance system exports a nested or hierarchical chart of accounts, flatten it before you upload it.
Each account code must appear once. Avarni rejects a duplicate account code. See Reading a chart of accounts you have never seen.
Step 1. Upload the chart of accounts
Go to Assessments and open your assessment.
Select Chart of Accounts.
Upload the file and map the three columns.
How does Avarni categorise my accounts?
When you upload the chart of accounts, AI gives each account a category and writes a justification for it. This is a first draft for you to review.
The AI reads only the account code, account name and account type, plus your organisation's industry and country. It does not read the transactions in the account.
The account type has a large effect on the result. Check the Account Type column in your file before you upload it.
Account type | Starting category |
Expense | Usually Purchased goods and services or another emissions category. An expense account starts as Excluded only when its name shows a term such as tax, payroll, interest, bank fees, carbon offsets or depreciation. |
Asset | Capital goods for owned physical assets. Upstream leased assets for right-of-use and other lease assets. |
Revenue and Liability | Always Excluded at upload. |
Equity | Usually Excluded. |
How do I fix a wrong account type?
You cannot change an account type in Avarni. Correct the type in your file and upload the chart of accounts again. Categories stay on accounts whose codes do not change.
After the upload, check the category of each account you corrected.
Do I need to check every account?
Yes. Review every account until each one is Confirmed. The AI result is a starting point, not a final decision.
The Review Status column shows the state of each account:
Status | Meaning |
Pending | The AI categorised the account and raised no concern. You have not reviewed it yet. |
Flagged | The account needs a closer look. Avarni flags an account when the AI is uncertain, when a default rule changed the AI's category, when the category does not suit the account type, or when the AI could not categorise it. |
Confirmed | You reviewed the account and accept its category and justification. |
Start with the Flagged accounts. Then work through the Pending accounts.
To change the status of one account, select an icon in the Review Status column: the flag icon (Flag) or the tick icon (Confirm).
If your finance team must check an account, set it to Flagged. Then filter on Flagged to see the accounts that are still open.
Why are two accounts with the same name in different categories?
The AI judges each account separately. It cannot see what the accounts contain, so two accounts with the same name can get different categories.
The account type can also cause the difference. For example, if one of the accounts has the type Revenue or Liability, Avarni sets it to Excluded.
Ask your finance team what each account holds. Then set the correct category on each account and update each justification.
Step 2. Decide what to include
Count each supplier purchase once, in the account where the supplier invoice first lands. Use this default:
Include expense accounts, except payroll, tax, depreciation and intercompany.
Include balance sheet accounts only where supplier invoices post first, such as equipment purchases, inventory, prepayments and an accrual clearing account.
Exclude revenue, liability and equity accounts, except a clearing account where supplier invoices post first.
If you are unsure, include the account and flag it for your finance team.
An excluded account is not loaded with your general ledger. If you include an account that turns out to hold other entries, you can leave those lines out with a classification rule. You cannot classify a transaction that never arrived.
See the collection Accounting basics for sustainability teams.
For a summary of the files and rules, see What Avarni needs from your finance system.
What to exclude
Exclude these:
Sales and revenue accounts. Money coming in is not procurement.
Payroll accounts. Employee costs are not purchased goods and services. Commuting and travel are handled separately.
Tax accounts. GST, income tax and payroll tax are transfers to government, not purchases.
Intercompany accounts. Anything tagged intercompany nets out inside the group and would be double counted.
Cash and bank accounts. They record payments, not purchases. The purchase is already in an expense or asset account.
Month-end accruals and their reversals. These are estimates, not purchases. If your supplier invoices post to an accrual or clearing account first, include that account instead. See Which period a cost belongs to.
Rebate and refund income accounts. Treat these like revenue. A credit note inside an expense account is different: keep it, because it corrects a purchase.
Cost of goods sold and stock adjustments, where stock invoices land in an inventory account first. See Inventory and cost of goods sold.
Investment accounts. Investments are not spend on goods or services.
Rent, lease payment and right-of-use accounts, including right-of-use depreciation, lease interest and lease liability. Rent is not an emission. Exclude only the rent and lease components. If an account mixes rent with outgoings or recharged services, split it with a classification rule. Services such as cleaning and security go to Category 1. Measure recharged energy in Category 8 or in Scope 1 and 2 from energy data, not from spend. The energy, fuel and refrigerant that run a leased asset are counted in Category 8 or in Scope 1 and 2. See Leased premises, vehicles and equipment.
Fines, statutory levies and donations. Nothing is delivered in return. Include charges for a service you receive, such as council waste collection.
Claims paid and claims provisions, if you are an insurer. These are payments to policyholders. Include your own claims-handling costs.
How do I treat asset, liability and equity accounts?
Account type | What to do |
Asset | Include accounts that hold purchases of property, plant and equipment, as Capital goods. Exclude right-of-use assets and other lease accounts. Count the leased asset's energy in Category 8 or in Scope 1 and 2 instead. For a lease you classify as a finance lease, treat the asset as an owned capital good: include its cost at commencement in Capital goods, or record why not. See Leased premises, vehicles and equipment. Include inventory and raw materials accounts where stock invoices first land, as Purchased goods and services, not Capital goods. Include prepayments where supplier invoices first land. Exclude cash, bank, investments and accumulated depreciation. |
Liability | Exclude, unless supplier invoices post to it first, such as an accrual clearing account. Avarni sets liability accounts to Excluded at upload, so change that account yourself before you upload your general ledger. Always exclude provisions and outstanding claims. |
Equity | Exclude. |
Why liability accounts are excluded: the general ledger records each transaction twice. A supplier cost is a debit to an expense or asset account and a credit to a liability account. If you include both, the credit cancels the debit and the spend becomes nil. Include only the expense or asset side.
Avarni excludes depreciation and amortisation expense accounts by default. This default does not cover accumulated depreciation accounts with the type Asset. Check these accounts and set them to Excluded.
Why does Capital goods show a negative total?
A capital goods account can also hold depreciation or amortisation entries. These entries are credits, so they reduce the account total and can make it negative. Only the additions (new purchases) belong in Capital goods.
Upload transaction-level detail for these accounts. Then exclude the depreciation and amortisation entries with a classification rule.
Accounts that net to nil
Some charts of accounts contain duplicate or retired accounts marked "do not use". If the transactions in such an account net to nil within that same account, you can leave the account out. Your trial balance still balances.
Confirm the transactions net to nil within the account, not across several accounts. If they net across accounts, keep each of those accounts in your chart of accounts. To add an account you left out, upload the full chart of accounts again.
How do I filter the chart of accounts?
Open Chart of Accounts and select Categorisation.
Select the filter icon (Filters) in the toolbar.
Choose a column, such as Category, Review Status or Account Type. Then choose the value.
To find one account, select the search icon (Search) and type part of its code or name.
To save a filter:
Set up the filter.
In Saved Filter Presets, select the plus icon (Create new filter).
Enter a Filter Name and select Create Filter.
To use a saved filter, open Filters and select its name. If you change a saved filter, select the save icon (Update selected filter). Saved filters belong to the assessment, so other users of the assessment can use them too.
How do I change or confirm many accounts at once?
Filter the list to the accounts you want to change.
Select the checkbox next to each account. To select all accounts on the page, select the checkbox in the header row.
Select Bulk Edit. The button shows the number of accounts you selected.
In Field, choose Category, Status or Justification. Then set the Value.
To change another field in the same edit, select Add field.
Select Apply.
The header checkbox selects only the accounts on the current page. A page shows up to 100 accounts. If the filtered list has more pages, repeat the steps on each page.
To confirm accounts, choose Status and set it to Confirmed.
When you change the category, add Justification with the new reason in the same edit. Avarni does not update the justification when the category changes.
If you add Justification and leave the value empty, Avarni clears the justification on every selected account.
Where do I record why an account is included or excluded?
Use the Justification column. Write each justification so that an auditor can follow your decision.
The AI writes the first justification from the account code, name and type only. Add what your finance team knows about the account.
To edit a justification:
Double-click the cell in the Justification column.
Type the new text. The limit is 1,024 characters.
Click outside the cell to save.
When you change the category of an account, update its justification too. Avarni does not rewrite it for you.
To share the record, select the download icon (Export). Then select Download as CSV or Download as Excel. The file contains the accounts that match your current filter and the columns on the screen.
Step 3. Upload the general ledger for the included accounts
After you confirm your inclusions, request a general ledger extract from your finance team that covers only the included accounts. Ask for transaction-level detail, not a summary.
Transaction-level detail lets Avarni read supplier names and line descriptions. A trial balance alone gives account totals, which produces a coarser result.
Check the ledger is complete
The Chart of Accounts screen has two views. Categorisation is where you decide what to include. Completeness Check compares the ledger you loaded against the movement in your trial balances, account by account.
Once the general ledger is loaded, switch to Completeness Check and confirm your included accounts tie out. See Check your general ledger is complete against your trial balances.
If you change your inclusions later
When you change the category of an account, or exclude it, Avarni updates the transactions that are already loaded. The counts and the classification rules update on their own. You do not need to reload the general ledger.
If you include an account that was excluded when you uploaded the general ledger, its transactions are not in Avarni. Rows for excluded accounts show an account code error at upload, so they were not loaded. Upload the missing rows for that account as a separate file, or reload the general ledger.
What if my chart of accounts changes?
Upload the full chart of accounts again. Categories stay on accounts whose codes do not change. An account with a new code is a new account. Review it and set its category.
This applies when you add accounts, and when you move to a new finance system.
Next financial year
Your chart of accounts belongs to your organisation, so it is already there in the new year. Which accounts are included, their categories and your classification rules belong to the assessment, so you set them up again. See Start a new financial year.