Overview
The Expense module is a core End-to-End module that turns financial data into emissions using monetary emission factors (MEFs). It is added to every profile automatically and covers Scopes 1, 2 and upstream Scope 3.
Key use cases
Achieving broad Scope 3 coverage directly from accounting data, with no activity data required
Getting a fast, automatic first categorization of every transaction
Providing a fallback approach when physical or activity data is not available
What this module covers
All expenses (including cost of goods sold and cost of sales) and fixed-asset additions made by the company over the reporting year are imported. All amounts are sales-tax excluded.
The following are left out:
Depreciation and amortisation expenses
Salaries, wages, bonuses and overtime, as well as other payroll expenses such as social security, health insurance and pension
Taxes, bad debt and financial expenses (interest, exchange rate differences)
Where emissions are also computed with an activity-based approach, a double-counting check removes the corresponding transaction emissions.
How the module works
Once expenses are imported, each transaction is first linked to a category. The platform proposes an automatic categorization, then the client validates or updates it. Once the category is confirmed, the module selects the emission factor. The EF depends on several parameters, such as the country of the transaction and the year of the profile.
How emission factors are matched
The selection follows two stages.
First, all potentially relevant factors are gathered from two sources:
Supplier EFs: if a supplier is linked to the transaction, all EFs linked to that supplier
Generic factors: all EFs linked to the selected category
In both cases, only factors that belong specifically to the company or are public/global are included.
Then a sequence of filters is applied, returning the first factor that survives all of them, in this order:
Prioritise EFs created specifically for the company; if there are none, keep the EFs that are not company-specific
Prioritise EFs linked to the supplier; if there are none, keep the EFs that are not supplier-specific
Filter EFs for the specific country; if there are none, default to France
Select the EF with the closest year
Monetary emission factors
Monetary EFs are managed differently for French and non-French factors.
Non-French monetary EFs: most categories have a non-French option computed using Exiobase, a global input-output database. These values are consumption-based, meaning emissions are attributed to the end user and include all upstream emissions. Exiobase MEFs have values for 2020, 2021 and 2022 and will not be updated further for now. For a few categories only a French MEF exists and is used for all countries, either because the French MEF is actually a global one (France being the default country) or because no Exiobase category is granular enough.French monetary EFs come from two sources:
Some are provided directly by Base Empreinte (ADEME), currently covering 2019 to 2023 (updated in year N for year N-2)
Some are computed by Greenly: a company-benchmark MEF (average Scope 1+2+3 upstream divided by revenue) and a Greenly MEF (carbon footprint divided by product price). These are updated yearly, with about 95% by usage updated early in Q1 and the rest across the year.
FAQs
Do I need activity data to use the Expense module?
No. The module works directly from financial data, which makes it a good way to cover a broad share of Scope 3 when physical or activity data is not available.
How is double counting with activity-based modules handled?
When the same emissions are also computed with an activity-based approach, a double-counting check removes the corresponding transaction emissions from the expense results.
Which years are available for monetary emission factors?
Exiobase (non-French) values exist for 2020, 2021 and 2022. ADEME Base Empreinte values currently cover 2019 to 2023. Greenly-computed factors are updated every year.