From SAF-T to ESG – Using Your Financial Data for Sustainability Reporting
The data you need for CSRD is already in your ERP
Companies preparing for CSRD compliance often assume they need entirely new data collection systems – carbon accounting platforms, ESG data tools, sustainability databases – before asking a more fundamental question: what data do we already have?
The answer, in most cases, is “more than you think.” Your General Ledger, Chart of Accounts and – for companies in Portugal and other EU countries – your SAF-T (Standard Audit File for Tax) already contain the raw financial data CSRD requires: energy costs, waste disposal, water bills, fleet fuel, compliance fees, training investment – recorded every month, at transaction level.
The problem is not data availability. It is data structure. Financial accounting organises costs by nature (what was spent) and cost centre (who spent it). CSRD requires costs organised by activity (what consumed the resource) and by output (which product or segment caused the consumption). That transformation is exactly what TDABC performs.
What SAF-T gives you – and what it does not
SAF-T is a standardised XML export of accounting data, designed for tax audit. In Portugal it has been mandatory since 2008, submitted monthly to the AT; Norway, Austria, Luxembourg, Poland, Lithuania and France run variants.
What it contains that is useful for ESG: complete GL transactions with account codes, amounts, dates and counterparties; the full Chart of Accounts hierarchy; customer and supplier master data; invoice detail with product descriptions.
What it does not contain: activity-level detail, consumption drivers (kWh, litres, kg, hours), causal links between costs and outputs, environmental metrics. TDABC bridges that gap – taking the financial data from SAF-T (or any ERP export) and adding the activity layer with time equations and consumption-based drivers.
The bridge: from Chart of Accounts to environmental cost pools
The first step of any TDABC model is mapping financial accounts to cost pools. For ESG, that means identifying which accounts carry environmental costs. A typical mapping (Portuguese SNC ranges – adapt per chart):
| GL account range | Description | Environmental cost pool |
|---|---|---|
| 6241-6243 | Electricity, gas, other energy | Energy |
| 6245 | Water | Water |
| 626x | External services (waste/treatment) | Environmental Services |
| 6251 | Travel and transport fuel | Fleet / Scope 1 |
| 624x | Maintenance | Equipment Maintenance (energy component) |
| 636x | Training | Environmental Training |
| 681x | Depreciation | Energy-intensive asset depreciation |
In CostCtrl this mapping is configured once and applied automatically with every data load: export the SAF-T, and the model knows which accounts feed which environmental pools.
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Adding the activity layer
Financial data tells you how much was spent. TDABC tells you why. Example: your GL shows €85,000 in monthly electricity across three cost centres (Production, Warehouse, Office). SAF-T gives you the account detail – but CSRD needs activity and output. TDABC adds:
- Production electricity → five production activities, by machine-hour rates and consumption per machine type;
- Warehouse electricity → storage, picking and shipping, by area, climate control and equipment;
- Office electricity → administrative activities, by headcount and equipment.
From financial periods to ESG reporting periods
A practical advantage of building on SAF-T/ERP data: frequency. Financial data is produced monthly – so environmental cost data can be too, not just annually for the CSRD report. Monthly tracking enables trend analysis (energy cost per unit rising?), anomaly detection (why did waste costs spike in March?), progress against reduction targets, and early warning on transition-plan deviations. The CostCtrl dashboard updates with each load, putting environmental cost performance next to financial profitability.
The workflow, end to end
- Export SAF-T (or GL extract) from the ERP – monthly;
- Load into CostCtrl – automatic account mapping, including environmental pools;
- Apply the TDABC model – costs flow resources → activities → outputs;
- Generate ESG views – environmental cost by activity, product, segment, period;
- Export for the CSRD report – structured data for your ESG platform or auditor.
Once configured, each monthly update runs in hours. Initial setup (Health Check + model build) takes 6-12 weeks.
The competitive advantage of integration
Building ESG reporting on top of existing financial infrastructure gives three advantages: consistency (financial and ESG numbers from the same source – no reconciliation battles between sustainability and finance); efficiency (no duplicate data collection – costs captured once, allocated once); and auditability (a complete trail from GL transaction to ESG disclosure).
This is not a theoretical framework. We have built this bridge across manufacturing, logistics, healthcare and services – in Portugal, across Europe and globally. It works because it respects the data that already exists and adds the analytical layer that CSRD demands.
Next steps
- Start with a Health Check – Chart of Accounts, cost structure and ESG requirements assessed;
- We map your financial data to environmental cost pools;
- We build one TDABC model that serves both profitability and ESG reporting.
One model. Two reporting dimensions. Audit-ready from day one.