Energy bills, fuel and freightas spreadsheets for your GHG inventory.
Activity data collection is the slowest part of an inventory: hundreds of electricity bills, fuel receipts and freight documents, as PDFs and photos in different layouts, that someone has to type into the calculation sheet. Colunar reads them with schema-guided AI, validates every record and delivers one table per site and period, ready for the emission factor.
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WHERE TIME GOES
Three problems this page solves
Every utility has its own layout
kWh and reading period move around from one bill to the next. A playbook describes what you want to read; the layout stops mattering.
Billing month is not the reading period
Reading rules become reusable skills: 'use the reading period, not the billing month', 'one row per consumer unit', 'consumption in kWh, never in currency'.
Missing months only show up at the end
Every record carries its source (file and page) and is validated against the schema. Missing months and out-of-pattern values are visible in the table before the calculation.
DOCUMENTS AND FIELDS
What goes in, what comes out
- Electricity bills (regulated and free market)
- Water and gas bills
- Fleet fuel receipts
- Generator refuelling
- Freight documents and waybills
- Travel invoices
Fields in the ready-made playbook
- Utility
supplier - Consumer unit / installation
account_number - Reading period start
period_start - Reading period end
period_end - Consumption
consumption - Unit (kWh, m³)
unit - Bill amount
amount
Illustrative example: 3 energy bills from different sites become 3 rows.
| file | utility | unit | period | consumption | unit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| dc-extrema-jan.pdf | Example Utility | 0012345-6 | 2026-01-03 – 2026-02-02 | 18,420 | kWh |
| store-downtown-jan.jpg | Fictional Energy Co. | 7788990 | 2026-01-05 – 2026-02-04 | 2,310 | kWh |
| hq-jan.pdf | Example Utility | 0098765-1 | 2026-01-01 – 2026-01-31 | 41,070 | kWh |
HOW IT WORKS
From the pile of files to the spreadsheet
- 01
Open the energy bills template
The playbook comes with utility, consumer unit, reading period, consumption and unit. Adjust the fields and add the rules of your methodology.
- 02
Drop the whole year's bills
Native PDFs, scans and phone photos, from every site and utility, in one batch. The table fills in as each file finishes.
- 03
Review and export
Check warnings per file, verify the source of each value and download the Excel to apply the year's emission factors.
BEFORE YOU START
Frequently asked questions
Does it work with any utility?
Yes. Colunar has no per-layout templates: the playbook describes the fields, and reading adapts to each bill. If a utility has a quirk, a skill with a reviewed example guides the next readings.
What about free-market (ACL) energy?
Trader invoices and metering reports are read as well. Add a market field (regulated or free) to the playbook and a rule separating contracted energy from metered consumption.
How do I avoid mixing billing month and reading period?
With an instruction in the playbook, e.g. 'Use the previous and current reading dates as the period; ignore the billing month.' Rules like this apply to every following bill.
Does Colunar calculate the emissions?
No. It delivers validated activity data with its source. The calculation stays in your spreadsheet or inventory tool, with the emission factor published for the year.
How much does a year of bills cost?
Each PDF or image uses 4 or 3 credits. Twelve bills for one site are about 48 credits; the Starter plan includes 200 per month and a new account gets 20 for free.