Carbon Accounting

Setting up a carbon accounting workflow with Rutter

Introduction

Rutter's API provides you with all of the data need to do carbon accounting or sustainability reporting.

1. Step 1.

   Connect to a business entity’s accounting system using Rutter Link.

2. Step 2.

   Understand business metrics with the major financial statements: Cash Flow Statement, Income Statement, and Balance Sheet.

3. Step 3.

   Understand source of truth revenue data with Transactions and Orders.

4. Step 4.

   Understand granular cost data with Bills, Bill Payments, and Expenses.

5. Step 5.

   Understand customers with Accounting Customers and Commerce Customers.

Connect to the Business Entity's Accounting System

To begin the process of understanding a business entity's financial health, you must first connect to their accounting system using Rutter Link. For more information on creating your first connection, refer to the Getting Started guide.

Understand Business Metrics with the Major Financial Statements

The major financial statements can provide valuable insight into a business entity's financial health.

Cash Flow Statement

The GET /cash_flow_statements provides information on the cash inflows and outflows of a business entity during a specific period of time. It can help you understand a business entity's liquidity and ability to generate cash.

Income Statement

The GET /income_statements provides information on a business entity's revenues and expenses during a specific period of time. It can help you understand a business entity's profitability.

Balance Sheet

The GET /balance_sheets provides information on a business entity's assets, liabilities, and equity at a specific point in time. It can help you understand a business entity's financial position.

Understand source of truth revenue data

Sometimes you might want to offset carbon or report based on goods sold. In this case, GET /orders and GET /transactions combined with GET /products and GET /items can give you a view into exactly what goods were sold by a business. From there, you can attach an amount to offset by product sold.

Understand source of truth revenue data

Sometimes you might want to offset carbon or report based on goods sold. In this case, GET /orders and GET /transactions combined with GET /products and GET /items can give you a view into exactly what goods were sold by a business. From there, you can attach an amount to offset by product sold.

Understand granular cost data

Other times you might want to offset carbon or report based on goods and services purchased by the business. In this case, GET /bills, GET /bill_payments, and GET /expenses show granular detail on what a business has purchased. From there, you can attach a carbon offset amount by dollar volume or by purchase line item.

Understand customers

GET /customers (commerce) and GET /customers (accounting) show all of the customers a business has interacted with, in case you want to market to a business entity’s customers or understand carbon impact by customer.