Can an accountant prepare a client's SECR disclosure?

Yes. Nothing in the SECR regulations says who must work out the figures. The directors (or, for an LLP, the members) are responsible for the report, so the accountant prepares it and the client approves it, as with the rest of the annual report.

Which clients need carbon reporting?

Large unquoted companies and LLPs (two of: more than 250 employees, more than £36 million turnover, more than £18 million balance sheet) and all quoted companies must report under SECR. Below that, the usual reasons are a public contract over £5 million a year that needs a PPN 006 Carbon Reduction Plan, or a customer sending a carbon questionnaire.

Can I work out a client's carbon footprint from their Xero ledger?

Partly. The purchase ledger gives a spend-based estimate of Scope 3 (everything the client buys). Electricity, gas and fuel are better worked out from the kWh and litres on the bills, and that is what SECR and Carbon Reduction Plans need for Scope 1 and 2.

What should I charge for carbon reporting?

There is no published market rate for this work, so price it like any other compliance job: from the time it takes you, the software cost per client and the risk. The time goes mostly on collecting energy bills and mileage, not on the calculation.

Does carbon reporting need to be audited?

No. SECR figures don't need independent assurance by law, and nor does a PPN 006 Carbon Reduction Plan. Some customers ask for assured figures, but that is their choice, not a legal rule.

Carbon reporting for accountants and bookkeepers: offering it to clients

Clients ask their accountant for carbon reporting because of SECR in the annual report (large unquoted companies and LLPs, and all quoted companies), PPN 006 Carbon Reduction Plans for public contracts over £5 million a year, and customer questionnaires. In 2026 an accountant already holds most of the data: the purchase ledger gives a spend-based Scope 3 estimate, and the energy bills give Scope 1 and 2.

Updated 19 October 2026 by the Carbon Recycling team. Figures use the official UK government conversion factors and are checked against the current gov.uk guidance.

Why clients are asking

Four things send clients to their accountant for carbon figures. Some are law, some are conditions of winning work.

SECR in the annual report. Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting applies to every quoted company, and to unquoted companies and LLPs that meet two of: more than 250 employees, more than £36 million turnover, or a balance sheet over £18 million. Companies put it in the directors' report; LLPs prepare a separate energy and carbon report. The SECR thresholds did not rise with the Companies Act size changes for financial years starting on or after 6 April 2025, so a client who has just become "medium" for accounts purposes may still be "large" for SECR. Our SECR checklist for accountants takes you through the disclosure line by line.
Carbon Reduction Plans for public contracts. Under PPN 006, central government buyers ask bidders for a Carbon Reduction Plan when a contract is worth more than £5 million a year, including VAT, averaged over its life. Many councils, NHS buyers and big companies ask for one on smaller contracts too. See our guide to PPN 006.
Customer questionnaires. Large companies need their suppliers' emissions for their own Scope 3, so smaller firms get questionnaires from customers, often with a deadline attached to a contract renewal. Our guide to answering a customer's carbon data request covers what they usually want.
What may come next for large private companies. The Department for Business and Trade's Modernising Corporate Reporting consultation, open until 30 November 2026, asks how the UK Sustainability Reporting Standards should be reflected in the Companies Act. It also proposes abolishing the directors' report and letting companies place the SECR disclosure anywhere in the first half of the annual report. These are proposals, not law. Our UK SRS guide and the post on SECR reform track them.

What the accountant already has

Most of a small or mid-sized client's footprint is sitting in records you already handle.

Record	What it gives you	Scope
Electricity and gas bills	kWh used, the figure SECR asks for, and the basis for the emissions	2 (electricity), 1 (gas)
Fuel cards and fuel receipts	Litres of diesel and petrol for company vehicles	1
Mileage claims	Business miles in employees' own cars (the "grey fleet"), which SECR includes where the company pays for the fuel	3
Purchase ledger	Spend by account, which can be turned into a spend-based estimate of everything else the client buys	3
Accounts	Turnover and headcount, for the SECR size test and the intensity ratio	n/a

The ledger is a good start but not the whole answer. A spend-based figure multiplies pounds spent by an industry average, so it can't show a client using less energy or buying from a lower-carbon supplier. SECR and Carbon Reduction Plans need energy in kWh and litres from the bills. Our post on spend-based Scope 3 explains where the estimate is fine and where it isn't.

Connecting Xero, Sage or FreeAgent

Carbon Recycling can connect to a client's Xero, Sage Accounting or FreeAgent account and read the purchase side of the ledger, read-only, for the dates you choose:

Xero: bills, supplier credit notes, spend-money payments and the chart of accounts.
Sage Accounting: purchase invoices, credit notes, quick entries, other payments and the ledger accounts.
FreeAgent: bills, bank payments explained to a category, expense and mileage claims, and the categories.

Each account's spend before VAT is matched to the UK government's spend-based multiplier for that kind of purchase (2023 figures from Defra and the University of Leeds). You check what each account is, and the choice is remembered next time. Electricity, gas and fuel accounts are left out of the spend estimate and listed for you to add from the bills instead; wages, tax, depreciation, loans and transfers are left out because they aren't purchases. Only someone with the admin role in the client's Carbon Recycling account can connect the package, and it can be disconnected at any time.

For QuickBooks, Sage 50 and any other package, export the purchase ledger or a transactions-by-account report as a CSV file and upload it. It goes through the same checking screen.

Pricing carbon reporting as a service

There is no published market rate for carbon reporting by accountants, and we won't make one up. Price it the way you price any other recurring compliance job, from three things:

Your time. The calculation is quick once the data is in. The time goes on getting a year of energy bills, fuel cards and mileage from the client, chasing missing months, and checking the figures look right against last year. A single-site client with clean bills is a short job; a client with ten sites and a fleet is not.
Software cost per client. The accountant portal, when it launches, is priced at £119 + VAT a month for each 10 client companies. That works out at £11.90 a month per client in a full block, or £119 a year per client paying yearly, on top of the paid plan it sits on. Our page on which plan and add-ons you need works through the totals for a 25-client practice.
Risk and scope. Say in the engagement letter what you prepare (for example, the SECR figures and narrative, or a Carbon Reduction Plan), that the directors approve it, and that the figures are not assured. Check your professional indemnity cover includes the work.

Common ways to structure the fee:

A fixed annual fee per client, quoted by band (number of sites and vehicles, and whether it's SECR, a Carbon Reduction Plan or both).
An add-on line in the year-end accounts engagement, since SECR covers the same financial year and uses the same turnover and headcount.
A one-off fee for the first year (setting up sites and a baseline), then a lower recurring fee once the data flows in.

The professional bodies are building members' skills here. ICAEW runs a free Sustainability Accelerator Programme for members covering sustainability reporting, assurance and advice. For a sense of what the work costs a client done other ways, our guide to what carbon reporting costs compares doing it in-house, software and consultants.

Clients with special cases

LLPs don't have a directors' report, so SECR goes in a separate energy and carbon report signed by a designated member. See SECR for LLPs.
Clients that import steel, aluminium, cement, fertiliser or hydrogen face the UK carbon border adjustment mechanism from 1 January 2027. It is a separate tax with its own registration and returns; our UK CBAM guide explains who it catches. Carbon Recycling is not a tax adviser or a customs agent and does not file CBAM returns.
Groups can prepare one group SECR report covering the subsidiaries in the consolidation, and a subsidiary included in a parent's group report that meets the rules doesn't need its own.

How Carbon Recycling helps

Carbon Recycling turns a client's bills, fuel and mileage into the SECR table, intensity ratio, prior-year comparison and methodology statement, and builds a PPN 006 Carbon Reduction Plan from the same data. Every figure shows the government factor it used and its ID, so the client's directors (and their auditor, if they read it) can follow it. The ledger connections for Xero, Sage and FreeAgent, or a CSV upload for anything else, add the spend-based Scope 3 estimate.

You can try it on one client first with the 14-day free trial: add their data and see the reports, though printing, saving and downloading need a paid plan. Before you start, the free SECR checker tells you in under a minute which clients are in scope, and the free report check looks over an SECR disclosure or Carbon Reduction Plan someone else has prepared.

Where this fits

Start free: Check which clients need SECR
The plan: Starter, £59 + VAT a month. The paid plan the portal sits on: SECR reports and Carbon Reduction Plans from bills, with official DESNZ factors.
The add-on: Accountant portal, £119 + VAT a month for each 10 client companies, coming soon. Run carbon reporting for all your clients from one login, with a dashboard showing where each one is up to.
Also: CBAM pack. For clients that import steel, aluminium, cement, fertiliser or hydrogen and need the UK CBAM charge worked out.

Including VAT at 20%: Starter £70.80 a month; Accountant portal £142.80 a month for each 10 client companies. Each add-on is its own subscription on top of a paid plan: a 12-month minimum, paid monthly, or yearly upfront for 10 months' price. The 14-day free trial lets you add data and see your reports, but printing, saving and downloading need a paid plan.