Should I calculate Scope 3 purchased goods from purchase orders, goods receipt notes or invoices?
Use the tax invoice as the record, checked against the goods receipt note for the date and quantity actually received. Do not use purchase orders: a PO shows what you intended to buy, not what arrived, and Category 1 counts goods purchased or acquired in the reporting year.
What each document proves
- Purchase order: an intention to buy. Orders get changed, cancelled, part-delivered or carried into next year.
- Goods receipt note (GRN): the quantity actually received and the date it entered your stores. Strong on timing and quantity, often weak on material description.
- Tax invoice: the supplier's legal record of what was sold, with quantity, unit, HSN code, value and GSTIN. It is the document an auditor most expects to see.
Why the invoice plus GRN works best
This is the three-way match finance teams already run: PO, GRN and invoice agree before payment. Take quantity and material from the invoice, confirm against the GRN that the goods arrived, and count them in the year of receipt. That keeps your Scope 3 tied to records that already pass a financial audit, which supports the data quality expectations in ISO 14064-1.
Cut-off and edge cases
- Goods invoiced in March but received in April: count them in the year received, and say in your method note which date you use.
- Advance or proforma invoices: not evidence of acquisition; wait for the tax invoice and GRN.
- Returns and debit or credit notes: subtract the returned quantity so it is not counted twice.
- Partial deliveries against one PO: count each GRN and invoice pair, not the PO total.
- Machinery and other capital goods go to Category 2, not Category 1.
When you only have spend
If invoices lack quantities, a spend-based estimate from the invoice value is better than leaving a gap. Label it spend-based, note its wider uncertainty, and replace it with quantities when you get them.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads tax invoices for quantity, unit, HSN code and date and fingerprints every file, so the same invoice uploaded twice counts once. The invoice, not the purchase order, is the record it keeps. Where only spend is available it provides a spend-based estimate, labelled as such.
Sources: GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard (2011), Category 1, ISO 14064-1:2018, Greenhouse gases, Part 1 (iso.org)
Last reviewed 2026-10-17.