NGER Reporting Software in Australia: Every Figure in Your Submission Traced to Its Source

The 2025-26 NGER report fell due on Monday 2 November 2026, because 31 October landed on a Saturday. If you lodged it from spreadsheets, you already know where the time went. It wasn't the maths. It was finding the documents, then proving which line on which invoice became which number.

So here's the short answer on NGER reporting software. It should turn your facility documents into per-facility, per-gas figures on the AR5 global warming potentials NGER requires. Every figure should trace back to the document line, factor and edition behind it. It should track both threshold tests, lock the period and record restatements. And it should produce figures you lodge yourself through EERS. No software lodges for you.

Below are the ten questions we'd ask any vendor, then how Carbonly answers each one.

Why spreadsheet NGER reports break in year two

The first NGER report by hand is painful but survivable. Year two is where it hurts, because nobody can rebuild how year one was done.

The easy lines were never the problem. A fuel docket for diesel into a generator is one fuel, one unit and one factor. The hard lines look like this:

• A plant hire invoice that bundles diesel with hire fees, a delivery charge and a credit note from last month.
• A gas bill with an estimated read, corrected two months later by an actual read.
• An electricity bill whose billing period runs from 12 June to 11 July 2026.

That last one matters more than it used to. The NGA Factors 2026 edition, published by DCCEEW, applies to activity from 1 July 2026. The 2025 edition covers 2025-26. So a bill that straddles 30 June sits across two reporting years and two factor editions. NSW's grid factor moved from 0.64 to 0.60 kg CO2-e/kWh between those editions. Victoria went from 0.78 to 0.74.

Small moves. But they're exactly what an assurance provider or the Clean Energy Regulator will sample. And a spreadsheet cell that says "0.64" carries no record of where that number came from or which year it belonged to.

For a refresher on how the editions differ and why, see our guide to Australian NGA emission factors.

Ten questions to ask any NGER reporting software vendor

Run these against your own documents, not the vendor's demo files. A demo built on clean PDFs tells you nothing about your supplier invoices.

1. Can it read the documents my facilities actually produce? Ask about scanned dockets, Excel exports from fuel card providers, multi-page supplier invoices and utility bills from every retailer you use. If the answer involves building a template per supplier, expect to maintain those templates forever.

2. Does it extract physical quantities, or does it fall back to dollars? NGER is a quantity regime. Litres, gigajoules and kilowatt-hours drive the calculation. A tool that maps spend to a factor when it can't find a quantity will produce a number, and that number won't survive scrutiny.

3. What happens when a unit can't be converted? A docket quoting cubic metres with no density should stop and ask a person. It shouldn't guess. Ask the vendor to show you that stop.

4. Which GWP set does it calculate on? NGER uses IPCC AR5 values, set in regulation 2.02 of the NGER Regulations. Methane is 28 for all sources, nitrous oxide 265. If the vendor answers "AR6" for NGER, keep walking.

5. Does each record carry the factor and edition it was calculated with? Not the current library value. The value that applied when that line was confirmed. If someone updates the factor library next July, last year's figures shouldn't quietly change.

6. Does it test both threshold arms at both levels? Facility thresholds are 25 kt CO2-e or 100 TJ of energy. Corporate group thresholds are 50 kt CO2-e or 200 TJ. Plenty of groups cross on energy before emissions. Our NGER thresholds guide and the piece on corporate group aggregation rules cover where the edges are.

7. Can it produce per-facility, per-gas figures? NGER reports by facility and by gas. A single Scope 1 total per site isn't enough.

8. Can an auditor follow one number back to its source without your help? Pick a facility total. Ask the vendor to walk from it to the invoice line it came from, in under a minute.

9. Can you lock a period and record why something changed after it? Once a year is lodged, edits should need a recorded reason. Silent edits to a lodged year are how restatements turn into findings.

10. What does it produce for lodgement, and who lodges? The honest answer is that the reporting entity lodges through EERS. The software should give you figures and a file in a shape that makes that step quick. Anyone implying otherwise is overselling.

Pricing is the eleventh question, but you'll ask that one anyway.

How Carbonly answers each question

We built Carbonly after years running production data pipelines in Australian enterprise environments. The design goal for NGER was simple to state. Any figure in the submission should lead back to a document, in a few clicks, without someone having to remember how it was done.

Here's how that maps to the checklist. This is the one table in this post, and it's the one to keep open during a vendor demo.

Question	What Carbonly does
Documents	Reads supplier invoices, dockets and utility bills in eight file formats, including scanned PDFs and images, Excel, CSV and Word
Quantities	Extracts physical quantities line by line and keeps the verbatim line text as evidence
Unit conversion	Units that need an unstated figure, such as m3 to tonnes with no density, go to a reviewer
GWP set	Calculates on AR5, the NGER basis (methane 28)
Factor edition	Factor version, GWP set and method are snapshotted on each record at confirmation
Thresholds	Facility and corporate group status computed from the ledger, on both the emissions and energy arms
Per-facility, per-gas	NGER report with figures by facility and by gas
Traceability	Evidence pack and a read-only auditor role, designed to support ASSA 5010 limited assurance
Locking	Period locking, with a recorded reason required for any restatement
Lodgement	An XML export laid out for EERS; you check it and lodge it yourself

A few of those need more than a table cell.

Messy invoices. The document engine reads each line on a supplier invoice separately. A credit line reduces the total. Hire fees, delivery charges and dollar-only lines are skipped, because they aren't activity data. Each line is matched to an NGA factor, an EPD factor or your organisation's own factor library through five tiers of matching, with a confidence score. Low-confidence matches go to a reviewer.

When a reviewer corrects a match, the line text is saved as an alias for your organisation only. Next quarter, the same supplier's odd product description resolves on its own. Nothing is shared across organisations.

Spend-based lines. If a line only has a dollar figure, Carbonly flags it as low data quality. It doesn't dress it up as activity data. For NGER that line usually means someone needs to chase the quantity.

Checks before lodgement. Deterministic anomaly checks run daily at 6am and after each document batch. They catch duplicates, outliers against a site's own history and unit mismatches. These are rules, not a model, which is the point. An assurer can read a rule. A Data Health Agent separately reports coverage gaps and stale data, such as a facility with no electricity bill since August.

Ingestion. Documents can arrive by a per-project email address, or sync from OneDrive and SharePoint folders your site teams already use. That's where most construction and property document flows already live.

Changes after lodgement. Period locking stops a lodged year from moving. If something has to change, the restatement needs a reason, and every ledger write is recorded as a typed audit event. Records are kept for seven years under our internal policy. The NGER Act requires five. Our walkthrough on resubmitting after an error covers how that plays out with the regulator.

For what goes into an assurance pack and how it's assembled, see NGER audit preparation and the evidence pack. For a screen-by-screen view of the report itself, see the NGER report generation walkthrough.

Where we'd still put a person in the loop

Carbonly records the factor version on every confirmed record. It doesn't yet pin a record to an NGA edition by its activity date. So for bills that straddle 30 June 2026, someone should check that the 2026 edition is active before 2026-27 activity is confirmed, and split the straddling bill by days.

That's a one-off check at the year boundary. But we'd rather you hear it from us than find it in a sample.

We'd also keep a person on method choices. Whether a facility uses Method 1 default factors or moves to a higher method is an engineering and commercial decision. Software holds the inputs and shows the effect. It shouldn't make that call for you.

And the reporting entity stays responsible for what's lodged. Software supports a submission. It doesn't sign it.

What the same ledger does beyond NGER

Most NGER reporters are being pulled into AASB S2 as well. Group 2 entities started their first reporting year on 1 July 2026, and NGER registration is itself one of the triggers for ASRS reporting. Limited assurance under ASSA 5010 applies from year one.

The NGER figures and the AASB S2 Scope 1 and 2 figures should come from the same records. AASB S2 references AR6, but AASB S2025-1 lets the NGER-covered portion keep AR5. So one set of facility records can serve both, provided the boundary and method choices are documented once.

Then there's Scope 3, which NGER doesn't cover and AASB S2 does after the first-year relief. The same document engine reads the supplier invoices that feed Scope 3: concrete, steel, freight, waste. A concrete docket that says "N32" is a strength grade, not a carbon figure. Matching it to the right factor, and stopping when a unit can't be converted, is the same discipline the NGER lines need. Scope 3 lines are simply harder.

If you're new to all of this, our first-time NGER reporter guide is the better starting point. If you're comparing platforms more broadly, see carbon accounting software in Australia. The full NGER content set sits on the NGER topic hub.

What it costs

Carbonly is priced per project, with an A$100 per month workspace minimum and no per-seat fees. That means your site engineers, finance team and assurance provider can all have access without the bill growing per login. Details are on the pricing page.

FAQ

Does NGER reporting software submit to the Clean Energy Regulator for me? No. The reporting entity lodges through the EERS portal. Software prepares the figures and the evidence behind them, and Carbonly produces an XML export laid out for EERS that you check and lodge yourself.

Which emission factors should 2026-27 NGER figures use? Activity from 1 July 2026 uses the NGA Factors 2026 edition published by DCCEEW. Activity in 2025-26 uses the 2025 edition. Each record should carry the edition it was calculated with, so a later library update doesn't change a lodged year.

Does NGER use AR5 or AR6 global warming potentials? NGER uses AR5, set in regulation 2.02 of the NGER Regulations. Methane is 28 and nitrous oxide is 265. AASB S2 references AR6, though AASB S2025-1 lets the NGER-covered portion of an AASB S2 disclosure keep AR5. Carbonly calculates on AR5.

What are the NGER reporting thresholds? A facility reports at 25 kt CO2-e or 100 TJ of energy. A corporate group reports at 50 kt CO2-e or 200 TJ. Either arm triggers the obligation, so software should test both at both levels.

Can NGER compliance software guarantee my report passes an audit? No, and be wary of any vendor that says it can. Software can keep the evidence trail, flag gaps and lock periods. The reporting entity and its assurance provider remain responsible for the result.

How long do NGER records need to be kept? The NGER Act requires records to be kept for five years from the end of the reporting year. Carbonly retains records for seven years under its internal policy.

Do we still need a consultant if we buy NGER software? Many reporters keep one, especially for method selection, facility boundaries and assurance readiness. Software handles the document work and holds the evidence, which gives a consultant cleaner inputs to work from.

If you want to see your own invoices and bills run through this before the 2026-27 documents pile up, book a 30-minute walkthrough at calendly.com/carbonly/30min or email hello@carbonly.ai.