The more detailed your accounts are the more accurate your TBL results will be. As a lower limit, we recommend that you identify at least 20 different account items, such as stationery, paper, petrol, electricity, gas, insurance, banking, car rental, repairs etc. Detailed accounts can sometimes distinguish up to 500 line items! When collecting and preparing data, keep in mind which indicators you want to report on.
If for example energy is one of these indicators, provide good detail on fuel use and transport. If land is one of your indicators, check whether food or meals were purchased. If employment is one of your indicators, ensure that you can distinguish between goods and services.
For example, an account item ‘motor vehicle repairs’ can mean that the repairs were done company-internally, and the money was spent purely on spare parts; or it can mean that the motor vehicles were serviced by a garage, in which case the money paid would have been for parts and for labour. This service is likely to entail more employment than an equal purchase of parts. Throughout the manual for ISA, commonly asked questions and answers are listed to help you in quickly becoming used to interpreting financial accounts.
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