why do I have to personally verify what is extracted from my documents

The company reads the documents, you confirm what they contain

Esgia extracts figures from the documents that are uploaded — an energy bill, fuel receipts, a payroll administration extract — but it is the entrepreneur who confirms whether that result is correct. This is not an extra step for formality: nobody knows their own business operations as well as the entrepreneur themselves, and only they know whether a figure read from a document actually belongs to the correct premises, the correct vehicle or the correct period. An energy bill might contain two addresses, for example, or a fuel receipt might concern a leased vehicle no longer in use. That kind of context is not in the document itself; it exists only with the entrepreneur.

That confirmation is also precisely why the file at esgia is retained and can be used again with the next questionnaire: it is not a raw extraction that needs to be checked again, but a state of affairs agreed by the entrepreneur. Without that confirmation, every figure in the file would remain an assumption rather than an established fact. When classifying emissions into categories — scope 1, 2 and 3 — the same logic applies: the classification follows a fixed method, but whether a particular fuel receipt or energy bill actually belongs to the company's own activities is something only the entrepreneur can assess.

Why this follows from how the core module of VSME is structured

The core module of EFRAG's VSME standard is based on data that the reporting company itself provides and considers correct; the platform processes and structures that data, but does not replace the company's responsibility for its content. This also aligns with what esgia is and is not: there is no audit, no assurance and no mark of approval that endorses the result afterwards — a recognised body for this type of SME reporting does not exist. The confirmation by the entrepreneur is therefore not a replacement for that control, but the only moment at which the accuracy of the data is established.