Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) report

The Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) report works out the weight of packaging you have sold over a reporting period, grouped into the packaging categories used by EPR schemes. It gives you the figures you need for your packaging data submission to your national scheme.

Breww doesn't record packaging weights against each sale. Instead, the report looks at the products you have invoiced, works out which packaging went into each one from how the product is set up, and adds up the weights. This means the report is only as accurate as your product and packaging setup, so most of this guide covers getting that setup right.

Finding the report

Click Reporting on the main menu, expand Pre-built Sales reports, and select Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) under Compliance & deposits. You can also type EPR into the Search all reports box. See Navigating the reporting dashboard for more on finding reports.

The report page has two buttons at the top for setting up your data: Manage packaging sub-types and Manage packaging stock items.

Permissions

• To run the report, a user needs the All reporting permission, or both the Reporting and General sales permissions.
• To manage packaging sub-types and packaging stock items, a user needs the Reporting or All reporting permission.
• To export the report to Excel or CSV, a user also needs the Export reports and bulk data permission.

See User groups and permissions for how to give users these permissions.

What the report counts

Which sales are included

• Only invoices with a status of Invoiced are included. Draft orders, confirmed orders, cancelled orders and orders marked as Completed (no invoice) are not counted.
• Each sale is placed in a time period using the issue date of its invoice.
• Stock transfers between your own sites are not counted.
• Returns and credit notes do not reduce the figures. The EPR obligation arises when packaging is supplied, so packaging stays in the report even if the product later comes back.

Which packaging is counted

For each product sold, the report includes every stock item of type Packaging that goes into the product:

• Stock items directly assigned to the product, including any added by a smallpack packaging format. These are counted whichever of Used when product is initially packaged and Used when product is assembled from existing stock apply to them.
• Stock items always used when packaging each container type in the product, multiplied by the number of containers in the product. For example, a can and a can end set up on a 440ml can container type are counted 12 times for a 12-pack. These are skipped for any product with Ignore container type default stock items enabled.

Alias products use the packaging set up on the product they are an alias of.

Stock items of any other type, such as Other or Merchandise & POS, are never included, so make sure every item of packaging you want reported has the type Packaging. For help setting up which stock items go into a product, see Assigning stock items to products or container types.

How the figures are calculated

For each packaging stock item in a product sold, Breww takes:

quantity of the stock item in one product x number of products sold x the stock item's weight

The result is then added to the report row that matches the EPR details of the stock item's sub-type (see Understanding the report output below).

Setting up your packaging data

There are two setup steps, both of which you can reach from the buttons at the top of the EPR report page:

1. Give each packaging sub-type its EPR details.
2. Give each packaging stock item a sub-type and a weight.

Step 1: Set up packaging sub-types

Sub-types group your packaging stock items by how they should be reported. For example, you might have sub-types called "Aluminium cans", "Can ends", "Glass bottles", "Crown caps" and "Cardboard outer boxes". Every packaging stock item in a sub-type is reported with that sub-type's EPR details.

Click Manage packaging sub-types on the EPR report page to open the EPR packaging sub-types page. This lists every stock item sub-type with the type Packaging. These are the same sub-types you see under Settings -> Stock, sites & purchasing -> Stock item sub-types (see Stock item sub-types), but their EPR details can only be edited from this page.

Creating a packaging sub-type

1. Click Add new sub-type.
2. Enter a Stock item sub-type name. Names must be unique.
3. Complete the required EPR fields:
   • Packaging activity: how you supply this packaging, for example packed/filled by you or imported.
   • Packaging type: the category of packaging, for example household or non-household drinks containers.
   • Packaging class: the level of packaging, for example primary or secondary.
   • Material: what the packaging is made from, for example aluminium, glass or paper/card.
4. Optionally complete:
   • Sub-material: a more specific material, where your scheme asks for one.
   • RAM/RAG rating: the recyclability rating, where your scheme asks for one.
5. Choose whether to Include in weight and Include in unit count (see Choosing what is included in the weight and unit count below). Both are enabled by default.
6. Click Save.

The EPR fields are free text, and the report shows exactly what you type. Enter the codes or values your scheme asks for, and use exactly the same spelling and capitalisation on every sub-type, as AL and Al appear as two separate rows on the report.

The examples shown under each field depend on your business country.

UK breweries use the codes from the UK EPR for packaging scheme, for example:

EU breweries enter the values used by their national scheme, for example "Manufacturer", "Primary", "Aluminium" or "PET".

Editing a packaging sub-type

Every sub-type's EPR details can be edited directly in the table. Click into a field, change the value, and click out of the box to save. A message under the field confirms when it has been saved.

In the Include in report column, the Weight and Unit count checkboxes save as soon as you change them.

Choosing what is included in the weight and unit count

EPR rules differ between countries about which packaging adds to the total weight and which counts as a unit, so you choose this for each sub-type:

• Include in weight adds the weight of the sub-type's stock items to the Quantity (kg) column.
• Include in unit count adds the number of the sub-type's stock items to the Units column.

These settings apply to every stock item in the sub-type. If a lid, cap or label shares a sub-type with the can or bottle it goes on, move it into its own sub-type first so you can set them differently.

If both are disabled, the sub-type's stock items are left out of the report completely. If only Include in unit count is enabled, the items add to the unit count but not to the weight.

In the UK:

• Only the can or bottle itself counts toward the unit count, so disable Include in unit count for lids, can ends, labels, closures and boxes.
• For PET, steel and aluminium containers, the weight of the lid and label is reported under the container's material. Give those sub-types the same packaging activity, type, class and material as the container, and the report combines them into the container's row.
• For glass bottles, labels and caps are reported separately under their own material. If you sell both cans and bottles, use separate sub-types for can labels and bottle labels.

See the GOV.UK guidance on what to report for the full rules.

For example, a UK brewery selling 440ml cans might set up:

With the same packaging activity, type and class on the first three sub-types, cans, ends and labels are reported as one aluminium row with one unit per can.

Deleting a packaging sub-type

Use the delete button in the Actions column. A sub-type can only be deleted when no stock items are assigned to it. Otherwise, the button is disabled and hovering over it shows how many stock items use it, so move those stock items to another sub-type first.

Step 2: Set up packaging stock items

Click Manage packaging stock items on the EPR report page to open the EPR packaging stock items page. This lists every stock item with the type Packaging that isn't obsolete. If any are missing a sub-type or a weight, a warning at the top shows how many.

Assigning a sub-type

Select the sub-type in the Sub-type dropdown on each row. It saves as soon as you choose. If the sub-type you need doesn't exist yet, click Manage sub-types to create it.

You can also set this using the Packaging sub-type field when editing the stock item itself.

Entering a weight

Enter the weight of the stock item in kilograms in the Weight (kg) field, then click out of the box to save. This page is the only place where a stock item's weight is entered.

For stock items tracked in Unit, enter the weight of a single item. For example, if one 440ml can weighs 13 grams, enter 0.013. Breww multiplies this by the number of items used in the products you sold.

A weight of 0 or a blank weight is treated as missing.

Checking your products use the right packaging

Click Product associated stock item review to run a report listing the stock items linked to each of your products. This is a quick way to spot products with no packaging assigned, which would otherwise be missing from your EPR figures without any warning.

Running the report

1. Click Reporting and select Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).
2. Choose a Reporting period. To enter your own dates, choose Custom date range and set a Start date and End date.
3. Choose how to Group by period:
   • Quarter: calendar quarters, for example 2026-Q1 for January to March.
   • Half year: 2026-H1 for January to June and 2026-H2 for July to December.
   • Year: calendar years, for example 2026. This is the default.
4. Click Run report.

If your packaging data is incomplete

Before calculating anything, Breww checks your packaging data. If there's a problem, an EPR data validation failed message lists what needs fixing instead of showing results. Use Manage packaging sub-types and Manage packaging stock items to fix them, then run the report again. The possible problems are:

• Packaging sub-types missing required EPR data: a packaging sub-type is missing a Packaging activity, Packaging type, Packaging class or Material. Every packaging sub-type is checked, including ones no stock items use, so either complete or delete sub-types you don't need.
• Packaging stock items without a sub-type: a packaging stock item has no sub-type.
• Packaging stock items without a weight: a packaging stock item has no weight, or a weight of 0.

Understanding the report output

Sub-types are combined into a single row when their time period, Packaging activity, Packaging type, Packaging class, Material, Sub-material and RAM/RAG rating all match. This is how can ends and labels are added to the weight of the cans they belong to.

Weights are rounded per row, so a row with less than half a kilogram of packaging shows 0.

The report also includes a Packaging weight by material and activity chart, showing the total weight for each material, split by packaging activity. Use View as chart and View as table to switch between them. See Charts, drill-downs and row actions on reports for more.

Exporting the report

After running the report, click Export and choose Export to Excel or Export to CSV. The export has the same columns as the report on screen.