Written by Nils R. | Jul 4, 2020 7:00:00 AM
What is
a
Consolidating Trial Balance
? Consolidating Trial Balance Reports are considered essential control tools and are used by Group Controllers to ensure that the financial transactions supplied from subsidiaries are in balance. A key functionality in this type of consolidation report lists all financial accounts down the rows with a total that should be zero if everything is correct. Each subsidiary is listed in the columns along with a grand total. The report can be run by each division for their own sub-consolidation as well as for the corporate HQ for its divisions. Drill-down is important so that the controller can easily explore underlying transactions when needed. You will find an example of this type of consolidation report below.
Purpose of
Consolidating Trial Balance Reports Companies and organizations use Consolidating Trial Balance Reports to ensure that all subsidiary data is in balance before the rest of the consolidation process continues. When used as part of good business practices in a Finance & Accounting Department, a company can improve its ability to catch problems and improve the closing process, as well as, mitigate the risk that out-of-balance subsidiary data will slow down the time to deliver consolidated financials.
Consolidating Trial Balance Report
Example Here is an example of a Consolidating Trial Balance report. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1808"]
Consolidating Trial Balance Example[/caption] You can find hundreds of additional examples
here.
Who Uses This Type of
Consolidation Report
? The typical users of this type of consolidation report are: Controllers and Accountants.
Other
Consolidation Report
s Often Used in Conjunction with
Consolidating Trial Balance Reports Progressive Finance & Accounting Departments sometimes use several different Consolidating Trial Balance Reports, along with intercompany reports, profit & loss, balance sheet and other management and control tools.
Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From? The Actual (historical transactions) data typically comes from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Netsuite and others. In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional corporate performance management (CPM/EPM) solutions.
What Tools are Typically used for Reporting, Planning and Dashboards? Examples of business software used with the data and ERPs mentioned above are:
- Native ERP report writers and query tools
- Spreadsheets (for example Microsoft Excel)
- Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (for example Solver)
- Dashboards (for example Microsoft Power BI and Tableau)
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) Cloud Solutions and More Examples
