Benefits of Financial Consolidation Software

Transparency, accountability, and accuracy are three of the key tenets of financial reporting.One way finance teams can incorporate these principles into their reporting efforts is to leverage specialized financial consolidation software. This strategy provides a structured framework for accurate and compliant financial reporting among large-scale companies.

This article explores the benefits of financial consolidation software and how finance departments can effectively harness these advantages to yield more accurate and seamless financial reporting. We'll also touch on the role of consolidation software in creating high-quality consolidated financial statements.

What Is Financial Consolidation?

Financial Consolidation Defined

Financial consolidation involves combining the trial balances of the various departments and business units within a company to create a unified financial statement. This unified or consolidated financial statement becomes the basis upon which key financial reports are created, such as consolidated balance sheets, consolidated cash flow statements, and consolidated income statements.

Financial consolidation is typically performed by parent companies with multiple subsidiaries and controlling interests.

What Are the Advantages of Financial Consolidation?

Enhanced Decision-Making

Financial consolidation provides strategic insights into the financial health of a parent company and its business interests. This allows for informed decision-making among the company's internal and external stakeholders. These business leaders also become better equipped to correct past mistakes, set new goals, and devise long-term investment strategies.

Increased Investor Confidence

Investors value companies that can effectively communicate their financial performance, objectives, and strategies. Financial consolidation sets the tone for this communication by providing an all-inclusive view of a company's economy and future outlook. This strategy also helps investors and other internal and external stakeholders assess a company's ability to optimize resources for maximum returns. 

More Accurate Financial Reporting 

The process of financial consolidation includes many accuracy-focused steps, including:

• Regulatory guidelines: Consolidation processes are governed by regulatory guidelines that emphasize accuracy, transparency, and comparability. These guidelines include Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), and Accounting Standards for Private Enterprises (ASPE).

• Currency conversion: During consolidation, finance teams convert all transactions done in foreign currencies into the reporting currency. This ensures that consolidated financials are presented in a single currency, thus reducing discrepancies.
• Eliminations of intercompany transactions: Finance teams also eliminate intercompany transactions during consolidation. This helps avoid double-counting subsidiary trial balances and solidifies the accuracy of the final financial report.
• Partial ownership considerations: If the parent company doesn't have full ownership of a business entity, special accounting methods are employed to accurately represent the parent's controlling stake in the entity. These methods include proportionate consolidation and the equity method.
• Journal entry adjustments: Financial consolidation incorporates journal entry adjustments to correct errors or discrepancies in the trial balance data. The final consolidated financial statement also makes disclosures of the methods and assumptions used.
• Data validation and reconciliation: Financial consolidation requires rigorous validation and reconciliation processes to verify all compiled data and accounting records. This helps identify and rectify any inconsistencies or errors.

Cost Efficiency

Redundant economic activities are a common source of revenue leaks among businesses. One tool that helps companies resolve this challenge is consolidated financial statements. These statements can help detect and address duplicated efforts, ill-performing business offerings, unnecessary expenditures, and other redundancies. This facilitates cost savings and responsible resource allocation.

Better Parent Company Oversight

It is crucial for parent companies to understand the financial contributions and needs of their subsidiaries, departments, and controlling interests. This clarity enhances the parent's ability to supervise each subsidiary company effectively and recognize achievements. Consolidated financial statements provide this clarity, along with other valuable insights.

Time Savings

Financial consolidation can also ensure time efficiency, especially when done with automated systems. This benefit is specifically achieved through streamlined intercompany eliminations, improved data adjustments, and other optimized workflow processes. By cutting time losses, financial consolidation allows finance teams to focus on strategic initiatives and other key business areas.

Reduced Risk

Finance teams are often tasked with identifying and assessing financial risks within a company. This task becomes especially challenging when dealing with multiple entities, subsidiaries, or business units. However, financial consolidation provides a solution by:

• Applying uniform risk assessment criteria and ensuring that risks are evaluated using the same standards across the company 
• Helping to identify systemic risks that may not be apparent when reviewing individual entities separately 
• Helping detect emerging risks early on so that potential financial setbacks can be addressed before they escalate
• Providing a unified platform for managing financial risks in accordance with regulatory guidelines 

Streamlined Reporting

Consolidated financial statements eliminate the need to create separate financial statements for individual entities within a company. This makes the reporting process more straightforward. Additionally, consolidated financial statements leverage consistent company-wide accounting policies, ensuring a uniform reporting process. This ensures that the company's consolidated income statement, consolidated balance sheet, consolidated cash flow statement, and other financial reports collectively provide a cohesive financial narrative.

Improved Scalability And Global Business Management

As a company expands into new international markets, it may encounter different accounting standards and statutory requirements. Financial consolidation, with the help of automated systems, can help manage this challenge by aligning the different standards and creating a unified reporting structure. This standardized approach makes it easier to analyze and understand a company's corporate performance across diverse markets.

What Are the Challenges Associated With Financial Consolidation?

Financial Consolidation Challenges and Considerations

Although financial consolidation offers several benefits, it also comes with challenges. Below is an overview of some of these pitfalls:

• Managing intercompany transactions: Eliminating intercompany transactions is essential for an accurate consolidated view. Identifying and reconciling these transactions across various entities can be a complex process, especially when dealing with a high volume of intercompany interactions.

• Timeliness of data collection processes: Gathering financial data from multiple entities within a specified timeframe can be challenging. Delays in receiving data from subsidiaries may hinder the timely completion of the consolidation process.
• Communication and Coordination: Effective communication and coordination among different departments, subsidiaries, and stakeholders are essential. Miscommunication or lack of coordination can lead to errors and delays in the financial consolidation process.
• Currency fluctuations: Dealing with multiple currencies adds complexity to the consolidation process. Currency translation must be carefully managed to present consolidated financial statements in a consistent manner, ensuring data accuracy.
• Changes in organizational Structure: Mergers, acquisitions, or changes in the parent company structure can complicate the consolidation process. Integrating new entities or adjusting consolidation methods to reflect organizational changes requires careful attention.
• Growing financial data: As the company grows, the volume and complexity of its financial information increase. It can sometimes be challenging to accommodate this growth without sacrificing efficient consolidated data management.

Tips for Overcoming Common Hurdles Associated with Financial Consolidation 

Successfully navigating consolidation pitfalls requires a strategic approach. Below are some ways finance departments can mitigate challenges associated with financial consolidation:

• Use of financial consolidation software: Use financial consolidation software to streamline the financial consolidation process. This prevents manual data entry errors and improves the handling of financial data from disparate systems.
• Employee training: If necessary, provide further training on financial consolidation procedures, reporting requirements, and software tools to enhance the competence of the finance and accounting teams.
• Consistent accounting policies: Establish uniform accounting policies across the parent company and all subsidiaries to ensure a standardized and comparable financial consolidation process.
• Collaborative platforms: Foster collaboration among departments by using collaborative platforms that facilitate communication and information-sharing during the financial consolidation process.
• Enhance data security: Implement firm security measures to safeguard financial data and prevent data manipulation.
• Enforced reporting schedules: Timely submission of financial data is crucial for consolidation. So, enforce filing deadlines to reduce delays.
• Regular audits: Conduct periodic audits of financial data to identify and address discrepancies.
• Incorporating supplementary disclosures: Add relevant supplementary disclosures to provide additional context and transparency. 

Making Financial Consolidation Work: Maximizing Benefits and Addressing Challenges 

Financial consolidation adds strategic value to parent companies by providing a comprehensive view of their financial position. This strategy provides additional benefits in improved decision-making, time savings, and accurate financial reporting. However, challenges like handling currency fluctuations and growing financial data must be addressed.

The finance experts at Fluence have helped companies topple these challenges through our world-class financial consolidation software. Click here to request a demo today!