Consolidated Ledger > Consolidation Processes

The process of consolidating a subsidiary company’s account balances into the designated consolidation company simply transfers the account balances from the subsidiary to the consolidation company. The consolidation process is comparable to the transfer of data from a company’s subsidiary modules (e.g., AR or AP) to the company’s General Ledger module. It does not affect the subsidiary company’s GL account balances or its financial statements.

Each time a subsidiary company’s financial account balances are transferred to the consolidation company during a fiscal period, AccountMate overwrites the last transfer done for that period with the updated information. This allows you to keep your consolidation information updated without any duplication of transferred data. The subsidiary’s account balances are consolidated into the consolidation company’s account balances based on the subsidiary’s transaction dates.

Consolidation of account balances is performed in the consolidation company using the Consolidate Account Balances function and can be run immediately or on a set schedule. AccountMate creates beginning balance entries (i.e., period 0) for each subsidiary for each fiscal year that has consolidation entries up to the consolidation company’s current fiscal year.

Note: Transfers of financial account balances from subsidiary companies to the consolidation company are performed separately for each subsidiary company. Consolidation of account balances should be performed after the period-to-date transaction data from all of the subsidiary companies’ non-GL modules (e.g., AR, AP, PR, etc.) have been transferred to the subsidiary companies’ General Ledger to avoid transferring to the consolidation company incomplete subsidiary company data.

The pre-requisites for performing consolidation of account balances are as follows:

•Verify that you have mapped all of the subsidiary companies’ GL Account IDs to valid GL Account IDs in the consolidation company. Do not omit any subsidiary company’s GL Account ID.

•Verify that you have either closed the periods in the subsidiary modules of the subsidiary company or that you have performed Transfer Data to GL so that the GL Account ID balances are updated.

•Verify that the consolidation company’s fiscal periods in the Consolidated Ledger module are not restricted for posting.

•Verify that the consolidation company’s mapped GL Account IDs are active.

•Verify that the subsidiary company’s account balances are in balance.

•If at least one of the subsidiaries uses a currency that is different from the consolidation company’s home currency, be sure to update the exchange rates that will be used to consolidate the subsidiary GL Account ID balances into the consolidation company.

To consolidate a subsidiary company’s account balances into the consolidation company, perform the following:

1.Access the consolidation company. Select from the Module List the Consolidated Ledger module.

2.Access the Consolidate Account Balances function from the Transactions menu.

3.Accept or amend in the Translation Adjustment field the default GL Account ID to which AccountMate will post any foreign gains or losses resulting from multi-currency conversion during consolidation.

Note: If the consolidation and subsidiary companies have different home currencies, note of the following:

▪Be sure that the subsidiary’s home currency exists in the consolidation company’s currency code file.

▪Be sure that the subsidiary’s home currency exchange rates (i.e., closing, average of daily exchange rates) are set up in the consolidation company’s records for the applicable prior, current, and future fiscal years. These consolidation exchange rates will be used to calculate the consolidation company’s home transaction amounts during consolidation. Refer to the Set Up Consolidation Exchange Rates topic that discusses which exchange rates (i.e., closing rate, average rate, or daily rate) will be used during consolidation.

4.Click the List box button beside the Action field, and choose Consolidate Accounts.

5.Review in the Subsidiaries section each subsidiary company’s details including the date, time, and status of its most recent consolidation; then, mark the checkbox that corresponds to each subsidiary company that you want to consolidate into the consolidation company.

Note: The Subsidiaries section lists all the companies that were assigned in CL Module Setup as the consolidation company’s subsidiaries. You cannot choose a subsidiary to consolidate into the consolidation company if the subsidiary company is set to inactive in CL Module Setup or its current fiscal year start date is after the consolidation company’s current fiscal year-end date.

6.Choose one of the following options to configure AccountMate to perform your desired action in the event the consolidation fails:

•Proceed to the next company

•Stop process

7.Mark the E-mail error log to checkbox, and enter the e-mail address if you want AccountMate to automatically e-mail the error log to the designated recipients in the event the consolidation fails.

8.Click one of the following buttons to choose whether you perform consolidation immediately or on a certain schedule:

oStart

Click this button if you want to perform the consolidation immediately.

oSchedule

Click this button if you want to perform the consolidation on schedule. When you click this button, the Schedule window is displayed for you to set the schedule for the consolidation. Perform these steps in the Schedule window:

8.1. Enter in the Schedule Name field the desired name for the schedule to be set.

8.2. If you want the consolidation to run once, enter in the Start Date and End Date fields the specific date when you want consolidation to automatically run; however, if you want the consolidation to run on a recurring basis, enter in the Start Date and End Date fields the date range within which you want the consolidation to automatically run.

8.3. Enter in the Start Time field the specific time on the specified dates when you want AccountMate to start performing the consolidation.

8.4. Click the List box button beside the Occurs field, and choose whether you want to run the consolidation once or multiple times.

8.5. Click the List box button beside the Frequency field, and choose the frequency (i.e., Daily, Weekly, or Monthly) with which you want the consolidation to be performed.

8.6. When you have set the schedule, click the Save button to save your settings; otherwise, click Cancel.

In the event that AccountMate detects any issues that will affect the consolidation process (e.g., there are inactive GL Account IDs in the consolidation company, there are unmapped GL Account IDs in the subsidiaries, the subsidiaries’ account balances are out of balance, etc.), a dialog box is displayed stating the nature of the issue. Click OK to close the message; then, resolve the issue and start the consolidation again.

Perform Consolidation

Perform Consolidation