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Consolidated Figures Across Companies

ERP Analytics reports one company at a time unless you ask for a group total. A group total is a saved report marked Consolidated, a BI dashboard figure set to the group, or a role centre figure for all your companies. Each adds together only the companies the person looking can read, translated into one group currency, and says plainly what happened to trading between those companies.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → ERP - Trading & Analytics:

  • Analytics — the console: the Consolidated tick when saving a report, and the Schedules tab

Architect Panel → ERP - Finance:

  • Exchange Rates — the rates group figures are translated at

Admin Panel → Reporting:

  • ERP Analytics — the same console
  • Dashboards — BI dashboards, where an ERP figure can be set to the group

Who can consolidate

Saving a consolidated report needs ERP: Finance (or ERP: Administration together with ERP: Reporting) and read access to at least two companies. Running one needs read access to two or more companies at the time. Someone who can read fewer companies sees fewer: a group total never includes a company the viewer cannot read.

Which currency

If every company keeps its books in the same currency, that is the group currency. Otherwise the companies' common reporting currency is used, set on each company in ERP Setup → Companies. If they name different reporting currencies, the report is refused with the reason. Then:

  • Flows (revenue, costs, cash in and out) are translated month by month at that month's average rate, falling back to the latest spot or closing rate on or before the month end.
  • Balances are translated at the closing rate on the last day of the period.
  • Only money is translated. Counts, hours and quantities are simply added. An average or minimum of amounts in two currencies is refused.
  • A missing rate refuses the figure, naming the currency and month; it is never treated as 1.

Money columns in exports are headed with their currency, for example "Revenue (GBP)".

Saving a consolidated report

  1. Build the question on Explore and click Save as report….
  2. Tick Consolidated - total every company the person running it can read. The hint under it names the group currency, or says why consolidation is not possible.
  3. Leave Always run it for the company it was built for unticked, and click Save report.
  4. To schedule it, choose The whole group (consolidated) as the company. The Schedules tab shows it as Whole group (consolidated), every company its owner can read, in the group currency.

Intercompany trading

Every group figure carries a sentence about intercompany trading, read from the ledger for that period:

  • With no elimination company in the group: Intercompany trading is not eliminated, naming the companies that traded with each other.
  • With an elimination company but nothing posted in it: a warning, No intercompany eliminations have been posted for this period - trading between the companies is included.
  • With eliminations posted: which company and how many journals, and, where members still booked sales and purchases with each other, that those are still in income and expenses.

Posting the eliminations themselves is a ledger task (see Consolidation and Intercompany Eliminations).

What goes wrong

  • "These companies keep their books in … and do not name ONE group reporting currency": set the same reporting currency on each company, or report on each separately.
  • "'…' cannot be translated into …: there is no exchange rate from …": load the average, spot or closing rate, then run again.
  • The Consolidated tick is disabled: you cannot read two companies, or the companies have no common currency; the hint says which.
  • A group total looks high: read the intercompany sentence; trading between members may not be eliminated.

Worked example

A group has a UK parent (GBP), a US subsidiary (USD) and an elimination company, all with reporting currency GBP. The CFO saves "Group P&L by month" as Consolidated. September's US revenue is translated at September's average USD rate, while the balance sheet report uses the closing rate on 30 September. The note under the heading warns that no eliminations have been posted for September, so the controller posts them, and the October run says how many elimination journals are included.

Recommendations

  • Set a reporting currency on every company before building group reports.
  • Load average and closing rates each month.
  • Post eliminations before reading group profit.
  • Schedule group reports from someone who can read every company, since a schedule runs with its owner's access.