Consolidation - Common questions

If you've run the consolidation, then the balance of this account has been posted to the suspense account in the parent companyreporting company.

Don't forget to link the nominal account in the subsidiary to the correct account in the parent before you consolidate again.

• If the subsidiary nominal account is linked to the wrong account in the parent (which exists), then the balance will have posted to this wrong account in the parent companyreporting company.
• If the subsidiary nominal account is linked to an account that doesn't exist in the parent, then the balance will have posted to the suspense account in the parent companyreporting company.

Either way, the best way to resolve this is to log into the parent company and enter a journal to transfer the balance to the correct nominal account.

Don't forget to link the nominal account in the subsidiary to the correct account in the parent before you consolidate again.

OK, so a number of your subsidiary companiesschools have consolidated into your parent companyreporting company, but the figures are incorrect and you need to do it again.

There two ways you can handle this:

• If it's just a small error from one subsidiary, such as posting to an incorrect nominal account or the suspense account in the parent, then we recommend that you resolve this by posting a journal your parent companyreporting company.
• If it's a larger issue with errors across multiple periods or multiple subsidiary companiesschools, then we recommend that you remove all of the consolidation transactions and start again.

Clearing the consolidation and starting again

You can only do this when the parent companyreporting company only contains consolidated transactions posted from the subsidiaries. Remember that a parent companyreporting company should not be used for trading.

Clearing the consolidation will remove all the transactions from the parent companyreporting company and sets the balance of every nominal account back to zero. Once you do this, you must clear the consolidated balances (step 2) in each subsidiary companyschool and re-consolidate every subsidiary companyschool (step 3).

Tip: If you only require consolidated reports for your year end, then we recommend that you only consolidate your balances once at the year end, as this reduces the possibility of errors.

To clear your consolidations:

1. Clear the balances of all the nominal accounts in the parent companyreporting company.

   Note - danger

   This clears all transactions from this company database. Do not use this in a subsidiary companyschool.

   See how to do this

   Open: Settings > Cash Book / Nominal Ledger > Zero balances.

   • Click OK.

2. Clear the consolidate balances in each subsidiary companyschool.

   This clears the values already consolidated for each nominal account in the subsidiary companyschool. Once you've cleared the consolidated amounts, the next time you consolidate, the entire trial balance is posted to the parent companyreporting company.

   See how to do this

   Open: Settings > Cash Book / Nominal Ledger > Clear Consolidated Amounts.

   • Click OK.

3. Run the consolidation again for each subsidiary companyschool.

   You only need to run the consolidation once for each subsidiary. Make sure your run it up to the end of the of your most recent period. If you're only running the consolidation once a year, then run the consolidation up to the end of your financial year.

   The year to date balance of each account is posted to the parent companyreporting company.

You can check your nominal account links in the following places:

• Amend Report Categories and Consolidation Settings

  Here you can see the linked nominal accounts.

  See how to do this

  Open: Settings > Cash Book / Nominal Ledger > Amend Report Categories and Consolidation Settings.

  1. Click Display to show your nominal accounts.
     • To filter the list, select Code, Cost centre or Report category; then select the range to display.
  2. Check the nominal account in the subsidiary is linked to the correct account in the parent. The Code, CC and Dept should match the correct Cons Code, Cons CC and Cons Dept.

  This is a quick way to identify accounts that don't have a linked consolidated account.

  This doesn't show you whether the linked account exists in the parent, however you can change the linked account from here. The drop-down in the column shows the nominal accounts list from the parent.

• Nominal List

  You can see the linked nominal accounts on the Consolidated Account Number, Consolidated Cost Centre and Consolidated Department columns. If the columns are not displayed by default, you can add them to the list.

  See how to do this

  Open: Nominal > Nominal List.

  1. Right -click on the list and select Columns.
  2. Select the columns you want to add.

  This is a quick way to identify accounts that don't have a linked consolidated account.

  This doesn't show you whether the linked account exists in the parent, and you can't link an account from here.

• Amend Nominal Account Details

  Here you can check the linked nominal accounts individually.

  See how to do this

  Open: Nominal > Create & Amend Accounts > Amend Nominal Account Details.

  1. Select the nominal account.
  2. On the Account tab, check the Consolidated Account.

  Tip: If it the linked account doesn't exist in the parent, the Consolidated account is highlighted in yellow.

You can see which parent companyreporting company the subsidiary companyschool is linked to on the Company Management screen.

Open: Settings > Organisational and Financial > Company Management.

You can change the parent for all your subsidiaries from here.

In the subsidiary companyschool:

• Check the period you're consolidating up to.

  If you've already consolidated for that period and haven't entered any more transactions, then there's no value to consolidate. When this is the case you'll see a No items to consolidate message.

• Check the Failed Consolidations workspace. Open Period End Routines > Failed Consolidations.

  Use this to see if there was a loss of connection between the subsidiary and the parent during consolidation. If any transactions show here, then the consolidation will need to be re-sent.

In the parent companyreporting company:

• Check that the period is Open in your parent companyreporting company.

  If the period is still a Future period, then the consolidation transaction will be posted to the Deferred file and won't show on the current transaction enquiries.

  Check the Nominal Deferred Pending Postings workspace. Open Nominal > Nominal Enquiries > Nominal Deferred Pending Postings.

If you consolidate again, only the value of any transactions entered since the last time you consolidated are included in the nominal account balance.

This is because the trial balance the last time the consolidation was run is deducted from the actual trial balance at the end of the selected period.

If the transaction was entered in a previous period, it's still included in the consolidated balance.

The name of the subsidiary companyschool is automatically added to Narrative of each consolidation transaction.