Combined vs. consolidated reporting

Financial statements generated by an external tool such as the Excel add-in can either show combined data from a group of sites, or consolidated data from an entity and its reporting sites.

If you want to create sample financial statements before changing a hierarchical structure, to see what the combined data from multiple sites will look like, you can mimic the new proposed structure. Use the Excel Financial Reporting tool to pull data from multiple sites using GL functions and combine them using Excel features. The balance can be converted into the currency of your choice for reporting.

With the Excel Financial Reporting tool, it is not necessary to use the same Chart of Accounts format or currency across sites. For example, you can combine the cash balances from different sites with a formula like =SLGLBAL(“10000”,,,,,”DALS”) + SLGLBAL(“10100”,,,,,”LOND”, “USD”). This formula specifies the account number, site and currency (when necessary). In the example:

The LOND Cash Account uses a currency parameter which converts the amount to USD. The DALS Cash Account does not need a currency parameter because it is already in USD.
Both 10000 and 10100 represent Cash Account in the different sites.

Even after you have set up a consolidated environment, you can still run combined financial statements for a group of sites.

Before you run consolidated financial reports for an entity, all sites that report to the entity must have run the Ledger Consolidation utility. When the financial statement is run, no currency translation is required, because the data at the entity level is already translated into the entity's currency and Chart of Accounts.