In this blog, I will take you through the steps for running Consolidation in Business Central, for companies within the same database as the consolidated company.
Consolidation is combining the financial data of two or more separate companies (subsidiaries) into one consolidated company for financial reporting.
Below I outline the setups required to be completed for the consolidation, and the process of consolidating the data in Business Central.
Setting up the Consolidation
Set up a Consolidated Company
A new consolidated company first needs to be set up. You can use the ‘Copy’ functionality from the ‘Companies’ page in Business Central, to easily create the consolidated company.
Set up Consolidation information on all G/L Accounts for each subsidiary company
Specify the Consol. Debit Account, Consol. Credit Account and the ‘Consol. Translation Method’ for all the G/L Accounts in Business Central.
Setting up Business Unit Information
Set up a Business Unit for each subsidiary on the consolidated company.
Specify Exchange Rates for Consolidations
There are three exchange rates that the program uses when consolidating the financial data of subsidiary companies involving foreign currency, in Business Central. They are Average Rate (Manual), Closing Rate and Last Closing Rate.
Setting up Dimension Information for Consolidations on each subsidiary company
It is also possible to consolidate dimension information as well as G/L Accounts in Business Central.
Only fill in the Consolidated Code field where the dimension value code in the subsidiary company is to be consolidated to a different dimension value code in the consolidated company.
Consolidating the data
Open the Business Unit page on the consolidated company and then click on Actions → Import Database. Specify the ‘Consolidation Period’, ‘Copy Dimensions’ ‘Document No.’ and the Business Unit Code. Then click on ‘OK’.
This function will import the financial data from the subsidiary and post it to the consolidated company automatically.
Processing Consolidation Eliminations
Any elimination entries will need to be calculated manually and posted using a General Journal.
Note: For more information on any field, select F1 and online help will be displayed for the field. You can ‘Search’ in Business Central to locate any pages.