Financial systems in a company often changes over time due to a number of business changes: acquisitions, global expansion and changing regulations/laws are just a some of them. However one aspect of the business that does not change is the executive management's need to have a consistent, real-time picture of the consolidated financial performance of the company. Without this essential information, it is impossible to make informed decisions and steer a company in the right direction.

Financial consolidation across the enterprise establishes the top-down view of the organization. The methods by which the consolidated data is obtained differ among organizations, usually depending on the size of the organization and what enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution they have in place.

The following are some of the methods that can be used to obtain a consolidated financial result.

• Manual consolidation using spreadsheets
• Consolidation within the ERP system
• Use of third-party tools for consolidation and reporting

One company will probably use more than one of the above methods.

In 4C we can help you find the method that suits your requirements/organization best and more importantly we can also assist your organization in optimizing the existing process before implementing a IT system to support the financial consolidation process.