Need to implement group consolidation. Recommendations?

Need to implement group consolidation....

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As mentioned below am starting a new job soon (thanks for the health advice Ron). One of our first jobs is to implement group reporting on the many other companies owned by the people starting up the new venture. We are researching accountancy packages that support group reporting. Any recomendations, or would we be best served simply using excel?
Pat Bateman

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By neileg
23rd Aug 2002 15:52

No substitute
Make sure you understand the priciples involved in the consolidation of the group, first. I don't intend to patronise, but you said you were rusty on your financial accounting theory. Trying to implment a complex piece of software to do a job you don't fully understand will be a nightmare.

Most of the benefits of consolidation software come from complex groups of dissimilar companies with minority shareholdings. If your group is simple and the trading activites are similar, I'd try Excel first, or even go back to T accounts and 16 column cash...

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By mentla
22nd Aug 2002 09:31

Excel problems
Bryan,

I'm actualy blitzing the books on VBA in excel at the moment trying to get as near as possible to expert level. Any hints on problems to look out for?

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By AnonymousUser
23rd Aug 2002 00:02

Forget a new accounting system
Pat,

Yes, Excel could do what you want, and the fact is that even Crystal Reports or even Comshare or the Frango products.

Basically, as long as your IT infrastructure boys have got their thinking caps on, you should be able to pull data into any of the above as they should all support multi-source data input.

So you could pay over 10 grand on a report writer or invest a couple of hundred quid on a reporting tool.

You do not need to invest thousands on a new acounting system I can assure you and don't let anyone persuade you into thinking so.

Regards,

Sohaib Sandhu
[email protected]

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By David Turner
22nd Aug 2002 10:53

CODA is used by many head offices for this
CODA does the sort of thing you want for many groups, from IKEA and Unilever to much smaller groups of companies. Newer technology than most of the others mentioned here. Check out www.CODA.com.

Good luck in the new job!

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By AnonymousUser
22nd Aug 2002 14:37

VBA Tutorial on Accounting
Pat,

There is an excellent VBA tutorial available on AccountingWEB written by Chris Bales - a long time member of the site. It is an excellent resource of the topic - particularly when you consider that it written from the accountant's perspective.

Thanks

Richard Norton
Community Member
AccountingWEB

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By AnonymousUser
21st Aug 2002 15:27

Depends on what you want
Pat

Depends upon a number of factors,

number of users, budget, type of business technology etc PLUS how do you actually want to deal with the group reporting e.g.

1) Export data from different systems into Excel
2) Use 1 system in all the companies and consolidate in the GL or use report writing tools to consolidate info held in different GLs
3) Use a report writer which can extract data from all of these systems
4) Use a datawarehouse to consolidate

How are the GLs structured, do they all use the same codes/format, are periods the sames, how often are codes amended

Most packages will claim to support groupwide reporting, (some even do.)

These sites may give you some information to help start the process. www.comshare.com and www.frango.com are consolidation/reporting tools and www.crystaldecisions.com and www.frxsoft are often used as GL based report writers.

As a low cost startup solution Excel is okay and if you are aware of the risks then you can mitigate them

Rgds

Bryan

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