Sage releases Group Consolidation module

Sage’s Accountants Division has created a Group Consolidation module that takes advantage of technical advances that will feed through to the company’s family of accounts production products.

Currently available for Sage Accounts Production Advanced (SAPA), the Sage Group Consolidation tool is able to import trial balances from Sage 50 and Excel spreadsheets. When adjustments and consolidation workings are completed, the module will write back the data to the subsidiary entities’ final accounts to keep them all in synch. As adjustments are made to the subsidiaries accounts, the changes flow back in the other direction. “Now you simply update single the entity files and the information goes back to the group consolidation and flows straight through to extended trial balance and working papers,” explained Sage accounts production domain specialist Darren Inglis.

The group consolidation module comes with a Group Cashflow working papers utility for those who need to produce cashflow statements - as required by the IFRS for SMEs – and will store permanent data and working papers for use in subsequent years’ consolidations. .

A built-in “Scratchpad” provides Excel-like functionality that allows users to import or cut and paste trial balances into the program. Any Excel formulas will be preserved, while the worksheets that result will be fully compliant with SAPA’s internal logic. Said Inglis: “If you make a mistake in an Excel file it can  be like finding a needle in a haystack. We’re trying to avoid going outside the family so users can continue to do what they want, but not lose efficiency of SAPA.”

While the requirements for more companies to file group accounts and cashflow statements to comply with the IFRS for SMEs was a primary driver behind the project, the new module will also take advantage of inline XBRL (iXBRL) output provided a new Interactive Financial Statements reporting engine due in the next version 11 release of SAPA in November.

The module was developed in close consultation with some of the Accountants Divsion’s larger customers and has been put through its paces by a group of beta test users since last summer. So far, ten of them have gone on to purchase the module, said Inglis.

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