Creating a Consolidated Group

How to combine companies into a consolidation in Fathom

Shale Heidinger avatar
Written by Shale Heidinger
Updated over a week ago

Contents

❗ Note: This article is for consolidated groups in which all companies in the consolidation use the same currency. For multi-currency consolidations, please see multi-currency consolidations.


Consolidating companies in Fathom

Fathom enables you to group related companies and easily perform consolidated analysis, generate forecasts, and create reports. These features enable you to create an aggregated view of both the financial and non-financial performance of a group of companies.

This is useful for organisations:

  • With multiple entities (up to 300 for single-currency consolidations, and up to 50 for multi-currency consolidations)

  • Seeking to consolidate financial (and/or non-financial) performance

  • Using different accounting systems

  • Reporting using either a consistent or inconsistent chart of accounts

  • Reporting in a single currency or multiple currencies (see this article for multi-currency consolidations)


Methodology

Fathom will consolidate financial results by unifying accounts that have:

  1. The same name and

  2. The same Fathom classification.

Accounts from different companies that have these two elements in common will appear as a single account in the consolidated group and any associated amounts will be summed accordingly. Fathom does not consolidate accounts based on Account Code.

Accounts with different names or classifications, can be grouped in the Chart of Accounts with the use of headings. For a guide to creating headings see our Headings and Subheadings article.

KPIs and Budgets will ‘roll up’ from the underlying entities in the consolidated group for use within that group.


Creating a consolidated group

Before you create a consolidated group, you must first ensure that you have imported each entity into Fathom. After all companies are imported, you can create a consolidated group.

💡Pro Tip: If you're an Advisor or Admin-level user on a Fathom account, you can follow and complete the Consolidation Checklist steps within Fathom. Launch the Consolidation Checklist

  1. On the ‘My Companies’ screen, click the green ‘Add' button in the upper right corner

  2. From the menu that appears, select ‘Consolidated group’

  3. Type in the name of the group

  4. Select the companies to include in the consolidation

  5. Choose a date range for the group financials

    ❗ Note: Be sure to include all of the prior year data you need for financial analysis, reporting and forecasting for the group. You will not be able to add financial data prior to the date range you select after creating the consolidated group.

  6. If the chosen companies operate using different financial years, you will need to choose the first month of the financial year to use for the group.

  7. Once you are ready, click 'Create Group'

You will be taken to the consolidated group’s landing page. From here, you’ll be able to access the group’s Analysis, Reporting, Forecasting, and Settings as well as the Analysis, Reporting, Forecasting, and Settings for all of the underlying companies in the group.

💡Pro Tip: If you've set up the Chart of Accounts, KPI, Targets, and Alerts in another company or group, you can copy these over to quickly set up your new consolidated group.


Updating & editing a group

Updating the group’s financial and non-financial data

To update the financial data of the group, you’ll simply need to select the green ‘Update’ button in the upper right corner of the consolidated group’s landing page.

The consolidated group will update based on the underlying companies. This means that, if changes are made to an underlying company in its source accounting system or Excel and you want those changes reflected in the group, you’ll need to:

  1. Update the financials for the underlying company in ‘Step 1 - Update Data’ in the underlying company’s Settings

  2. Then, update the consolidated group by selecting the green ‘Update group’ button in the upper right corner of the group’s landing page


Adding companies to or removing them from the group

You can add companies to or remove them from a group on the consolidated’s group’s landing page. To add a company, select the green ‘+ Add company’ option. To remove a company, hover over the company and select the ‘three dot’ icon that appears on the right side of the screen. From the drop down menu, select ‘Remove’.

You can also add companies to and remove them from the group in ‘Step 1 - Update Data’ of the group’s Settings. You’ll find the options to add and remove companies by clicking the blue ‘manage group’ option that appears next to the list of member companies in the group.

📝 Note: You must have more than 2 companies in the group to be able to remove a company from the group.


Changing the name of the group

In the upper left corner of the consolidated group’s landing page, you’ll see the name of the group listed. You can click on the group’s name to edit or type in a new name for the group.


Changing the financial year of the group

To change the financial year of the group, go to the group’s Settings. In ‘Step 1 - Update Data’:

  1. Select the blue ‘manage group’ option next to the list of member companies in the group

  2. Scroll down to where it says ‘Select the start of financial year’. This option will only appear when companies in the group have different financial years. If you need to change the financial year for an underlying company in the group, see our ‘Managing date ranges and your financial year’ article.


Next steps

Congratulations on creating your consolidated group! Continue the 'Consolidation Creation Workflow' and finish setting up your consolidated group for analysis, reporting, and forecasting by choosing from one of the next steps below:

What you want to do:

Next step in setup process:

Ready to begin setting up your Consolidated Group's Profile?

Happy with your profile and ready to set up the consolidated Chart of Accounts?


Additional knowledge & common questions

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