Starting Consolidation in Working Papers

Working Papers in GATHER.nexus bring together the financial data of the companies in a group, the aggregation of those figures, the consolidation adjustments, and the resulting consolidated figures.

With the Full Consolidation method, GATHER.nexus automatically generates the applicable consolidation adjustments from the ownership and acquisition information recorded for the group.

These adjustments can include:

The Working Paper also allows you to open calculated figures and review the calculation behind them.

This guide explains how to access the Working Paper, understand its layout, review Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet consolidation, and inspect the calculations behind the consolidated figures.

The Working Paper contains two tabs:

The companies included in the group are brought into the Working Paper and their figures are presented in the group currency.

The Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet use a month-by-month layout.

Click the Aggregated heading to expand a month.

When expanded, the Working Paper displays:

Click the heading again to collapse the month.

Each month can be expanded or collapsed independently.

Company figures are shown in the group currency.

Click the exchange-rate link for a company to view:

The exchange-rate treatment depends on the statement:

Account names remain visible when you scroll across the year.

The Aggregated column represents the companies' figures added together before the consolidation adjustments are applied.

The Consolidated column represents the result after the applicable consolidation adjustments have been applied.

For the Balance Sheet, the Working Paper also displays the applicable automatic journal Debit and Credit columns between the Aggregated and Consolidated columns.

This allows you to trace the movement from the aggregated company figures to the consolidated result.

The Profit Attributable to Minority Interest section appears directly below Net Profit After Tax.

Where a subsidiary has a non-controlling interest, the Working Paper shows:

These figures appear in the Consolidated column.

They do not appear in the individual company columns or the Aggregated column.

For each subsidiary:

The NCI percentage is based on the subsidiary's effective ownership.

Where a subsidiary has intercompany P&L accounts, those amounts adjust the profit base before the NCI percentage is applied. Sales-type amounts are subtracted, while Cost of Goods Sold / Purchase and Expense-type amounts are added.

The top-most parent is treated as 100% owned and therefore has no minority interest.

The Profit & Loss minority-interest figures are a presentation split of profit that has already been recognised.

No journal is posted for these figures, so there is no Debit or Credit associated with them.

For the Balance Sheet, GATHER.nexus generates automatic consolidation journals from the ownership and acquisition information recorded for the group.

The six automatic Balance Sheet journals are:

Only the journals that apply are shown for the relevant periods.

The journal columns appear between the Aggregated and Consolidated columns.

The movement can therefore be reviewed as:

The Pre-Acquisition Journal is created for a subsidiary that was Acquired an existing company.

It records the acquisition-related consolidation adjustments, including:

The Pre-Acquisition Journal is not created for a company that was Formed as a new entity.

A newly formed entity has no acquisition, purchase consideration, goodwill, or pre-acquisition equity to eliminate, so the Pre-Acquisition Journal does not apply.

The platform generates NCI journals for the applicable post-acquisition amounts.

This journal gives the minority its share of profit earned since acquisition.

This journal provides the retained-earnings counterpart at year-end.

The applicable NCI percentage is based on the group's effective ownership.

Where a further stake is acquired in a subsidiary after the original acquisition, the Step Acquisition Journal reflects the additional ownership.

Where part of a subsidiary's ownership stake is subsequently sold, the Disposal Journal reflects the disposal.

The Auto FX Journal (Auto FX 1) posts foreign-exchange differences on earnings and NCI.

Foreign-exchange differences arising from other month-end retranslation are handled within the applicable automatic consolidation journals rather than through a separate FX journal.

When a subsidiary is acquired part-way through a month, GATHER.nexus applies the acquisition date when determining which figures are included in the consolidation.

The subsidiary is included from the day after the acquisition date through to month-end.

For example, if the acquisition takes place on 14 February, the post-acquisition P&L is included from 15 February to 28 February.

The subsidiary is included from the acquisition month-end onward.

Before the acquisition month, expanding the subsidiary shows “–” instead of amounts.

For a mid-period acquisition:

Calculated consolidation figures can be clicked to open a calculation card.

Depending on the figure, the card can show:

Calculation details are available for figures including:

The Goodwill calculation shows, for each subsidiary:

The calculation shows:

The calculation card for Profit & Loss minority interest is labelled Minority interest because the amount is calculated for presentation and is not posted through a journal.

You can close a calculation card using its close control, by clicking outside the card, or by pressing Escape.

Where a subsidiary reports in a currency other than the group currency, GATHER.nexus creates FX in reserves accounts for the applicable consolidation elements.

The platform creates:

The applicable Pre-Acquisition figures are retranslated at each month-end using the new month-end exchange rate.

The difference between the previous month and the current month is posted to the corresponding FX in reserves account within the Pre-Acquisition Journal.

Click an FX in reserves amount to open its calculation card.

The card shows:

The calculation is:

There is no previous-month comparison in the acquisition month, so no FX difference arises for that month.

The Pre-Acquisition FX in reserves accounts net to zero in total. They are kept separately so that you can see which element each part of the movement relates to.

GATHER.nexus generates the consolidation journals automatically from the ownership and acquisition information recorded for the group.

If you identify an amount that needs correcting, you can edit the journal amount in the Working Paper.

If ownership or acquisition information that affects consolidation is changed and saved on the Company screen, the related automated journals in the Working Paper are recalculated automatically.

Use the Consolidated column to review the group's final figures after the applicable consolidation adjustments have been applied.

The Working Paper lets you move from:

You can also open calculated amounts to review the underlying calculation.

This gives you a clear view of how the consolidated figures have been produced.

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