6 Benefits Of Financial Consolidation Tools

If your business has been doing well, there’s a good chance it’s got a little more complex over the years.

You might have started a new company to take care of a specific need. Maybe you acquired a few competitors to expand your reach. You created a parent company, and you’ve discovered that it’s a lot tougher to stay on top of your financial situation when you have so many business balls in the air.

That’s a good problem to have! After all, growth and expansion are signs of a healthy business. But they do mean that it’s going to get a lot tougher to get a clear picture of the financial situation for the whole group. You might be wondering how to consolidate financial statements in accounting software. If you are, you’re in the right place. We’re going to take a closer look at the benefits of cloud-based financial consolidation tools below.

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Does Consolidation Accounting Software Exist?

If you’re looking for faster and easier ways to create consolidated P&L reports, a consolidated balance sheet and consolidated cash flow, you’re probably looking for the best financial consolidation software.

However, if you’re like most companies that already have complex accounting or ERP systems, you are probably already using an accounting package to keep track of everything. Making the switch would be a huge undertaking, but you still want to find the best consolidation software and tools out there.

So, the answer to the question of whether consolidation accounting software exists is two parts: yes, there are many options, but you want to find something that works with your existing accounting package.

If you’re already using QuickBooks Online, the simplest option is to connect QuickBooks to Google Sheets, so you don’t have to manually export every company every time you want to consolidate accounts. Even better, you can set up a template for financial data automation, so you always have the most up-to-date reports that will serve as a single source of truth.

How Does LiveFlow Make Financial Consolidation Easy?

Now that you know that there are options that can let you keep your existing accounting on QuickBooks Online and still make it easier let’s look at how that works.

LiveFlow has developed the LiveFlow a Google Sheets add-on that pulls your reports from QuickBooks and automatically inserts them into your Google sheets. This means that every time you update anything in QuickBooks, your dashboards in Google Sheets also update.

Even better, LiveFlow can do this for multiple companies. So it’s easy to create consolidated reports that are always up to date. Here is an example of a Consolidated P&L report that you can create with LiveFlow for your financial close:

So What Are The Benefits?

So why this kind of financial consolidation tool can help you and your business with your financial management and financial planning. Here’s why this is the best financial consolidation software for people who are using QuickBooks Online to manage more than one company:

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1. You Don’t Have to Change Your Accounting System

Usually, if you want features that your software doesn’t support, you have to change your software and choose between multiple ERP systems to get those options. So, if you want the best financial consolidation software that also handles all your other accounting functions, you’re looking at months of work making the change.

LiveFlow and Google Sheets work with your existing QuickBooks accounting setup, so you simply plug the software into what you’re already using. No big changes and costs are required!

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2. You Can Get Prebuilt Templates

It’s all very well telling you that you can connect QuickBooks to Google Sheets with LiveFlow. However, if you’re not already skilled in reporting in Google Sheets, you might struggle to build the reports you need. That’s very frustrating – knowing you could be doing something but not being able to get it done.

That’s why we’ve also built ready-to-use templates like our consolidated P&L for Google Sheets or Budget vs. Actuals for your budgeting and forecasting that you can download, modify and use in minutes.

Since LiveFlow always gets data from the right place in QuickBooks Online, for the right company, you’ll never have to worry about exporting each company individually and then building a spreadsheet from scratch!

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3. More Automation Means Less Chance of Errors

In the past, if you were using QuickBooks Online, you probably had to export each company’s information individually. Then you had to put it all into a spreadsheet, format it correctly, and build formulas from scratch.

It’s time-consuming, it’s tedious, and if you’re not very careful, there’s always a chance you’ll alter the wrong cell. The more you do manually, the more chance there is for errors, and when you’re working on financial reports, that’s the last thing you need!

With LiveFlow, you’re always sure you’re getting the right figures where they should be.

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4. Always Up to Date

Perhaps the worst thing about building financial consolidation reports manually is knowing that they will be out of date before you've even finished.

Every sale you make, every bill you pay and every check you deposit will change your reports. So you know you’ll have to do it all again from scratch.

So when your data refreshes with LiveFlow, so do your reports in Google Sheets. This means your dashboards are always up to date, and anyone who needs this kind of information can log in anytime and get real-time data at a glance.

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5. Adding New Companies Is Easy

Even if you’ve got a system for financial consolidation, there’s a good chance something’s going to change. Usually, it’s when you need to add a new company to the mix. This means that if you’re doing it all manually, you have to set up a new sheet, change all your formulas and export all the data again.

If you’re using LiveFlow, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time you add a new company. It’s quick and easy, and you only have to create your new report once.

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6. Easy to Use

Most accountants are very smart people. Sure, you dread having to create financial reports, but you’ve been doing it for a while.

The problem is companies rarely stay the same. What might have been a relatively quick job when you only had to deal with one company becomes a much bigger job when you have five, ten or more companies to work with. You add a page, forget to change some formulas, and suddenly, nothing works the way it should! We’ve all been there.

If you also have management breathing down your neck to get their reports or budget planning, things could get pretty tense.

Sure, you could still do it, but all that means is you’re spending time doing something the hard way that you could be doing out of the box. Your time is valuable, and for a relatively small investment, you could save hours or even days of work.

Is LiveFlow the Best Financial Consolidation Software for You?

It’s hard to tell whether LiveFlow is the best financial consolidation software for every company. However, if you’re a mid-sized business with more than one company to manage and you are already using QuickBooks accounting, it’s a good idea to find out.

Whether you’re ready to make a decision or just want to know more, our team is happy to help. Contact us for a live demo or to discuss your specific needs.

Let us show you how easy it is to get data from QuickBooks to Google Sheets and how much easier live data automation makes financial reporting for everyone involved. It will save you time, give you accurate and up-to-date reports on demand, and make working with many different companies, divisions, and subsidiaries much easier than you ever thought was possible.

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