Consolidated Accounts. Done right.

A parent company must prepare group accounts unless the group qualifies as small under the Companies Act — broadly, group turnover under £15m net (£18m gross), balance sheet under £7.5m net (£9m gross), and under 50 employees (meeting two of the three). Medium and large groups, and any group with a public-interest entity, must consolidate. We assess your group structure each year-end for the exemption.

FRS 102 works for most UK-only and mid-market international groups — simpler disclosure, more options on goodwill amortisation, and easier defined-benefit pension accounting. IFRS is required for listed groups and often expected by international investors, US parents, or PE houses. We'll quantify the disclosure and tax differences before you commit, because moving between standards later is painful.

All intercompany sales, balances, loans, dividends, and unrealised profit on intra-group stock and asset transfers are eliminated on consolidation. Mismatches between subsidiary ledgers are the single biggest cause of failed consolidations — we run monthly intercompany reconciliations between entities rather than fighting it all at year-end. Currency-translation reserves are calculated and disclosed alongside.

The subsidiary's P&L is consolidated from acquisition date forward, with fair-value adjustments applied to its assets and liabilities and any goodwill recognised. Pre-acquisition reserves don't flow to the group. We perform the purchase price allocation, calculate goodwill (with appropriate amortisation under FRS 102 or impairment testing under IFRS), and document the workings so auditors don't reopen them.

Once we have clean subsidiary ledgers and intercompany reconciliations, a straightforward 3–5 entity consolidation completes in 10 working days. Complex groups with foreign subsidiaries, multiple acquisitions, or IFRS-to-FRS 102 conversions take longer and are quoted on scope. Audit-ready files are produced as standard so auditors aren't billing you to do our cleanup.