Consolidated balance sheet: What it is and how to create one

Managing finances across multiple entities can feel like juggling too many numbers at once—especially when you need to present a clear, unified financial picture.

Whether you’re preparing for an audit, securing investor confidence, or ensuring compliance, a consolidated balance sheet simplifies the chaos by merging the financial data of your company and its subsidiaries into one accurate, comprehensive report.

If you’re a financial controller or CFO, you know how important it is to eliminate discrepancies, avoid double counting, and meet compliance standards.

This guide breaks down exactly what a consolidated balance sheet is, why it matters, and how to create one—so you can streamline reporting, gain financial clarity, and make more informed decisions.

By consolidating multiple financial statements into a single document, your business can streamline reporting and manage its consolidated financials more efficiently, saving time and reducing complexity.

A well-prepared consolidated balance sheet provides clear financial visibility, making it easier to track assets, liabilities, and overall business performance at-a-glance.

Here’s what we’ll cover

What is a consolidated balance sheet? 

Before diving into the details, let’s start with the basics.  

Simply put, a consolidated balance sheet merges the assets, liabilities, and equity of a parent company and its subsidiaries into one financial statement. This approach provides a holistic view of your company’s financial health, e. It eliminates intercompany transactions to avoid double counting and ensure accuracy. 

By using a consolidated balance sheet, finance teams can: 

• Get an accurate financial snapshot of the entire corporate structure. 

• Streamline reporting by reducing redundancies. 

• Improve decision-making with a clear overview of assets and liabilities. 

Why should you create one?

Creating a consolidated balance sheet isn’t just a best practice—it’s often a necessity if you run a business with subsidiaries. Here’s why it matters and the key benefits it provides:

1.      Tax compliance and regulatory requirements

Tax authorities require businesses with multiple entities to consolidate financial statements for accurate reporting. A consolidated balance sheet ensures your company’s compliance, prevents double taxation, and makes audits and filings smoother. Additionally, it helps your business meet Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) requirements, reducing the risk of non-compliance penalties.

2.      Mergers, acquisitions, and restructuring

If your company undergoes structural changes, a merger, or acquisitions, a consolidated balance sheet provides a clear picture of all of the parts combined and their all-round financial health. It helps your stakeholders, including investors and lenders, assess risk, evaluate financial stability, and make well-informed decisions about strategic investments and restructuring efforts.

3.      Transparent financial reporting and improved decision-making

Your investors, creditors, and regulators expect transparency. Effective consolidated financial reporting ensures that your business presents accurate and reliable financial data, reducing errors and enhancing credibility.

A consolidated balance sheet ensures clarity, preventing misinterpretations of financial standing. With a single, unified financial statement, you can make smarter, data-driven decisions about resource allocation, budgeting, and overall business growth.

4.     Operational efficiency and financial visibility

By consolidating multiple financial statements into a single document, your business can streamline reporting and manage its consolidated financials more efficiently, saving time and reducing complexity. A well-prepared consolidated balance sheet provides clear financial visibility, making it easier to track assets, liabilities, and overall business performance at-a-glance.

What are the main requirements?

When preparing your business’s consolidated balance sheet, it’s important to understand the specific requirements and guidelines that apply.

According to ASC 10, a reporting entity must consolidate with a legal entity when it has a controlling financial interest.

Control is determined using one of the two main consolidation models:

Voting model

Under the Voting model, a reporting entity is generally deemed to have a controlling financial interest if it directly or indirectly owns more than 50% of a corporation’s outstanding voting shares.

Similarly, in the case of limited partnerships, control is established if the entity owns more than 50% of the voting interests, including “kick-out” rights (the ability to remove the decision-makers).

Variable Interest Entity (VIE) model

The VIE model applies when control isn’t determined solely by voting rights.

Instead, it focuses on entities where a reporting entity has a significant financial interest or bears the majority of the risk and rewards.

This model ensures that entities with influence or dependence, even without majority voting control, are consolidated appropriately.

It’s also important to be aware of exemptions from consolidation requirements, including:

• Registered Money Market Funds and similar entities.
• Investment companies and brokers or dealers.
• Governmental organizations.

What are the key components of consolidated balance sheet?

Think of a consolidated balance sheet as a traditional balance sheet, but on a bigger scale.

Instead of showing your parent company’s financial position, it combines the assets, liabilities, and shareholder’s equity of your entire organization, including all subsidiaries.

Wondering what makes up a consolidated balance sheet?

Here’s a quick rundown of the main sections:

Assets  

This section captures everything your company owns, both tangible and intangible.

In a consolidated balance sheet, assets from the parent company and its subsidiaries are combined into one total. Key categories include:

• Cash and cash equivalents: readily available funds, including cash on hand and short-term investments.
• Marketable securities: liquid investments that can be quickly sold for cash.
• Accounts receivable: money owed to the company for products or services provided.
• Inventory: goods and materials the company holds for sale or production.
• Long-term investments: investments intended to be held for more than a year, such as stocks or bonds.
• Fixed assets: tangible items like property, plants, and equipment (PP&E), minus depreciation.

Liabilities

Liabilities represent what your company owes to others, such as loans or obligations to suppliers and employees.

Common examples include:

• Loans: borrowed funds that must be repaid.
• Interest payable: interest owed on outstanding debts.
• Wages payable: salaries owed to employees but not yet paid.
• Customer prepayments: payments received for products or services not yet delivered.
• Dividends payable: declared dividends that are yet to be paid to shareholders.
• Accounts payable: bills owed to suppliers for goods or services received.
• Deferred tax liabilities: taxes owed but not yet due, often resulting from timing differences in accounting methods.

Shareholder equity

This section represents the ownership interest in your company.

Shareholder equity reflects the residual interest after liabilities are subtracted from assets and shows what your company owes to its shareholders.

Key components include:

• Common stock: the value of shares issued to investors.
• Retained earnings: profits that are reinvested in the business rather than distributed as dividends.
• Additional paid-in capital: the amount shareholders paid above the nominal value of shares.

How to create a consolidated balance sheet

Creating a consolidated balance sheet takes a few key steps, but it’s all about staying organized and paying attention to the details.

Here are some important things to keep in mind as you go through the process:

1. Align accounting policies and reporting periods

Ensure all entities follow the same accounting standards—like GAAP or IFRS—and have consistent reporting periods.

Under GAAP, all entities within a consolidated group must use consistent accounting policies unless doing so is impractical—in which case, adjustments should be made during consolidation.

Similarly, IFRS requires uniform accounting policies for transactions and events.

Again, if there are discrepancies, adjustments should be made during consolidation to maintain uniformity.

2. Identify and eliminate intercompany transactions

Review financial records to remove transactions between the parent company and subsidiaries, including intercompany sales, purchases, dividends, loans, and expenses.

This step is crucial for producing accurate consolidated financial statements for the balance sheet, to prevent double counting, and make an accurate representation of external transactions.

3. Prepare a consolidation worksheet

Compile financial data from your parent company and all subsidiaries into a worksheet.

This serves as a central hub for recording and adjusting financial information, ensuring proper organization before finalizing the consolidated statement.

4. Adjust for minority interests

If your parent company owns less than 100% of a subsidiary, account for Non-Controlling Interest (NCI) in the consolidated financial statements.

This ensures the correct proportion of ownership is reflected in the equity section.

5. Eliminate duplicate assets and liabilities

Remove intercompany balances, such as loans between subsidiaries and your parent company, to prevent inflation of assets and liabilities.

This step ensures the consolidated balance sheet presents only obligations to external parties.

6. Reconcile and finalize the consolidated balance sheet

Once all adjustments are made, verify that total assets equal total liabilities and equity.

Review the sheet for discrepancies and ensure compliance with reporting standards before finalizing it.

A practical example of a consolidated balance sheet

Creating a consolidated balance sheet might seem complex at first, but breaking it down into steps makes the process clearer.

Here’s a real-world scenario to help you understand how everything comes together.

Imagine ABC Corporation, a parent company that owns two subsidiaries: ABC Manufacturing and ABC Retail.

Your goal is to create a single consolidated balance sheet that accurately reflects the financial position of all three entities.

Step 1: Identify entities

Since ABC Corporation holds a controlling financial interest in both subsidiaries, their financial data must be included in the consolidation process.

Be sure to verify ownership percentages and applicable consolidation rules before proceeding.

Step 2: Combine the balance sheets

Next, gather the balance sheets for ABC Corporation, ABC Manufacturing, and ABC Retail and combine the assets, liabilities, and shareholder equity. For example:

• ABC Corporation assets: $2M
• Manufacturing assets: $1.5M
• Retail assets: $1M
• Total combined assets: $4.5M

Do the same for liabilities and equity to create an initial draft of the consolidated balance sheet.

Step 3: Eliminate intercompany transactions

To ensure accuracy, eliminate any transactions between the entities.

For example, if ABC Corporation loaned $500,000 to ABC Manufacturing, this amount appears as both an asset for the parent company and a liability for the subsidiary.

Since it’s an internal-only transaction, it must be removed to avoid double counting.

Step 4: Adjust for parent company investments

Adjust the consolidated balance sheet to reflect the parent company’s investment in its subsidiaries. For example:

• If ABC Corporation owns 100% of Manufacturing and 80% of Retail, record these investments appropriately.
• Factor in any goodwill or other adjustments that affect the final financial statements.

Step 5: Account for non-controlling interests

Since ABC Corporation owns only 80% of ABC Retail, the remaining 20% belongs to minority shareholders.

This portion must be reported as a non-controlling interest in the shareholders’ equity section to ensure transparency and accuracy.

Once these adjustments are made, the finalized consolidated balance sheet provides a complete and accurate financial snapshot of the corporate group.

Category	Amount
Assets
Cash and equivalents	$1,000,000
Inventory	$2,000,000
Fixed assets	$1,500,000
Total assets	$4,500,000
Liabilities
Accounts payable	$500,000
Loans	$1,000,000
Total liabilities	$1,500,000
Shareholder equity
Retained earnings	$2,400,000
Non-controlling interest	$600,000
Total equity	$3,000,000

Simplify your financial reporting

Manually managing a consolidated balance sheet can be time-consuming and prone to errors.

Consolidation accounting software can automate your financial consolidation process, eliminating manual input errors, speeding up calculations, and reducing compliance risks.

With the right financial reporting software, you can generate accurate, audit-ready consolidated statements, ensuring compliance and improving decision-making.

Ready to simplify your financial reporting?

Discover how Sage consolidation accounting software can streamline your processes and provide clearer financial insights from complex data.

FAQs about consolidated balance sheets

What is the difference between consolidated and unconsolidated balance sheets?

A consolidated balance sheet combines the financial information of your parent company and its subsidiaries into a single statement, providing a comprehensive view of your organization’s financial status.

In contrast, a non-consolidated balance sheet only reflects the financial position of an individual entity without including its subsidiaries. 

Who makes a consolidated balance sheet?

A consolidated balance sheet is typically prepared by the parent company’s finance or accounting team.

This process involves collaboration with subsidiaries to gather individual statements from all entities and create a single report.

The process involves several key roles, including the CFO, financial controller, accountants and financial analysts, and internal and external auditors.