Your questions answered

Don’t wait for every company to move onto one system. Best practice is to leave each ERP running its business, take already-validated data from each system on a regular schedule, and map it to one group structure, so the consolidation happens in one place instead of in spreadsheets.

How Mondial helps: Mondial connects to each company’s ERP or accounting system, including SAP Business One, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Sage Intacct, Oracle NetSuite, Acumatica, Syspro, Plex, OneAdvanced, QuickBooks and Xero, and to other systems with a published REST API, ODBC or other standard data access. It imports every GL, AP and AR transaction into one database and maps it to a single structure, so you can consolidate and report across every company at once.

No. Replacing ERPs across a group is long, expensive and disruptive, and better group reporting rarely needs it. Add a consolidation and reporting layer that works with the systems you have. It also keeps group reporting running while companies move to a new ERP one at a time, or when you acquire a business on a different system.

How Mondial helps: Mondial uses the data your ERPs have already validated as the basis for the group adjustments and reporting, and posts nothing back to them, so your ERP investment is protected. RECARO Automotive adds new locations and acquired companies to its Mondial reports quickly, without first moving them onto a single ERP or chart of accounts.

Map each company’s chart of accounts to a group reporting chart once, maintain that mapping centrally, and check each period for new or unmapped accounts, instead of re-mapping in spreadsheets every month.

How Mondial helps: Mondial maps each company’s accounts to a single, trusted group structure, flags unmapped accounts, such as an account a company has just added, as well as missing or duplicate accounts, before reports go out, and can consolidate at cost-center or dimension level across companies, not just at account level.

It shouldn’t. Modern close software runs in the browser, is maintained by the vendor, and is set up and run by finance. IT’s role should be limited to agreeing access to the source systems.

How Mondial helps: Mondial is a hosted web application with nothing to install, available in any browser. Finance users build and maintain their own reports without technical training. RECARO Automotive chose Mondial partly because it made no call on in-house IT, and implemented it in a matter of days.

Yes, as long as your consolidation system can store data by company and by location. Data residency rules are becoming more common, so check where each company’s data will be held before you choose a system.

How Mondial helps: Mondial can keep a separate database for each company, and where the law requires it, you can choose, case by case, the country or region, such as the EU, in which each database is held. The imported transactions, the adjustments made in Mondial and the final reported figures are all held there, even when your ERP is hosted elsewhere. Mondial runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The consolidation, adjustments and reporting still work across the whole group.

Feed your BI tool from the data after the group adjustments have been made, not from raw ERP extracts. Otherwise your dashboards and your group accounts won’t agree.

How Mondial helps: Mondial’s outbound API exports both the transactions imported from your accounting systems and the adjustments made in Mondial, so your analytics and data warehouse work from complete, auditable, transaction-level data instead of high-level summaries.

Keep each company’s books in its local currency, translate into the group currency as part of the consolidation using consistent rates (typically average rates for the profit and loss account and closing rates for the balance sheet), and keep the translation entries separate from the local ledgers, so they can be repeated and audited.

How Mondial helps: Mondial translates each company’s results into the reporting currency as part of the consolidation and keeps those entries separate from the local accounting systems. You can report in local or parent currency, or in a third currency your ERP can’t report in. Mondial also calculates the cumulative translation adjustment (CTA) at the period-ends you choose, such as each quarter-end or only at year end.

Agree one group reporting calendar, and align each company’s periods to it in the consolidation, instead of changing the local books or adjusting by hand in spreadsheets.

How Mondial helps: Mondial aligns different financial year-ends and reporting calendars, including unusual ones, as part of the consolidation, with no change to the local systems. A subsidiary with a 31 March year-end, for example, keeps its own statutory year while also reporting on the group’s calendar.

Run the close from one shared list of tasks, with an owner and a deadline for each company, instead of email chains and trackers. Delays then show up while there is still time to act.

How Mondial helps: Mondial’s period-end dashboard shows, in real time, the status of the key tasks in every company, who is responsible for each one, and what is still outstanding.

Report from transaction-level data rather than summary balances, so every figure can be traced to its source without having to ask a subsidiary.

How Mondial helps: In Mondial, you can click any reported total to see the accounts that make it up, then the transactions behind each balance, then the detail behind each transaction, including AR and AP detail. It works in every report, including consolidated group reports, in the browser or in Excel, so questions are answered at head office instead of waiting days for remote teams.

Reconcile intercompany balances regularly during the period, not just at month end, using agreed references and cut-off rules, and match automatically so your team only deals with the exceptions.

How Mondial helps: Mondial finds definite matches from amount, date, reference and period, flags probable matches for someone to confirm where details differ, and leaves only the rest for manual matching. Once the matches are closed off, it generates the elimination journals, ready for consolidation.

Differences usually come from timing, currency, and transactions recorded differently on each side. A common intercompany policy, consistent references and early, regular matching resolve most of them before the close starts.

How Mondial helps: Mondial holds every company’s transactions in one database, so both sides of each intercompany transaction can be compared directly. Differences are flagged when the matching runs, instead of surfacing when the group accounts don’t balance. If one company records its side in the wrong account, or not at all, the other company’s entry is left unmatched and flagged, so you know which transaction to look for before the close.

Automate data collection, use one close calendar and task list for every company, use templates for recurring journals, and deal with intercompany differences before period end.

How Mondial helps: Mondial imports already-validated transactions from each accounting system with no re-keying, tracks every close task on a real-time dashboard, and uses journal templates for recurring adjustments, so each period takes less effort than the last. RECARO Automotive now closes the month 4 days faster, on average.

Take the data straight from each subsidiary’s accounting system instead of asking for reporting packs, so head office works from the same numbers as the subsidiary, as soon as they are posted.

How Mondial helps: Mondial updates transaction detail automatically from each ERP, so changes at every subsidiary are visible straight away, and group sales, cash and profitability estimates are available within hours of period end.

Remove re-keying, check that the data is complete before you report, and keep the final adjustments in a controlled system instead of spreadsheets.

How Mondial helps: Mondial imports transactions directly from your accounting systems, flags unmapped accounts, such as an account a company has just added, as well as missing or duplicate accounts, before reports go out, stores every adjustment alongside the data, and lets anyone drill down from a reported figure to the transactions behind it.

Connect your Excel reports to one controlled source of data instead of pasting numbers in, so everyone works from the same figures and every report can be refreshed and traced.

How Mondial helps: Mondial’s Excel add-in links the report layouts you already use to the data Mondial collects from your accounting systems, with drill-down to the transactions directly from Excel. One template can produce a secure, filtered workbook for each department head or recipient. Teams that prefer a browser can use Mondial’s web report writer on the same data.

Keep them in a system built for them, separate from the ERP but linked to its data. Eliminations, currency revaluations and statutory adjustments shouldn’t be posted to the operating companies’ books, which is why so many teams keep them in spreadsheets, where they are hard to control and review.

How Mondial helps: Mondial generates and stores these entries as journals alongside the imported data, with a full audit trail, so they are controlled, repeatable and auditable, and nothing is posted back to your accounting systems.

Make every group figure traceable: from the reported number to the accounts, to the transactions in the source system, and to any adjustments made on top.

How Mondial helps: Every adjustment in Mondial is a journal with a full audit trail, and every reported balance can be drilled down to the transactions behind it, so auditors can follow the numbers for themselves.

Keep each company’s books under its local standard, and record the adjustments to IFRS, US GAAP or your group standard in a separate ledger, so the local books never change.

How Mondial helps: Each company keeps its local GAAP, and the adjustments to your group standard are held in Mondial. It works the other way round too: if your ERP is kept in the group standard, such as US GAAP, the local or IFRS adjustments each company needs are held in Mondial instead. RECARO Automotive produces common reports across the group, in local or parent currency, under local GAAP, US GAAP or IFRS, maintained without IT.

Set the required layout up once as a template, map your chart of accounts to it, and reuse it every period instead of rebuilding the report each time.

How Mondial helps: Mondial can hold the report layouts and charts of accounts set by local authorities as templates; once you map your own accounts to a template, the required reports are ready straight away. Each account in a company’s own chart can be mapped to its equivalent in a statutory chart, such as Mexico’s SAT chart of accounts, Canada’s GIFI (General Index of Financial Information) or France’s Plan Comptable Général, while the same accounts still feed the group chart. From a statutory report, drill-down goes first to the company’s own accounts mapped to that line, then to the transactions in each one. Alongside them you get the trial balance, profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow and transaction history for each company and for the group, and budget-to-actual comparisons using as many budgets and versions as you need.

Yes. The large consolidation and performance-management suites are designed for the biggest multinationals, and can be costly and slow to implement for mid-sized groups. Look for software that covers close management, reconciliation, intercompany, consolidation and reporting without an enterprise-scale price or implementation project.

How Mondial helps: Mondial has included all five of those capabilities from the start, was built from the ground up for the web, and works alongside your existing ERP. It delivers group-quality reporting at an ongoing cost of ownership well below the traditional incumbents.

Most close software is sold as a subscription. Check what drives the price, what implementation and training will cost, whether support is included, and whether new features cost extra.

How Mondial helps: Mondial is available as a subscription service, with a minimum term of one year. The cost depends on the number of companies and the number of users. People who only receive reports are a separate user type, available at a small monthly fee each. Set-up, implementation and training are optional, at commercial rates, so you use only what your team needs. Product support is included, and new features on Mondial’s roadmap are available to every customer who subscribes to the relevant area of functionality.