Financial consolidation is the practice of combining financial data from multiple business entities into a single, unified set of financial statements. It helps to accurately reflect the financial position and performance of a parent company and its subsidiaries in balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow reports. The consolidation process typically includes aggregating financial results, eliminating intercompany transactions, handling currency conversions, and ensuring compliance with accounting standards like the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) or Generally Accepted Accounting Principles GAAP.
Financial consolidation is especially important for organizations with multiple subsidiaries, divisions, or international operations. Operating across different systems and geographies can make record-keeping messy, and consolidation maintains financial transparency, simplifies reporting, and supports strategic decision-making.
There are three primary methods of financial consolidation:
Financial consolidation and financial close processes serve different purposes in the accounting process, though they often overlap.
Financial consolidation brings together financial data from multiple subsidiaries or business units to create a single set of financial statements. It eliminates intercompany transactions, standardizes currency conversions, and maintains compliance with accounting standards. Businesses with multiple entities rely on consolidation to provide a complete, accurate financial picture for stakeholders.
Financial close finalizes a company’s books at the end of a financial period. Usually completed using financial close software, it reconciles accounts, adjusts journal entries, reviews financial reports, and verifies accuracy before closing the books. A streamlined month-end close improves financial reporting and decision-making.
A single-entity business can complete a financial close without consolidating data from multiple entities. However, for companies managing multiple subsidiaries, consolidation guarantees accurate and compliant financial reporting.
A financial consolidation tool speeds up the consolidation process by automatically gathering data from multiple business entities into a single, accurate report. Businesses with subsidiaries, multiple business units, or international operations rely on these tools to manage currency conversions, intercompany eliminations, and compliance with accounting standards like GAAP, IFRS, and SOX without human intervention.
Consolidation software almost always integrates with accounting and ERP systems for smooth data flow between tools and more efficient financial reporting.
More and more accounting teams are turning to financial consolidation software to:
Before making a decision on which financial consolidation tool is best for you, consider your organization’s needs. If you have a lot of international clients, you’ll need to operate in multiple currencies; if you’re looking to grow, make sure the software scales with you without breaking your budget.
Here are some of the key features to look out for.
From spreadsheet-native tools to AI-powered platforms—and some that cover both—these financial consolidation software tools provide a range of solutions to meet diverse business needs
Best for: Mid-size companies, enterprises, and fast-growing SMBs that need a powerful, flexible, and spreadsheet-native solution for financial consolidation, planning, and analysis.
Cube is the first spreadsheet-native FP&A platform designed to integrate seamlessly with Excel and Google Sheets, where it consolidates financial information for accurate budgeting and forecasting operations. Cube allows finance teams to continue working in their familiar spreadsheet environment with automation, AI-powered insights, and real-time data integration.
With built-in multi-scenario analysis and automated roll-ups, Cube has helped finance teams streamline consolidation processes without manual effort and save $100,000 and $300,000 per year.
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Pricing: Cube pricing starts at 2,000 per month, but you can customize your plan to your organization’s requirements.
Schedule a demo to watch Cube work.
Best for: Mid-market and enterprise organizations that want an AI-powered platform to consolidate financial data and streamline reporting.
OneStream is a unified enterprise performance management (EPM) platform that integrates financial consolidation, reporting, and forecasting. It uses AI to reduce manual financial processes, while built-in compliance tools support GAAP, IFRS, and ESG reporting. The platform provides prebuilt intercompany eliminations, currency translation, and automated workflows to tackle complex consolidations.
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Pricing: OneStream doesn’t reveal its pricing publicly on its website.
Best for: Large and midsize corporations that want to transfer all their financial systems onto a single platform.
BlackLine provides a cloud-based financial operations platform that consolidates financial data and automates routine tasks. Its Consolidation & Financial Analytics module is dedicated to managing financial close, generating financial statements, and analyzing consolidated data across multiple entities. BlackLine integrates with existing ERP systems to facilitate real-time data flow and compliance while reducing the reliance on manual reconciliation.
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Pricing: BlackLine offers customized pricing based on the specific needs and scale of the business and requests that interested organizations contact BlackLine directly for a tailored quote.
Best for: Enterprises already comfortable with Oracle products that want to expand their operations.
Oracle Fusion Cloud EPM is a scalable financial consolidation and close solution that automates intercompany eliminations, currency translation, and journal workflows. Built on a configurable framework, it allows businesses to tailor consolidation processes while maintaining compliance with GAAP, IFRS, and multi-GAAP requirements. The platform integrates with on-premises and cloud-based ERP systems for hybrid deployments and data flow.
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Pricing: Oracle has a complex pricing system that involves a minimum number of users and a three-year subscription. Here, we’ve included the minimum rate, but add-ons and premium services can cost much more.
Standard cloud service: $2,500 per month ($250 monthly per user x 10 minimum users)
Best for: Small to medium-sized businesses that rely on Excel-based financial processes but need to automate consolidation and reporting.
Datarails uses Excel functionality to integrate financial consolidation, planning, and reporting tools into a spreadsheet environment. It automates data aggregation, financial forecasting, and variance analysis, reducing manual effort in consolidation. The platform enables businesses to pull financial data from multiple sources, ensuring a single source of truth for reporting.
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Pricing: Datarails does not provide any pricing plan information. Their sales team customizes quotes based on goals, users, and integrations.
Best for: Finance leaders who prioritize a clean, attractive user interface for their financial consolidation.
Prophix provides a financial performance platform that integrates consolidation, reporting, and forecasting into a single automated system. Designed to support the entire financial close process, it includes account reconciliation, intercompany management, and audit-ready reporting. Prophix also uses AI data insights as well as customized reports and dashboards.
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Pricing: Prophix requires a demo before offering a quote.
Best for: Organizations needing a financial management suite for consolidation, planning, and reporting across multiple business units.
Planful offers a cloud-based financial performance management platform for business reporting, consolidations, and analytics. The platform automates data validation, intercompany eliminations, and journal entries, reducing the time needed to generate consolidated reports. It comes with pre-built application programming interface (API) connectors to integrate with ERP and accounting systems.
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Pricing: Planful doesn’t make any pricing plan public and provides customized packages based on organizational needs.
Best for: Large multinational corporations needing a collaborative finance platform.
Workiva is a cloud-based solution that mirrors Microsoft Office products and connects financial reporting, risk management, and compliance into one place. It integrates audit, ESG, and financial consolidation tools so you can manage reporting with consistent data. AI-driven automation generates real-time reports, flags compliance risks, and connects the audit processes.
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Pricing: Workvia’s pricing depends on the size and needs of each business.
Best for: Multinational organizations needing a unified platform to consolidate their financial data.
Board offers reporting and decision-making solutions that use financial consolidation, planning, and business intelligence. Scenario modeling and automation tools allow businesses to accelerate financial close cycles and analyze multiple forecasting scenarios. Board connects with Microsoft SQL, Oracle, and DB2, to pull data from enterprise systems.
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Pricing: Board customizes its finance package for every customer and only reveals the cost after a consultation.
Best for: Large teams looking for Excel-based financial consolidation software with automation and multi-currency support.
Vena layers financial consolidation, reporting, and planning over an Excel-based interface for finance teams to automate workflows without leaving spreadsheet systems. The platform handles intercompany eliminations, foreign exchange reporting, and journal entries, which makes it suitable for businesses with multiple subsidiaries, currencies, and complex ownership structures. While customizable, the implementation process can be extensive, and pricing may be better suited for larger organizations.
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Pricing: Vena doesn’t provide any set monthly pricing information publicly, however, they offer a seven-day preview and a demo.
Best for: Large enterprises that want to connect cluttered aspects of their financial planning.
Anaplan is a cloud-based financial consolidation solution that streamlines intercompany eliminations, multi-entity reporting, and compliance management. It offers rule-based automation for recurring consolidation tasks, reducing manual effort and improving data accuracy. It enables businesses to connect financial planning, budgeting, and forecasting within one system and monitor multiple subsidiaries and account structures.
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Pricing: Anaplan has different tiers, but only reveals the actual cost after a consultation with their team.
Best for: Finance teams that use other Workday systems and want to incorporate financial planning and consolidation.
Workday Adaptive Planning helps businesses streamline close cycles and improve decision-making with financial consolidation, budgeting, and forecasting tools. The system integrates with multiple data sources to create real-time financial reports and scenario modeling. Automation capabilities reduce manual data management, and integrations with third parties add to the volume of data available.
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Pricing: Workday Adaptive Planning does not make any pricing plans public. However, they offer free trials, demos, and custom quotes.
Best for: Enterprise organizations needing real-time financial insights through customizable dashboards and data visualization tools.
Domo consolidates financial data from multiple sources into a centralized, visually-driven platform to analyze key financial metrics. The platform offers automated reporting, trend analysis, and real-time forecasting so finance teams can optimize costs and identify new opportunities. Domo integrates with many leading apps, such as QuickBooks and MISys, but some SQL knowledge may be required for advanced configurations on the system itself.
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Pricing: Domo provides a free trial to get a taste of the platform but only reveals its customized pricing after speaking to the sales team.
Best for: Enterprise-sized organizations that want to move away from spreadsheets and invest in a proprietary platform.
Centage is an integrated financial planning and consolidation solution that helps businesses streamline multi-entity financial reporting. The platform offers automated budgeting, scenario modeling, and financial forecasting, allowing companies to align their planning with real-time data. Designed to integrate with popular accounting tools like Sage, QuickBooks, and NetSuite, Centage simplifies data migration and reporting. However, some users report performance slowness and a steep learning curve during implementation.
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Pricing: Centage does not provide set pricing plans, but offers quotes after a software demo.
Whether you require multi-entity consolidation, real-time financial insights, automated intercompany eliminations, or all of the above, choosing the right financial consolidation software is the first place to start.
With so many options available, look for platforms that integrate with your current systems and offer automation capabilities, compliance support, scalability, and AI capabilities on a user-friendly platform.
If you’re in the market for an excellent all-rounder, consider Cube. Fully integrated with Excel and Google Sheets, it adds powerful financial planning and analysis capabilities to the visualizations you’re used to.
Book a demo with Cube and enhance your organization’s financial reporting and consolidation today.