Got multiple ABNs? 3 Ways MYOB Advanced creates a framework for insight

Too often, finance leaders responsible for a group of companies (multiple ABNs) are bogged down in last-minute reporting and manual consolidation. Discover how MYOB Advanced can help you streamline multi-company finances and find more time for strategy.  

Many finance managers within a group of companies, franchisor business, or conglomerate are still bogged down in tasks that could be automated, streamlined and simplified.

MYOB Advanced is a comprehensive Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution ideal for managing finances across multi-entity companies, giving accountants clarity without the need for late nights at the office.

Expanding your advisory role: financial nous is in demand

Businesses expect more from their finance function than ever before. There’s a growing recognition that the people who balance the books are well-placed to interpret, fine-tune and drive revenue growth across the business.

Recognition is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it means that if you’re a switched-on CFO, finance manager or accountant—you’re in demand, and more likely to be involved in high-level decisions with your CEO, business owner, or Board.  

On the other hand, it means your workload is even greater and you’re under more pressure to have the right answers and insights at your fingertips.

Additionally, finance professionals are increasingly expected to build confidence within the business that broad ethical, regulatory and governance requirements are being met, and stay abreast of legislative change.

Where does the time go? Multi-entity finances are complex

Businesses of all sizes need to be strategic about financial management, but it’s especially vital when you’re growing in scope and complexity. When you handle accounting and reporting for an organisation or high net worth individual with multiple ABNs — the time and effort involved is significant.

You’ll tend to run up against challenges including:

• Time involved in reconciling finances across multiple entities and accounts.
• Inaccuracies creeping in because of inconsistent figures from different sources.
• Onerous manual mapping required to bring companies into synch.
• The significant end-of-month effort involved in consolidated financial reporting.

If your company has gradually acquired new businesses or opened new ventures, perhaps the complexity has crept up on you. What was relatively straightforward to manage in the beginning becomes a time-consuming, frustrating exercise that buries you in spreadsheets.

Advanced software creates a framework for insight

Because MYOB Advanced is a leading ERP solution, you can trust it to help you unify and streamline all of your processes, plus it has specific features designed to facilitate complex financials across multiple legal entities.

Finance managers that have been doing things the hard way especially love the ease of use, automation and consolidated reporting that MYOB Advanced makes possible.

Regardless of how many ABNs you hold, in MYOB Advanced you work from a single database, with a single log-in from which you can flick between companies seamlessly, and get real-time access to financial data.

Three key ways MYOB Advanced streamlines multiple company finances

1. Consolidated financial reporting and GST: Get a big picture view of financial information at the group level, or by company, or other combinations as needed to satisfy diverse reporting requirements (both internal and external). If you don’t want to run separate reports for taxation purposes—say, to avoid paying GST on inter-company transactions—you can consolidate GST across several legal entities.
2. Rules-based inter-company transactions: You can create one transaction that’s applied across multiple entities. For instance, one company might act as the head office and pick up the rental, telephone or administrative expenses for its sister businesses. You can create rules that split the costs for certain transactions across your entities according to a set percentage or variables like headcount per team; share of sales revenue; and square metres of office space.
3. Flexible report writing capabilities: Complete multi-dimensional financial analyses across your different ABNs and across various groupings of your entities. Once you’ve set up reporting structures, at the touch of a button you can gain deeper insights into your financial position, sales by region, and P&L by region or product line. For example, a business that sells both agricultural and civil engineering equipment across multiple entities and regions could create reports to examine:

• • • Profitability across all entities by geographic region
    • Profitability in regions allocated to specific Sales Managers
    • Profitability by line of product (e.g. agricultural) for a specific region across multiple entities.

In addition, all of this functionality holds true if one or more of your legal entities is based overseas, or you expand in future—you can interact with and report on those businesses just as easily, without the need for new software or re-skilling. Here is a quick demo overview that we have developed to show you how you can set up multiple ABNs within the system, perform intercompany processing tasks and produce consolidated reports.

Avoid multi-company financial headaches and sleep easier

Each new legal entity under your business’ umbrella creates more opportunity for disorder and errors. Basic systems that work for one business don’t scale when the ownership structure, holdings and tax considerations begin to expand across multiple ABNs.

That’s enough to keep you up at night.

Explore MYOB Advanced if you’d rather eliminate blind spots, be confident in your overall financial position, and reduce the time involved in reporting across multiple legal entities.

A conversation with one of our consultant is an easy way to start your journey towards consolidated financial management: our MYOB Advanced expertise is second to none. Contact us today.