Multiple Entities, Intercompany and Consolidation

What this is for

If your group has more than one legal entity — a holding company and trading subsidiaries, say — you can keep separate books for each inside one Plenix account, charge between them, and see group accounts with intercompany balances eliminated.

Plan: Business and above.

Setting up entities

1. Go to Accounting → Entities and click Add entity.
2. Enter the Legal name, Company number, VAT number, Base currency and an Invoice number prefix.
3. Save. The first entity becomes the Default.

New invoices, bills and journals are stamped with the default entity unless you choose another. If you already had accounting history before adding entities, use Assign all to it on an entity to move the unassigned history onto it.

Each entity numbers its invoices with its own prefix. Accounts in the chart of accounts can be limited to one entity, so an entity's forms only offer the accounts that belong to it.

Working in one entity

Invoices, bills and journal entries have an entity filter, and so do the profit & loss, trial balance and balance sheet under Accounting → Reports. Pick an entity to see just its books.

Intercompany charges

Use the Intercompany tab when one entity charges another, for example a management fee.

1. Click Post charge. Choose who it's Charged by and Charged to, the amount, the date and What it's for.
2. Plenix posts a matched pair of journals: income and a receivable in the charging entity, cost and a payable in the other.
3. When it's paid, use Record payment to settle it.

The tab shows what each entity Owes and is Owed to it. Use Show open only to see just the unsettled charges.

Consolidated reports

On the Consolidated reports tab, choose Profit & loss or Balance sheet and the period, then click Consolidate. The report has a column per entity, an Eliminations column and a Group total. Intercompany charges between your entities are eliminated automatically, so the group figures only show trading with the outside world.

Elimination entries

For adjustments the automatic eliminations don't cover, such as unrealised profit on stock sold within the group, add a manual journal on the Elimination entries tab. Debits and credits must balance before you can Post elimination. These entries only affect the consolidated report, never an individual entity's books.

For your IT team

• Entity scoping is applied on the server: reports, invoice numbering and account restrictions all use the entity on the record.
• Deleting an entity that has records against it isn't allowed. Reassign or keep it.

Where to go next

• How Accounting Works