If your month-end still eats entire weeks, you’re not alone — large enterprises report an average of 373 staff hours per close. Many teams finish in under a week, but nearly one-third take one to three weeks. The good news? Legacy approaches — spreadsheets, outdated systems, and ERP-only consolidation — are being replaced because they can’t keep pace with today’s needs for integration, workflow automation, and agility. 84% of large enterprises that moved off those legacy tools into a dedicated consolidation and reporting solution shortened their close — proof that modernizing with a purpose-built solution pays off.
This blog distills BPM Partners’ white paper, 7 Things They Never Told You About Financial Consolidation Solutions, into a digestible guide — with a clear path to the value of connecting financial consolidation with planning.
Why financial consolidation transformation is rising
Cloud corporate performance management (CPM) has gone mainstream, yet back-end complexity still slows the close. 59% of large enterprises use a performance management consolidation solution and 43% are on cloud CPM, but 46% still run multiple general ledger (GL) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. That fragmentation raises the stakes for integration, governance, and speed..
What financial consolidation really covers for modern finance
Consolidation isn’t just a compliance task. It’s the backbone of internal management reporting, performance dashboards, and decision support. When you unify data across entities, currencies, and charts of accounts, you build a governed source of truth that strengthens everything from disclosures to board reporting to investor materials.
How financial consolidation powers planning and decisions
Financial planning and analysis (FP&A) depends on finance-approved actuals — and those actuals come from your consolidation and close. When actuals flow into plans at the right level of detail, you can reforecast quickly, run consistent variance analysis, and pressure-test decisions with reliable “what-if” scenarios. A unified, governed model also reduces manual work, shortens cycle times, and increases confidence across the business.
Seven truths about financial consolidation
1. Consolidation fuels planning:
Consolidated actuals aren’t just an output — they’re the input to budgeting, forecasting, and scenarios.
81% of organizations already use consolidated results to drive planning, so design data flows that bring actuals into FP&A models at matching granularity.
2. “Consolidation” varies widely by vendor:
Some tools aggregate GL balances; others deliver purpose-built services with journal entries, intercompany eliminations, noncontrolling interest, and audit trails. Ask vendors to map their definition to your scope — statutory, management, and operational reporting — so expectations are explicit.
3. Controls and flexibility must coexist:
Consolidation demands strict governance, segregation of duties, and auditability, while FP&A needs greater dimensionality and modeling flexibility for drivers and “what-if” scenarios. Confirm your controls won’t block FP&A agility — and that FP&A agility won’t weaken your controls.
4. Core features should be out of the box:
Intercompany eliminations, multi-currency conversion, alternate rollups, journals, and noncontrolling interest should be table stakes. Request a live demo — ideally with sample data — to verify these capabilities work as described.
5. Advanced consolidation capabilities may sit alongside the core:
Be on alert for potential gaps with scalability and performance. Scalability and performance limitations can impede handling your high data volumes, causing system lags particularly if you have to rerun consolidation at the last minute. Weak existing integration with diverse ERP systems and applications creates the need for more custom work during implementation, performance challenges, and potential data quality issues.
6. Integration quality determines outcomes:
Comma-separated values (CSV) file hops create latency and mismatches; real-time, same-grain sync keeps actuals and plans aligned, speeds reforecasts, and eliminates rework. Insist on proven connectors for your GL/ERP, data warehouse, and subledgers (SLs) and use governed pipelines such as Anaplan Data Orchestrator.
7. AI belongs in consolidation work:
Practical, AI-driven capabilities — mapping suggestions, anomaly detection, narrative drafting — are already cutting hours from financial consolidation processes. Prioritize AI so you can deploy this quarter and set clear review and approval guardrails.
Your next step
Modern financial consolidation is more than a faster month-end; it’s the foundation for trusted reporting, confident planning, and timely insight. With the Anaplan Financial Consolidation application, you can unify data from multiple sources, automate eliminations and adjustments, and connect directly to FP&A models. That means faster cycles, fewer reconciliations, and finance-approved actuals that flow seamlessly into forecasts and “what-if” scenarios.
If you’re ready to streamline financial consolidation and elevate finance’s role as a strategic partner, explore the Anaplan Financial Consolidation application today.
