Häufig gestellte Fragen
When is a company actually required to consolidate or prepare consolidated financial statements?
Under Section 290 HGB, a parent company must in principle prepare consolidated financial statements if it can exercise controlling influence over at least one subsidiary. Section 293 HGB provides a size-based exemption if at least two of the three thresholds are not exceeded on two consecutive balance sheet dates — under the gross method around EUR 30 million in total assets, EUR 60 million in revenue and 250 employees on annual average. For the consolidated net method, the monetary values are lower at roughly EUR 25 million and EUR 50 million, and the exemption does not apply in any case to capital-market-oriented groups, which must consolidate regardless of their size. The exact thresholds are determined by the statutory version in force at the time; the monetary limits were last raised in 2024 to adjust for inflation.
Is the ERP module enough, or do I need a dedicated consolidation tool?
With only a few subsidiaries and pure HGB reporting, the integrated group function of many ERP systems often covers consolidation adequately. As the number of entities grows, with parallel accounting standards such as IFRS and HGB or complex foreign currency and shareholding structures, groups usually turn to specialised applications such as LucaNet, CCH Tagetik, SAP S/4HANA Group Reporting, Oracle EPM or OneStream, which are assigned to the EPM category. Such tools offer rule-based eliminations, versioning of consolidation runs and an audit-proof audit trail. In either case, what matters is that the ERP delivers the intercompany balances cleanly reconciled and mapped to a uniform group chart of accounts.
Which consolidation steps does a complete set of consolidated financial statements comprise?
Before the actual eliminations, the local separate financial statements are converted to uniform recognition and measurement rules and a common group currency, the so-called Handelsbilanz II. This is typically followed by capital consolidation, in which the carrying amount of the investment is offset against the proportionate equity, debt consolidation of intra-group receivables and payables, and the consolidation of income and expenses from internal revenues. Added to this is the elimination of intercompany profits, which neutralises gains from intra-group deliveries still held in inventory. Every step presupposes that the underlying intercompany relationships are clearly identified and reconciled as at the reporting date.
What is the difference between full consolidation, proportionate consolidation and the equity method?
The three methods depend on the degree of influence the parent company has over the respective investment. Where control exists, a subsidiary is fully consolidated, meaning its assets and liabilities are included in the consolidated financial statements in full, while minority interests are reported separately. Proportionate consolidation captures only the proportionate share of jointly managed companies and is available under Section 310 HGB as an option alongside the equity method. Associated companies with merely significant influence but no control are instead reported using the equity method as an investment carried at its adjusted value.
What are the differences between consolidation under HGB and under IFRS?
Both standards fundamentally require the acquisition method for capital consolidation, but IFRS additionally permits the full goodwill method when measuring minority interests, under which the goodwill attributable to minorities is also recognised. A key difference lies in the subsequent measurement of goodwill: under HGB it is amortised systematically over its useful life, whereas IFRS provides for a purely annual impairment test, the impairment-only approach. The treatment of incidental acquisition costs also differs, as under IFRS 3 these are recognised immediately in profit or loss and do not increase the carrying amount of the investment. Groups reporting in parallel under both standards should therefore check whether their software can handle both frameworks simultaneously.
What does consolidation software cost and what do the costs depend on?
Reliable list prices are rarely public, as almost all vendors quote individually based on the number of entities, users and functional scope. Industry sources often cite orders of magnitude of around EUR 150,000 to 500,000 in the first year for mid-market projects with solutions such as LucaNet or Jedox, while extensive enterprise stacks such as OneStream, Oracle EPM or SAP Group Reporting can be significantly higher. Pure licence or subscription fees usually account for only the smaller part of the total cost, with the predominant share going to implementation, customising, data migration and training. Actual costs should therefore always be assessed as a total project view and not just via the licence.