Consolidation is the period–end process of combining the financial results of separate subsidiaries with the parent company to form a single, combined statement of financial results. The Global Consolidation System (GCS) provides the flexibility to help you manage your consolidation needs regardless of your company structure.

1. There are two methods you can use to achieve consolidated results with Oracle Applications:

•  Reporting Consolidations: Define an FSG report which consolidates data stored in a single set of books or which sums data across separate sets of books on the same applications instance.
•  Data Transfer Consolidations: Serves global enterprises with multiple sets of books or multiple applications instances. With data transfer consolidations, you move your financial data from diverse sets of books and data sources into a single  consolidation set of books. You can report on and analyze consolidated financial information from this consolidated set of books.

2. Consolidating Budgets Like Actuals, you can consolidate budget periods one period at a time. You can also consolidate budgets that do not share the same calendar and/or beginning and ending periods. The following restrictions apply to consolidating budget balances:

• If the source and target budgets do not share the same calendar, you must consolidate a specific period to a specific period.
• If the source and target budgets do not share the same start period, you must consolidate a specific period to a specific period.
• If the source and target budgets share the same calendar and start period, you can consolidate all periods or a specific period to a specific period.

3. Feature for Alternative Accounting Representations : These consolidation features complement the Global Accounting Engine Dual Posting solution. The Global Accounting Engine Dual Posting solution enables you to transfer a single Payables or Receivables transaction to two sets of books using different accounting rules. These features are also available to users who do not use Global Accounting Engine Dual Posting, but want to create alternative accounting representations of their accounting data using the standard consolidation functionality. These features apply to the journal batches created in the target set of books after running a transfer using the transactions method.
4. What You Can Consolidate : With GCS, you can consolidate any business dimension at any level of detail from any point of view:

• Any Source: Data from any source system, including ledger, databases, Oracle and non–Oracle applications can be consolidated with GCS. For Oracle Applications, use Cross Instance Data Transfer to transfer consolidation data to your parent on a remote instance. Fornon–Oracle applications use a customizable spreadsheet front–end or the open consolidation interface to upload your data into GCS.
• Any Chart of Accounts: Subsidiaries can use separate chart of accounts from the parent to address unique operational accounting practices and meet local statutory requirements. GCS enables you to consolidate across diverse charts of accounts.
• Any Calendar: Subsidiaries can use different accounting calendars from the parent. GCS enables you to consolidate across calendars.
• Any Currency: Subsidiaries can use a functional currency which differs from the functional currency of the parent. GCS revalues and translates all subsidiary balances to ensure consistent consolidated results.
• Any Level of Detail: Consolidate detail transactions, detail balances, and summary balances.

Consolidate transactions when you want the convenience of accessing detailed information in the consolidated ledger.
Consolidate balances when you want the flexibility to transfer account details for only selected accounts.
Consolidate summary balances when you only want to transfer aggregated account balances to the consolidated ledger. This method requires fewer resources and enhances processing performance.

• Any Balance Type: Consolidate any balance type; including actual, average, translated, budget, and statistical balances

5. Special Considerations for Average Daily Balance Sets of Books When consolidating average balances, you will need to reverse the prior period’s consolidation in the current period to avoid double counting. Period average balances represent standalone balances for each period, and is the same balance for every day within the same period. Without a reversal adjustment, the prior period’s average balance will be incorrectly included in the current period’s average balance.
For example, you are performing periodic average consolidation using PATD balances for Jan–01 and Feb–01. After consolidating Jan–01, and before consolidating Feb–01, you will need to reverse the Jan–01 PATD average consolidation journal as of Feb–01. This will set the Feb–01 PATD balance back to zero. You can then perform a PATD average consolidation for Feb–01.
This same reversal adjustment is required for quarterly QATD consolidations and year YATD consolidations. You will need to reverse the prior quarter’s QATD average consolidation in the first day of the current quarter before running the current consolidation. For year YATD average consolidations, you will need to reverse the prior year’s YATD avergae consolidation in the first day of the current year before running the current consolidation. If you perform average consolidations on the most frequent basis, as in doing periodic PATD average consolidations, you will automatically have available to you QATD and YATD average consolidation balances. To review the correct QATD and YATD information will be derived from the PATD balances. To review the correct QATD and YATD balances under this method, you need to select the date for the last day of the quarter or the year. For all other dates within the range, the balances will not be accurate.