Multi-Entity Accounting
/MUHL-tee · EN-tuh-tee · uh-KOWN-tihng/
tl;drMulti-entity accounting is running the books for more than one legal entity, subsidiary, or business unit inside a single, coherent system, rather than in separate instances that need to be reconciled together afterward.
Intercompany transactions, different currencies, and different local statutory requirements all have to net out into one consistent view of the group.
Most ERPs handle this by bolting entities onto a system built for one. Consolidation becomes a project: exporting data from each entity, mapping charts of accounts, eliminating intercompany balances by hand, and reconciling FX by spreadsheet, usually once a month, under deadline.
Done properly, multi-entity accounting means one ledger holds every entity's transactions, intercompany entries eliminate as they post, and a consolidated report across every entity, currency, and accounting standard is available in real time rather than reconstructed after the fact. This is the model Light is built on: multi-entity, multi-currency, multi-standard, handled natively instead of stitched together.
Back to the glossaryThe glossary ends here, the practice starts with Light.
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