The typical starting point
Several entities, several general ledgers and several month-end packs that have to be combined by hand into a group P&L. The first week of every month goes into stitching spreadsheets, fixing currency conversions and reconciling inter-company balances, and the pack is often late.
How I would build it
I would map every source file, the consolidation adjustments and the audit trail the auditors need to see. Then I would build a single data model that ingests every ledger in Power Query, maps each chart of accounts to a group chart, applies inter-company eliminations as a separate, reviewable query and surfaces a consolidated P&L, balance sheet and cash forecast with one refresh.
What it is designed to deliver
The aim is a close that the finance team runs themselves: variance to budget and prior year calculated inside the model, no side workbooks of lookups, and every adjustment visible for audit.
