Consolidated Xero Reporting: How to Combine Multiple Entities in Xero
If your business runs more than one company, branch, or division, getting a clear, combined financial picture can be a real challenge—especially in Xero. Natively, Xero is designed for single-entity accounting, meaning you only get reports for each company on its own. But what if you need a group-level overview, or want to compare performance across multiple entities in different countries or with different currencies?
You’re not alone. According to Xero’s own community, multi-entity and consolidated reporting is one of their most-requested features, with hundreds of businesses seeking easier ways to report as a group. Without consolidated reporting, making big decisions—like forecasting cash flow or presenting results to investors—can feel like assembling a puzzle with missing pieces.
This article breaks down how you can bring together financial data from multiple Xero organizations and produce consolidated reports, either by working with Xero’s built-in tools or with third-party solutions. Whether you’re running two businesses or twenty, understanding your group’s true financial performance starts here.
What Is Consolidated Xero Reporting?
Consolidated Xero reporting means pulling together the financial data from several separate companies—or “entities”—that are set up in Xero, so that you can view the performance of your group as a whole. Instead of switching between organisations and cobbling together spreadsheets, consolidated reporting allows you to review everything, side by side, on a single screen or output. This is especially useful for businesses that own multiple companies, franchises, or operate across different regions.
Why businesses need consolidation in Xero
Modern businesses rarely operate within the simple confines of a single legal entity. You might have various subsidiaries, separate business units, or international operations. Without consolidated reporting, you’re left to compare apples and oranges, making it difficult to see the real health of the overall business. Consolidation makes it possible to assess group results, monitor cash flow across the entire operation, and present clean reports to investors or banks.
Single-entity vs multi-entity financial reports
Single-entity reports show only one company at a time—its sales, expenses, and profits. Multi-entity (or consolidated) reports combine results from multiple companies, remove internal transactions (so you’re not double-counting revenue or costs moved within the group), and present the financial story of your group as if it were a single organisation. This gives you a holistic, accurate view that reflects your true position and performance.
Understanding what consolidation looks like in Xero lays the groundwork for exploring how the right reporting tools can bring together multiple currencies, automate updates, and handle the complex realities of growing businesses. Let’s dig into the features that matter most when you need your reports to keep up with your ambitions.
Key Features to Look for in Xero Consolidation
Multi-currency and multi-entity support
Businesses operating across countries need consolidation tools that handle multiple currencies smoothly. A good solution will convert balances automatically, show gains and losses, and let you review figures in a reporting or home currency. Multi-entity support allows you to combine financials from different Xero organisations, regardless of location or base currency, into one set of group reports.
Intercompany eliminations
Without proper elimination, intercompany loans, sales, or management fees end up inflating group profit and loss or balance sheet reports. Look for features that identify and remove these internal transactions automatically, supporting a clean view of your consolidated results.
Automated report updates
Manual reporting is slow and error-prone. Choose a tool that pulls data from Xero regularly, updates your consolidated reports without downloads or imports, and notifies you if something changes. Automatic syncs mean your financials reflect the latest transactions as soon as they’re entered in underlying entities.
Budgeting and forecasting within group accounts
Consolidated budgets and forecasts are essential for planning across companies. Advanced tools allow you to import or design budgets at the entity level and then roll them up for a group-wide outlook. This gives you an accurate forward view as well as historical comparisons—all in one place.
With these core features as your guide, you’ll know what to prioritise when evaluating solutions. Next, we’ll take a closer look at the common hurdles users face when working with Xero’s built-in consolidation capabilities and why an external tool might be necessary.
Limitations of Native Xero Reporting
Current gaps in Xero’s group reporting
Xero is robust for managing one business at a time, but it wasn’t built for groups or companies with more than one legal entity. If you run multiple businesses in Xero, you’ll quickly notice that the built-in reports—like Balance Sheet, P&L, and Cash Flow—can only ever show results for a single entity. There’s no built-in way to combine results across different Xero accounts, no matter how similar your chart of accounts is or how much manual work you do. Intercompany transactions can’t be eliminated automatically, and reporting in multiple currencies means more exports and conversions by hand. Xero won’t link or merge organizations for analysis, and there’s no group-wide dashboard for real-time performance.
When to look beyond built-in Xero features
Most workarounds involve exporting reports, whittling them down in Excel or Google Sheets, and building your own templates for consolidation. This manual approach is slow, prone to errors, and relies heavily on your spreadsheet skills. The more entities you add, the messier it gets—especially if you need to adjust for currency gains and losses, or track intercompany loans. If you’re aiming for month-end close speed or quick group-level insight, Xero’s native reports will leave you short. Managing budgets, forecasts, or standardizing reporting across entities becomes more time-consuming as complexity rises. For true group reporting, purpose-built tools offer a practical shortcut and reduce risky manual effort.
Recognizing these limitations leads many businesses to explore specialized solutions. Next, we’ll compare the leading tools for combining and streamlining multi-entity reporting in the Xero ecosystem.
Popular Tools for Xero Consolidated Reporting
Overview of third-party apps: Joiin, Fathom, Spotlight Reporting, G-Accon, Konsolidator
Xero connects with a handful of purpose-built apps that make group reporting manageable, even across borders and currencies. Joiin stands out for its user-friendly dashboards and hands-off consolidations—once connected to your Xero entities, reporting is automated and intuitive. Fathom has a polished interface and deep-dive analytics, giving users customizable visuals and performance tracking by entity. Spotlight Reporting is popular for its flexible templates, forecast tools, and clean presentation of consolidated numbers. G-Accon lets you move Xero data into Google Sheets or Excel for more DIY reporting, ideal for teams comfortable working in spreadsheets. Konsolidator is designed for larger groups, simplifying complex consolidations with strict compliance needs, and offering audit-ready exports. Each of these solutions offers something different—whether it’s drag-and-drop report building or seamless Excel integration.
The image above illustrates how Joiin presents consolidated Xero financials at a glance, making group-level insights instantly accessible.
Comparing features and pricing
Most Xero consolidation apps price their services per group or per connected entity. Joiin’s plans start affordably and scale with the number of companies you need to consolidate; Fathom and Spotlight offer pricing tiers depending on your reporting complexity. If you only want simple Excel-based merging, G-Accon may be the most budget-friendly. Konsolidator is priced for larger enterprises, reflecting its advanced features and financial controls. Free trials are available with nearly all these apps, so you can see what fits before committing.
The pros and cons of each app come down to your needs: quick-and-easy group P&L, sophisticated analytics, or custom spreadsheet workflows. Test-driving a couple of these tools will clarify which one hits the right balance of simplicity, accuracy, and value.
Once you’ve chosen a consolidation tool and linked up your Xero entities, the next step is to get hands-on with setup and integration. Here’s how to pull your group data together, no headaches required.
Step-by-Step: Setting Up Consolidated Reports in Xero
Preparing multiple Xero organisations
Start by checking that each entity you want to consolidate has its own Xero organisation. Log into Xero and review the data for each company—look for up-to-date transactions, reconciled bank accounts, and matching financial year-ends. Clean, consistent data across all organisations is crucial for a smooth consolidation process.
Connecting and syncing entities to a consolidation tool
Native Xero doesn’t support consolidation, so choose a third-party consolidation app like Joiin, Fathom, or Spotlight Reporting. Sign in to your chosen tool and connect each Xero organisation. Most apps will use Xero’s secure OAuth process—simply select an entity, grant permissions, and repeat for each additional company. Once connected, trigger a full data sync so that all balances and transactions are available.
The image above demonstrates how the integration dashboard appears when multiple Xero entities are successfully connected to a consolidation tool.
Automating scheduled consolidated reports
After syncing your entities, pick your reporting settings within the tool. Select which organisations to include, configure intercompany eliminations if needed, and set your home currency. Most consolidation tools allow you to set up automated report delivery—schedule monthly or quarterly runs so group-level reports always arrive on time, with fresh data synced from Xero.
With consolidated reporting now up and running, let’s dig into some proven techniques to make your reports more accurate and actionable, helping you get the most insight from your group financials.
Tips for Accurate and Insightful Group Reporting
Eliminating duplicate transactions
Intercompany transactions often appear twice in group reports—once as a sale for one entity and once as a purchase for another. To get true group performance, identify and remove these duplicates. Use clear tracking codes or unique references between entities so you don’t miss anything. Most consolidation tools allow you to flag and exclude matching transactions. Take advantage of this feature every time you prepare consolidated statements.
Ensuring consistency in chart of accounts
Differences in accounts across entities can muddy your reports. Develop a standard chart of accounts from the start, and align each company’s Xero account codes and naming. If you inherit mismatched accounts, create mapping tables within your reporting tool so similar accounts roll up together. This reduces noisy data and guarantees apples-to-apples results for every entity in your group.
Managing exchange rates and cross-currency reporting
When your group operates in multiple currencies, use a unified exchange rate approach—either a spot rate, average for the period, or monthly rate agreed with your auditors. Be clear about rate sources and document them. Many consolidation apps let you lock exchange rates for each reporting period and automate currency conversion, reducing errors when rolling up financials from different countries.
Mastering these foundations sets you up for group reports you can trust, with insights you can actually use. Next, let’s tackle the most common stumbling blocks companies face when building consolidated reports—so your reporting journey stays headache-free.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Xero report on tracking categories across entities?
No, native Xero reports do not combine tracking categories from multiple organisations. If you want to see, for example, department-level performance across your group, you’ll need a consolidation tool that retrieves individual tracking data and pulls them into a unified dashboard. Tools like Joiin and Fathom offer this type of granular breakdown as part of their group reporting features.
How does consolidated forecasting work in Xero?
Xero’s core functionality doesn’t support group-level forecasting out of the box. Third-party consolidation apps allow you to import budgets from each entity and roll them up for a group-level forecast, with options for scenario testing and custom periods. You’ll have to ensure budget structures match across all entities for an accurate roll-up.
Can I consolidate data from different accounting systems?
Some Xero consolidation tools, like Spotlight Reporting and Konsolidator, support merging data from different accounting platforms. You’ll need to connect each system and map accounts properly. This is especially useful for groups with a mix of Xero, QuickBooks, or even Excel-based entities, although setup might take longer than sticking to Xero-only organisations.
Understanding what’s possible (and what isn’t) sets the stage for optimising your workflow. Next, you’ll learn some practical tips to keep your consolidated reports accurate and insightful, no matter how many entities you’re managing.