If your company owns other companies, the group’s accounts are more than the individual accounts added together. Consolidation puts the parent and its subsidiaries on one set of statements, as though they were a single business. We build them, including the unglamorous part: removing what the group owes itself.
Last reviewed 17 October 2026. Source: ACRA.
Do you need consolidated statements?
It depends on your structure, and the answer isn’t the same for every group. ACRA’s pages recognise that some companies are exempt from consolidating, and they use consolidated figures where a company has subsidiaries, associates or joint ventures and isn’t exempt. The exemption rules sit in the Companies Act and the accounting standards, and we haven’t reproduced thresholds here because they depend on your facts. Bring us the structure chart and we’ll tell you where you stand.
Two nearby points are easier to state:
- The audit exemption looks at the whole group. A company in a group is exempt from audit only if it is small itself, and the whole group, including foreign entities, meets at least two of the three criteria (revenue S$10 million or less, total assets S$10 million or less, 50 employees or fewer) for two consecutive years, using the holding company’s consolidated statements.
- A subsidiary has to assess whether it belongs to a small group even if it doesn’t prepare or file consolidated statements. This is ACRA’s position.
Our audit exemptions guide shows the test with numbers.
What goes into a consolidation
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| Collect | Trial balances from every group entity, on the same reporting date |
| Align | Same accounting policies across entities; foreign subsidiaries translated into Singapore dollars |
| Combine | Add the line items together |
| Eliminate | Remove intercompany loans, sales, balances and unrealised profit |
| Adjust | Non-controlling interests, goodwill and investments in subsidiaries |
| Present | Group statements and notes, ready to feed into XBRL filing |
The elimination step is where errors hide, because a missed intercompany balance still adds up. We reconcile every intercompany account between entities before we combine anything.
What we need from you
- A structure chart with ownership percentages
- Trial balances for every entity, with the same year end
- Intercompany loan agreements and a list of intercompany transactions
- Prior-year group accounts, if any
- Details of any overseas subsidiaries and their currencies
If a subsidiary is overseas, we also need its local books in a form we can read, and the exchange rates you want applied. We’ll confirm which rates the standards require.
Example (illustration only)
ABC Group Pte Ltd owns two Singapore subsidiaries and one in Malaysia. ABC Group has lent S$200,000 to the Malaysian company, which shows as an asset in ABC Group’s books and a liability in the subsidiary’s. On consolidation, both disappear, because the group hasn’t lent anything to anyone outside itself. Missing that elimination would overstate both assets and liabilities.
Questions people ask
Do all groups need consolidated statements? No. Some are exempt, depending on the structure and the standards. Send us the chart.
Does a small group still need an audit? Not if it meets the small-group test above. A group that fails the test needs one.
What if the subsidiaries don’t keep good books? We start there. See bookkeeping.
Is this the same as the Pillar Two top-up tax? No. That’s a tax rule for large multinational groups. Consolidation is about accounts.
Sources
- ACRA: Audit exemptions, small company concept
- ACRA: Financial statements, filing requirements and exemptions
General information, not professional advice for your specific situation. Consolidation exemptions turn on the Companies Act and the accounting standards; confirm yours with us.
Have a group to consolidate?
Send us your structure chart and each entity’s year end, and we’ll tell you whether consolidation applies and what it needs. Ask us about your group accounts.