Four entities is not four times one entity. Our Sydney-based Chartered Accountants run per-entity bookkeeping, BAS and payroll across your whole group on one chart of accounts and one close timetable, then produce a consolidation that actually ties.
Whether you have a holding company and two trading entities or a project entity per site, engagements run rolling monthly at $2,500 to $6,000 with one team and one point of accountability.
Entity A's loan receivable is Entity B's loan payable. Maintained by separate bookkeepers they drift, usually by a small amount each month, until someone reconstructs three years of transfers to establish which side is right. We hold both sides and reconcile monthly, so the balances agree because they were built that way rather than because someone chased them.
A bookkeeper doing each entity competently in isolation produces four files that will not consolidate. Different chart of accounts, different treatment of the same transfer, different close dates. Nothing is wrong in any single file and the group numbers are unusable. Consolidation requires treatment decided centrally, which is what one team gives you.
Payroll tax grouping applies at group level, so four entities each comfortably under the threshold can be well over it together. Most businesses learn this when a state revenue office writes to them. We assess grouping at onboarding, across every state you employ in, and raise GST grouping where entities transact heavily with each other.
Every entity gets reconciled weekly on the same chart of accounts, with the same treatment applied to the same kind of transaction. That consistency is not tidiness, it is the precondition for consolidating at all.
Where the group has inherited four different charts from four different bookkeepers, restructuring comes first and is scoped as its own job. Mapping mismatched accounts every month is slower and less reliable than fixing it once.
Clients typically move from four inconsistent files to one group standard within the first six to eight weeks.
Both sides of every intercompany position are maintained by the same team and reconciled monthly, using due to and due from accounts that net to zero.
Recharge treatment is decided once and documented, because the agent versus principal question changes whether a recharge is revenue or a cost reduction, and changes the GST treatment with it. Applied inconsistently across a group it overstates revenue everywhere, which surfaces painfully in a sale process.
Clients typically see intercompany balances agree from the first close, and historical differences quantified before they are corrected.
You get per-entity accounts and a group consolidation on the same monthly timetable, with elimination entries and working papers behind it. Xero does not consolidate organisations natively, so this is either a monthly workpaper on a common chart or a consolidation tool connected to each file, and both depend on the consistency above.
Commentary comes from a CA-qualified senior looking at the group and the entities together, which is where the useful observations sit.
Clients typically get their first reliable group P&L and balance sheet within two months, on a fixed reporting date thereafter.
One payroll function across the group, including the common arrangement where an employee is paid by one entity and works in another. That arrangement is also one of the main triggers for payroll tax grouping, so the two questions get answered together.
Grouping tests, thresholds and rates differ by state and change, so we confirm the current position with each relevant revenue office each financial year rather than working from last year's figures.
Clients typically get a written grouping position covering every state they employ in, before the first lodgement rather than after.
Activity statements are prepared and lodged per entity under registered BAS Agent 26298194, from files reconciled weekly rather than at quarter end. Consistent GST treatment across entities is what stops the same transaction being coded three ways.
Where entities transact heavily with each other, GST grouping can reduce administration by disregarding intra-group supplies. It also complicates things where entities have different GST profiles, so we assess it and put the decision to your tax agent.
Clients typically move to one compliance calendar covering every entity and every obligation, with nothing tracked in someone's head.
Where entities in the group are audited, we prepare the working papers and reconciliations the auditor will ask for during the year rather than assembling them under pressure in September.
The same applies to year-end. Your tax agent receives a reconciled file with intercompany agreed and elimination workings attached, which is usually the difference between a short year-end and a long one.
Clients typically report a shorter audit and a smaller year-end bill, because partner-rate catch-up work disappears.
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Most groups sit between $2,500 and $6,000 per month with us. Pricing is driven by combined transaction volume and payroll headcount more than by entity count on its own, because four dormant entities are far less work than two busy ones.
As a rule of thumb, a second operating entity adds roughly 40 to 70 per cent of the first entity's cost rather than doubling it, and a dormant entity adds a small fixed amount. What consistently adds cost is consolidation, intercompany volume, multi-state payroll and audited entities. Broader market context is in how much does an outsourced finance team cost in Australia.
Not natively. Xero manages individual organisations, so a group consolidation comes either from a monthly workpaper on a common chart of accounts with intercompany eliminations, or from a third-party tool connected to each file.
Both depend entirely on the same things: identical account codes, consistent treatment and reconciled intercompany balances. A consolidation tool applied to four inconsistent files produces a fast wrong answer rather than a slow one, which is why the chart of accounts work comes before the reporting work. The mechanics are in multi-entity bookkeeping in Xero.
To the group, where the entities are grouped under the relevant state's rules. Common ownership, common control and shared employees are the usual triggers, and the tests differ by jurisdiction, so grouping in one state does not automatically mean grouping in another.
The practical consequence is that the threshold applies to the group's combined Australian wages rather than to each entity, which is the single most common surprise for growing groups. Thresholds and rates change, so we confirm the current position with each relevant revenue office. See payroll tax grouping.
It can help. GST grouping treats related entities as one entity for GST, so supplies between them are generally disregarded and one member lodges for the group, which removes a lot of administration where entities trade heavily with each other.
It also complicates matters where entities have different GST profiles, and it has tax consequences, so the decision sits with a registered tax agent rather than with us. We assess whether it is worth considering and put it to them with the numbers. Background in GST grouping for multi-entity businesses.
It is common and manageable, but it has to be recorded as an intercompany position rather than left to net out in the bank. Left alone for a year it becomes a reconstruction exercise, and where the entities have different owners or a trust is involved it can create tax consequences nobody intended.
We record both sides monthly and reconcile them, and we flag where the arrangement has drifted into something that needs a tax agent's view. Division 7A is the usual one, particularly where a company has been funding a related party or a shareholder without documented terms.
Yes, for the bookkeeping, BAS, payroll and reporting across every entity in the structure. Trust distribution resolutions, Division 7A and structure decisions go to our independent tax agent partner, who contracts with you directly.
That split is deliberate rather than a gap. We are a registered BAS Agent, not a registered tax agent, so the work that requires tax agent registration sits with the party that holds it. Background on the structures themselves is in holding company structures and trust versus company.
Xero across every entity, with Employment Hero for payroll where that suits better. Mixed environments where one entity sits on another platform do not work for group reporting, because a consolidation is only as consistent as the least consistent file in it.
We have declined group work on Dynamics, Movex and MYOB for that reason. If the group mandates a non-Xero ERP, you want a provider who specialises in it, and we will say so on the first call rather than three weeks in.
Probably not. Where entities exist only for asset protection and hold no activity, what you need is annual accounting and a tax return, not a monthly finance function. We will tell you that rather than sell you a retainer for four dormant files.
