A Brisbane CPA firm replaces four ledgers and an Excel consolidation with one multi-entity workspace

The firm has looked after the group since its first venue opened. As the second and third venues and the holding company arrived, so did the standard multi-entity problem: four files, four bank-feed reviews, and a consolidation that only existed in a spreadsheet one senior accountant understood. Migration was staged. Each entity's chart of accounts, opening balances, customers, suppliers and history were brought across through the guided import from the previous tool, and the imported periods were reconciled against the old files before cut-over. The four entities were then added to a single workspace, with per-entity access so venue managers see only their own books. The AI accountant handles the day-to-day: POS settlements, supplier bills and payroll journals are categorized and matched on each ledger, and the firm's staff work an exception queue rather than four bank-feed screens. Intercompany transfers — the holding company funding a venue, a venue paying a management fee — are recognised on both sides instead of being discovered at month end. The board pack is where the change is most visible. The owners' preferred layout — venue-level gross margin, then group overheads, then a consolidated result — was built once as a custom report layout and now runs on the consolidated view whenever it is needed. What used to be two days of Excel is a three-hour review of the numbers. Quarterly BAS follows the same pattern. Each entity's activity statement is prepared from its reconciled ledger, the intercompany GST is already consistent on both sides, and all four are reviewed and finalised in one sitting.