The external performance of consolidated financial statements is flexible.
On the one hand, influenced by the theories of preparing consolidated financial statements (parent company theory, subject theory and ownership theory), different enterprises in different countries and the same country may choose different scope of consolidation and preparation methods of consolidated financial statements; On the other hand, in order to spread risks, modern enterprises often take diversified business paths. A large number of cross-industry and cross-departmental investments have emerged, which has led to the emergence of subsidiaries with completely different business nature within a group. For example, there are both subsidiaries engaged in real estate and subsidiaries engaged in guarantee business within the group. For such a group company, not only the business nature of each subsidiary is different, but also the accounting system of each subsidiary is likely to be quite different, so it is easy to make the consolidated accounting statements prepared by the enterprise group choose different consolidation scope and consolidated accounting statement preparation methods. So that the consolidated accounting statements have different external manifestations.
The consolidated financial statements have the correctness of logical relationship in the process of preparation.
The consolidated financial statements of enterprise groups are prepared by the parent company on the basis of the accounting statements of the parent company and subsidiaries within the scope of consolidation (in the process of preparation, most other items are directly increased except for investment, creditor's rights and debts and owner's equity items). Under the condition of individual statements, the accounting statements of enterprises have a verifiable correspondence with account books, vouchers and physical objects, and the correctness of accounting statements can be tested through this verifiability. However, under the condition of consolidated accounting statements, due to the offset of intra-group transactions in the preparation process, consolidated accounting statements cannot have a "verifiable" relationship with the accounting statements of a single enterprise, and the correctness of consolidated accounting statements only has the significance of whether the logical relationship is correct or not.
Several characteristics of consolidated financial statements of enterprise groups
The consolidated financial statements of enterprise groups take the enterprise group composed of parent company and subsidiary company as a separate accounting entity, based on the accounting statements prepared by the parent company and subsidiary company respectively, and the accounting statements prepared by the parent company comprehensively reflect the financial status, operating results and cash flow of the enterprise group. Compared with individual accounting statements, the preparation of consolidated financial statements of enterprise groups mainly has the following characteristics.
The enterprise group reflected in the consolidated financial statements is the "subject" in the accounting sense.
From the concept of consolidated accounting statements, when investors form a group at the expense of transferring assets to the outside world, and the subsidiaries form a controlling stake, consolidated accounting statements are prepared for the whole enterprise group. Based on the individual financial statements of the parent company and subsidiaries included in the scope of enterprise group consolidation, and according to other relevant information, the long-term equity investment in subsidiaries is adjusted according to the equity method, so as to offset the influence of internal transactions among the parent company, subsidiaries and subsidiaries on the consolidated financial statements. In other words, the parent company and subsidiaries that make up the group are economic entities with independent accounting, independent financial and operating systems, and can independently issue financial reports to their shareholders. All the parent companies and subsidiaries of the Group effectively allocate the resources shown in their respective statements and use the resources disclosed in their respective statements to achieve their respective financial results. The parent company and subsidiaries in the whole organization are organically linked through equity relations. However, no "group" accounting entity controls the resources listed in the consolidated accounting statements and seeks economic benefits by effectively using or controlling these resources. This "subject" in the accounting sense is not an accounting subject in the legal sense, and does not reflect the financial situation and operating results of any existing enterprise. However, individual accounting statements reflect the financial status and operating results of a single independent enterprise legal person, and the object of reflection is the enterprise legal person, that is, the accounting subject in the legal sense.