What this article covers
If your organisation has multiple entities (administrations) that transact with each other, Finstack consolidates them into a single group-level view. To make the consolidated numbers accurate, transactions between entities — intercompany (IC) transactions — must be eliminated.
This article explains the full workflow: how to identify what to eliminate, how to configure the eliminations, how to verify the result, and what to do when eliminations don't reconcile.
For deep-dives, follow the links under each step.
Reference: YouTube.
Core concepts
Consolidation — combining the financial statements of multiple entities into one group-level view. In Finstack, consolidation happens automatically when you select multiple entities in Reporting.
Intercompany (IC) transactions — transactions between two entities within your own group (e.g., entity A invoices entity B). Without elimination, these inflate consolidated revenue, costs, and balance sheet positions.
Intercompany eliminations — the rules that remove IC transactions from the consolidated view.
Counter entity — the paired entity for a given IC transaction.
General Ledger Account (GLA) — the account in your chart of accounts (also referred to as grootboekrekening / GBR).
The setup, in three steps
Setting up eliminations follows a clear sequence:
Identify which GLAs and amounts need to be eliminated.
Configure how each GLA is eliminated (automated, manual, or a combination).
Verify that the eliminations reconcile — and diagnose any differences.
A prerequisite (Step 0) is to define your intercompany relations in Admin, so Finstack knows which entities are IC counterparts.
Step 0 (prerequisite): Define intercompany relations
Tell Finstack which entities are IC counterparts. This is required for the elimination method "Eliminate IC relations", and is also used to handle GLAs that contain both IC and non-IC transactions (e.g., debtors and creditors).
Go to Setup → Admin → Intercompany relations.
For each entity, select its IC counterparts from the dropdown.
Save.
Reference: Intercompany relations.
Step 1: Identify what to eliminate
What types of intercompany transactions need to be eliminated?
Five categories typically need eliminating:
Revenue & expenses (Profit & Loss) — intercompany sales and intercompany cost lines.
Current accounts (Balance Sheet) — internal current-account positions between entities (rekening couranten). Search terms in the chart of accounts: cour, rek, r/c, rc, r.c.
Loans & interest — intercompany loans (Balance Sheet) and the related interest (Profit & Loss).
Participations (Balance Sheet + Profit & Loss):
On the holding's side: Participations (BS) and Result of participations (P&L).
On the subsidiaries' side: all equity items except Result and Prior-year result (which Finstack generates automatically). Typically: nominal share capital, share premium, reserves, unappropriated result (Nominaal kapitaal, Agio, Onverwerkt resultaat, Reserves, Onverdeeld resultaat)
Debtors & creditors (Balance Sheet) — often booked on GLAs that also hold non-IC transactions. For this category, elimination per IC relation is typically the most appropriate method (see Step 2).
Where do I find the list of IC accounts to eliminate?
Three sources, in order of preference:
Consolidation statement (consolidatiestaat) — the most reliable source. Ask your accountant. The figures will be correct and you'll know which period they cover.
Internal documentation — any existing list maintained by your finance team.
Self-discovery in the administration — workable when administrations are clean (e.g., dedicated IC GLAs are used, or IC volume is low), or when no documentation is available. Three practical ways to spot IC GLAs:
% IC Relations column in Finance → Intercompany → Eliminations — a high percentage indicates the GLA is mostly used for IC transactions.
Account naming — IC GLAs often contain the counter-entity name, or have "IC" or "intercompany" in their description.
Walk the Chart of Accounts — go through it line by line, applying the 5 IC categories above (revenue & expenses, current accounts, loans & interest, participations, debtors & creditors) as a checklist.
Tip: include the person who actually books IC transactions in your administration during onboarding — they know where IC sits in the chart of accounts.
Step 2: Configure how to eliminate
What elimination methods does Finstack offer?
Finstack offers three automated methods, one manual method, and the option to combine them.
Automated methods
Eliminate fully — eliminates the entire GLA and all its transactions. The cleanest option. Use this only when the GLA is exclusively used for IC transactions.
Eliminate IC relations — eliminates only the transactions on this GLA that have a counter-relation marked as IC. Requires Step 0 (IC relations configured in Admin). For journal entries (memoriaalboekingen), the Relation field is often not enforced by the ERP — double-check that it's set on those entries.
Eliminate per transaction — eliminates only manually selected transactions. Precise, but must be maintained each month, so less suitable for GLAs with high transaction volume.
Manual elimination
Use a Manual IC entry when you need to align directly with the annual accounts, or to close a historic gap that cannot be fixed in the ERP. See Manual IC entry.
Combination
A common pattern: use a Manual IC entry to correct historic discrepancies up to a chosen date, then automate eliminations from that date forward using the Elimination start date field on each GLA.
In what order should I configure eliminations?
If you have a complete consolidation statement: follow the eliminations in that document.
Tip 1: align the date filter in Finstack with the period of the document.
Tip 2: confirm the document still matches the live administration — sometimes year-end entries are added later that aren't yet in the document.
If documentation is missing or incomplete: work by IC category.
Eliminate all GLAs for one IC category (see Step 1).
Move to verification (Step 3) for that category.
Once that category reconciles, move to the next category.
Tip 1: start with Current accounts (easiest) or Revenue & expenses (delivers a usable consolidated P&L first).
Tip 2: leave Participations until last — they're the most complex.
How do I configure an elimination on a GLA?
Go to Finance → Intercompany → Eliminations.
Select the GLA in the list. The side panel opens on the right.
Choose the Elimination method (one of the three above).
Set the Counter entity for this GLA. This is the paired entity for the elimination. Counter entity is also what Finstack uses to scope eliminations to your Reporting entity filter — when you filter Reporting on just entities A and B, an IC elimination configured between A and C will not be shown, because C is outside your filter selection.
Optionally set an Elimination start date to apply the rule only from a specific point in time.
Save.
While the side panel is open, you can use the calendar to narrow the underlying transactions to a specific timeframe — useful when verifying which transactions a given elimination method will actually catch.
Reference: Eliminations.
How do I map the 0000 [IC difference] accounts that appear after elimination?
When you configure eliminations, Finstack generates 0000 [IC difference] GLAs on the Balance Sheet. These are closing accounts that must be mapped in Setup → Mapping, otherwise the Balance Sheet won't balance.
Two common approaches:
Option 1 — hide residuals: map the 0000 [IC difference] GLAs to a generic line like "Other equity". Any residual elimination differences disappear into that line.
Option 2 — make residuals explicit: create a dedicated line item "Elimination reserve" under Equity in Setup → Structure, and map the 0000 [IC difference] GLAs to that line. Residual differences remain visible.
How can I review the elimination entries Finstack has created?
For every elimination, Finstack creates a system-generated entity prefixed with [IC] to hold the elimination entries. To inspect them:
Go to Finance → Entries → Transactions.
In the filter, open the Entities dropdown and select the relevant [IC]-prefixed entity.
The list on the left shows IC transactions per period. Select a row to see the entry details in the side panel on the right.
Step 3: Verify eliminations
Go to Finance → Intercompany → Reconciliation.
Categorise the eliminated GLAs by their IC type (current accounts, revenue & expenses, etc.). This helps you spot which category isn't reconciling. A predefined set of categories is loaded; you can rename, reorder, or create new ones.
Check the Total amount (€) column.
If your administrations use IC-exclusive GLAs only: this column should be 0. A non-zero value means an IC booking is off in one of the administrations.
If your administrations mix IC and non-IC on the same GLAs: this column will not be 0 in total. It can still be expected to be 0 for specific categories (e.g., current accounts).
Check the Elim. amount (€) column. This must always be 0. A non-zero value means an error in the IC bookings or in the elimination setup, and produces an elimination difference on the Balance Sheet.
Use the "View entities" toggle to switch from a category view to an entity-pair view: entities as rows, counter-entities as columns — including an unassigned column for IC entries booked without a counter-entity. This helps you locate where differences originate. Then use the entity filter to drill into specific pairs.
Tip: for many eliminated GLAs, export the table to Excel for a clearer overview.
Reference: Reconciliation.
How do I cross-check my eliminations against the consolidation statement of the annual accounts?
The consolidation statement (consolidatiestaat) in your annual accounts is the most definitive source for what consolidated, eliminated figures should look like. Matching the Reconciliation overview in Finstack against this document is the ultimate verification of your elimination setup.
To run the check:
Go to Finance → Intercompany → Reconciliation.
Set the start date to the period-start of the annual accounts and the end date to the period-end of the annual accounts (typically year-end).
Compare the GLAs in Reconciliation against the eliminated GLAs in the consolidation statement.
If the figures match, your eliminations are set up correctly for that period. If they don't, the difference points to either a setup issue (see Why don't my eliminations reconcile? below) or a booking discrepancy in the underlying administration.
Why don't my eliminations reconcile?
Three common causes, each with a quick diagnosis:
The numbers don't match a document (e.g. consolidation statement)
Confirm the date filter in Finstack matches the period of the document.
Confirm the document is current and reflects the live administration — late year-end entries may have been added since the document was produced.
The IC bookings themselves are inconsistent
An IC transaction may be booked in a different month in entity A than in entity B, or missing in the counter-entity. In this case, Total amount won't reconcile when you group the matching GLAs.
If you're eliminating per IC relation, confirm the Relation field is populated on every IC entry. Journal entries (memoriaalboekingen) often allow this field to be left blank — check those carefully.
Use the date filter on Finance → Intercompany → Reconciliation to narrow down when the difference started occurring — this often points directly at the month a missing or duplicated IC entry was booked.
The elimination setup is wrong
Most common: GLAs are missing from the elimination configuration.
Otherwise: the wrong elimination method is selected for a GLA. In this case, Elim. amount won't reconcile when you group the matching GLAs.
My elimination differences are too large — what now?
Finstack surfaces elimination differences, but sometimes the gap is large and the path forward isn't obvious. Common situations:
A long history where it's unclear how IC bookings were done, or whether they're correct.
IC transactions that cannot be identified separately in the administration.
A large number of entities.
A large volume of IC charge-throughs (doorbelastingen).
Lack of time or in-house expertise.
…or a combination of these.
Get help from Finstack. Use the chat interface within Finstack to reach our team. We can connect you with one of our Finance & Implementation Partners — a network of experienced finance professionals who can set up your eliminations properly and, where needed, clean up the underlying administration.
Why doesn't my Elimination Reserve on the Balance Sheet match the eliminations in Reconciliation?
This is a common question when using Option 2 (a visible Elimination Reserve line on the Balance Sheet — see How do I map the [IC difference] accounts that appear after elimination? above). Two checks usually resolve it.
1. Confirm that all 0000 [IC difference] GLAs are mapped to Elimination Reserve
For the Elimination Reserve line to reflect the full picture, every 0000 [IC difference] GLA generated by Finstack must be mapped to that line in Setup → Mapping. If some are mapped elsewhere (e.g., Other equity) or left unmapped, part of the elimination difference will sit in a different position on the Balance Sheet and the two views won't match.
2. Align the date filters before comparing
Reconciliation treats P&L and Balance Sheet GLAs differently in the date filter:
For P&L GLAs, values are cumulated from the start date to the end date of the filter.
For Balance Sheet GLAs, values are always the cumulative position up to the end date — the start date has no effect.
To compare Elimination Reserve on the Balance Sheet against the elimination differences in Reconciliation:
Reconciliation overview: the same date filter governs both P&L and BS items in the overview, so set the start date far in the past (somewhere in the 1900's works) as a safe default — this captures all P&L history and is harmless for BS values. Set the end date to the month you want to verify.
Balance Sheet in Reporting: set the date filter to that same end date as Reconciliation.
Both views then show the cumulative BS position at the same date.
If both checks are correct and the numbers still don't reconcile, reach out via the chat interface within Finstack and share screenshots of both views including the filter settings.
How are intercompany eliminations shown in Reporting?
In Finance → Reporting, a toggle (top right) turns intercompany eliminations on and off. In the By company tab, eliminations appear as a separate column.
How are intercompany transactions handled in forecast scenarios?
Forecast scenarios are populated at higher levels (reporting, GLA, or cost center) and have no underlying transactions. Finstack does not apply automatic IC eliminations to scenarios.
The recommended approach is to build both a Consolidated scenario (group-level figures, no IC) and a Per entity scenario (entity-level, where the consolidated rollup will be overstated by un-eliminated IC).
Reference: see the IC FAQ in Forecast.
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