Consolidated accounts

The accounts of a parent and every entity it controls, combined as if they were one company, with internal transactions removed. Standalone accounts show only the parent.

A parent with ₹4,800 crore of revenue and a subsidiary with ₹1,900 crore, of which ₹350 crore was sales to the parent, reports ₹6,350 crore consolidated.

For an Indian group the consolidated statement is almost always the one to analyse, because the operating businesses often sit in subsidiaries while the listed parent is closer to a holding company. Comparing standalone and consolidated side by side is one of the fastest reads available: a large gap tells you where the assets, the debt and the profit really are.

The exception is dividends, which are paid out of standalone profits under the Companies Act. A group with consolidated profits and a thin standalone balance sheet may not be able to pay them.

Read both sets. The gap is the map.

The comparison also localises the debt. A group whose standalone balance sheet is clean while its consolidated one carries ₹4,000 crore of borrowings has put the leverage in subsidiaries, and the listed parent's apparent safety is an artefact of which document you read. The same applies to receivables, to contingent liabilities and to related party balances. Wherever the two sets diverge sharply, the divergence is the finding, and the subsidiary schedule at the back of the consolidated statements is the map of where to look next.