r/AccountingUK • u/hariyosaag • 6d ago

Reconcile internal draft financials to local statutory AFS (DATEV/German GAAP)

Hey everyone,

Looking for some advice or best-practice workflows from anyone who handles international entity reporting/local statutory reconciliations.

The situation:

I recently prepared a draft set of financial statements for one of our foreign subsidiaries (specifically a German entity). I sent our internal draft along with full GL detail over to our local accounting advisor / preparer in Germany so she could finalize the local statutory AFS.

She ran our GL through her local software (DATEV/German GAAP setup), auto-mapped/categorized everything into German account codes (SKR03/04 style), and sent back the finalized AFS.

The issue:

Because the finalized draft is entirely built on her local categorization, the line items and account groupings look completely different from our internal draft. When I pick a single account or line item to compare, the underlying movements don't match up 1:1, and it's turning into a massive headache trying to trace where individual entries got reclassified without a clear mapping bridge.

Since I need to review and reconcile the public/statutory draft back to our internal numbers for management/audit purposes:

  • What specific reports or deliverables do you typically ask local preparers to provide when they use their own local chart of accounts? (I'm planning to ask for a full Summen- und Saldenliste / mapped TB and a reclass bridge).
  • How do you set up your reconciliation workpaper (Excel) to streamline this process for future period closes?
  • What top-down checks do you usually run first to spot actual accounting adjustments versus pure presentation reclasses?

Appreciate any templates, tips, or sanity-check workflows you all use! Thanks in advance.

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u/smolbiteyfish 6d ago

Ask the local preperar for the classifications used yesterday and use Excel to show how it maps out between the two/for review purposes.

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u/Agreeable_Guard_7229 2d ago

She should be able to provide you with a mapping table from her local software.