10 March 2021 · 3 min read
Exclusive interview on the new partnership between HBX Partners and EMASPHERE, which combines their strengths in statutory and management consolidation.
Our partner community is growing with the arrival of HBX Partners!
The EMASPHERE / HBX Partners partnership is a real asset for any company that wants to streamline its management consolidation and statutory consolidation process! Companies get management data to steer their business, while meeting the specific and highly technical requirements of statutory reporting.
Bernard Herinckx, Founding Partner of HBX Partners
In this interview, find out who HBX Partners is, how the company supports its customers with statutory consolidation, and why the HBX Partners / EMASPHERE partnership is so valuable for any company that needs to consolidate its results.
Who is HBX Partners?
Bernard Herinckx: Some companies are legally required to perform a statutory consolidation, which can involve software, installation and staff training costs. HBX Partners was created to meet this need.
For more than 30 years, I have had the opportunity to work in companies of all sizes. Drawing on this experience and my industry knowledge, I founded HBX Partners in 2002 and specialized in statutory consolidation techniques. Around twenty groups of all sizes and from every sector trust us.
How do you support your customers with their statutory consolidation?
Bernard Herinckx: The volume of data is exploding, so companies are finding their consolidation process more and more difficult. It is often too broad to meet new statutory requirements. Among other things, HBX Partners determines which companies to consolidate and using which method. We adopt uniform valuation rules across the group, and we handle consolidation differences and minority interests.
To do this, we use Concerto, a fully outsourced consolidation solution. It is a modern cloud platform linked to accounting software that processes the data, consolidates it, produces all the documents needed for the audit and delivers the report to be filed with the National Bank.
In your view, what makes the HBX Partners / EMASPHERE partnership strong?
Bernard Herinckx: Companies are facing rapid change, whether it is adjustments to the consolidation scope, organizational changes or the restructuring of activities. Choosing the right statutory and management consolidation tools is therefore crucial.
EMASPHERE is the performance management platform that specializes in management consolidation. EMASPHERE connects automatically to customers' software to turn their data into preconfigured, customizable analysis reports.
For our part, HBX Partners specializes in statutory consolidation. Our Concerto solution extracts information from EMASPHERE and reworks it to meet legal obligations.
This partnership allows us to offer a complete service by handling our customers' entire consolidation. It helps them meet their legal obligations, as well as their need to manage the performance of all their entities.
What advice would you give a company that is about to start a statutory consolidation?
Bernard Herinckx: Here are my recommendations in 3 points:
1/ Choose a statutory auditor: they will sign the auditor's report on the consolidated accounts. Ideally, this will be the auditor of the parent company and of most of the subsidiaries.
2/ Plan a 'pre-run': running a check of intercompany balances and transactions ahead of time, at an earlier date, helps you identify discrepancies and correct them in the local accounts.
3/ Set the closing schedule for the statutory and consolidated accounts: it is vital to make sure the auditor reviews the subsidiaries' accounts before launching the consolidation. There are many cases of last-minute changes following adjustments requested by local auditors.
Rather talk it through with a human?
A first conversation, with no commitment, to see what your reporting could become.