Stout was engaged by a large wealth investment advisor with multiple subsidiaries to reconcile material balance sheet accounts across three entities, resolve historical accounting discrepancies, and establish a repeatable reconciliation process.

The client was struggling to maintain reliable reconciliations and clean opening balances month over month. As the organization grew, historical accounting issues and activity across three entities made it increasingly difficult for the finance team to determine whether balance sheet accounts were complete, accurate, and supported. Prepaids were split across companies, and intercompany activity created noise at every entity, making it difficult to establish a dependable starting point. Without a consistent reconciliation framework, the team also faced the risk of carrying unresolved balances and reconciling items forward from one period to the next.

We were engaged to prepare reconciliations and deliver a clean baseline across the entities, tying out over 50 accounts with material balances. Our team reviewed the underlying account activity, supporting schedules, and entity-level balances to identify discrepancies and isolate the source of reconciling items. Where accounts did not tie, we provided the exact adjusting entries the client needed to reach a clean starting point. This gave management a clear path to resolve historical differences rather than continuing to carry unsupported balances into future periods.

We also built workpapers that could be rolled forward to additional add-ons as needed and used month over month for ongoing balance sheet reconciliation activity. The workpapers standardized the reconciliation process across entities, documented supporting detail, and created a repeatable structure the internal accounting team could maintain as the organization continued to grow.

By the close of the engagement, the client had a reliable, repeatable process across prepaids, accounts receivable, accounts payable, and commissions, and a clean foundation for all three entities. The finance team also had greater visibility into the composition of material balance sheet accounts, a defined process for addressing reconciling items, and scalable workpapers that could support future acquisitions and monthly close activity.