Pennylane in France, QuickBooks in the United States: how to manage a France-US group?
Your French company uses Pennylane. Your American subsidiary keeps its accounts on QuickBooks. Both accounting systems are well maintained. But when you want to answer this simple question "How much is the group actually earning this month?" things get complicated...
France reports its figures in euros. The United States operates in dollars. Accounting systems are structured differently. Some expenses are categorized differently. Invoices circulate between the two companies. And the consolidated revenue displayed in your Excel spreadsheet may not correspond to the sum of what you see in Pennylane and QuickBooks.
The problem isn't using two different software programs. It's trying to manage two companies with two financial logics that don't communicate with each other.
For a manager with operations in both France and the United States, the goal isn't necessarily to put all entities in the same tool. The key is to build a common management layer on top of local accounting systems. And at Blendy, this third management layer is handled, in particular, through Finthesis.
Pennylane in France, QuickBooks in the United States: why try to put everything in the same tool?
When a company begins to expand internationally, the first instinct is often to standardize its software, if only to streamline costs and financial processes. In practice, this isn't always necessary...
Pennylane is used in France for bookkeeping and accounting within the French environment. QuickBooks, on the other hand, is widely used by American SMEs.
Having Pennylane in France and QuickBooks in the United States is therefore perfectly logical. The difficulty arises when each company constructs its accounts, categories, and indicators independently of the other.
You then end up with two correct accounting systems… but difficult to compare. And, this is precisely where group reporting becomes necessary.
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A third layer to see the whole thing
At Blendy, Finthesis allows data from multiple companies to be aggregated in a single reporting environment.
The platform allows users to group multiple entities, build collaborative views for each company, and process inter-company transactions. It accepts several data input methods: API connection when the software is compatible, or import of FEC files and general ledgers.
And the difference is significant. Pennylane and QuickBooks cater to two different accounting environments: French on the one hand, Anglo-Saxon on the other. Pennylane can be directly connected to Finthesis. And to integrate US data from QuickBooks, it is simply exported and then imported into Finthesis.
In a France-US group supported by Blendy, the organization might look like this:
France → Pennylane → Finthesis
United States → QuickBooks → data export → Finthesis
Finthesis allows you to combine data from Pennylane and QuickBooks into a single group overview. This enables managers to track consistent, comparable, and truly useful monthly figures for managing business operations between France and the United States.
The real work begins with mapping the accounts
Let's take a simple example. In Pennylane, the French company can distinguish between: Advertising, Subcontracting, Trade Shows, and Marketing Software. In QuickBooks, the American team may have grouped some of these expenses under a general category: Advertising & Marketing .
Neither accounting method is necessarily incorrect. But if you want to know how much the group actually spends on marketing, you need to compare these accounts to a common framework.
This is where accounting mapping comes in.
The goal is to create a common framework that matches French and American accounts to identical reporting categories.
For example:
France – Pennylane | United States – QuickBooks | Group reporting |
Advertisement | Advertising | Marketing |
Commercial subcontracting | Marketing Contractors | Marketing |
Sales team salaries | Sales Payroll | Sales & Marketing |
SaaS Hosting | Hosting / Cloud Services | Infrastructure |
Accounting fees | Accounting Fees | Professional Services |
The manager can then look at the group's performance according to the same logic, regardless of how each country keeps its accounts.
And Finthesis allows, during data integration, for the columns and accounts to be associated with the expected categories before producing the analyses.
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Before the tools, you need to decide what the leader actually wants to track.
This is probably the most important point. Before connecting, exporting, or mapping anything, you need to define what you want to be able to read each month .
For a SaaS company, it might be recurring revenue, margin, sales costs, or available cash. For an e-commerce business, the focus will be more on margin per market, logistics costs, customer acquisition, or the profitability of US sales. For an IT services company or a service provider, the analysis may be different again.
In other words, group reporting should not be built on what Pennylane and QuickBooks can display. It should be based on the decisions you want to make .
Once the indicators are defined, we can organize the French and American data so that they tell the same story.
France in euros, United States in dollars: which currency should be used to manage the group?
The second difficulty in group consolidation is obviously the currency.
Your French company naturally keeps its accounts in euros. Your American subsidiary operates in dollars. At the local level, this makes perfect sense. At the group level, it's necessary to decide in which currency the results will be analyzed and, above all, to apply a consistent method from one period to the next.
Consider a US subsidiary that generates the exact same revenue in dollars for two months. If the exchange rate between the euro and the dollar fluctuates significantly from one month to the next, the US subsidiary's contribution in a report expressed in euros may vary, even if its activity remained stable in dollars.
To properly understand the group's performance, it is therefore useful to distinguish between two things:
the actual performance of the US subsidiary in dollars
its contribution to the group's results once converted into euros
This allows managers to immediately see whether a change actually stems from US operations or simply from exchange rate fluctuations. And here too, Finthesis enables the group to centralize its data. Naturally, the conversion method used in reporting must then remain consistent from one period to the next.
A France-US invoice does not constitute revenue for the group.
Another common pitfall is simply adding the two profit and loss statements together...
Let's imagine that the French company invoices its American subsidiary €30,000 for management services . For the French company, it's a product. For the American company, it's an expense... But at the group level, you haven't earned or spent €30,000 with a client or supplier. The money has simply circulated within the group .
If you simply add the two accounting records together without any adjustments, your reporting can therefore give a misleading view of the business.
It is absolutely essential to be able to identify and neutralize intra-group flows :
management services
software rebilling
expenses incurred on behalf of another entity
advances
ready
management fees
invoices between the parent company and the subsidiary
Finthesis specifically plans for the reprocessing of intragroup entries within a project involving several companies.
And, as the exchanges between the two entities develop (management fees, software rebilling, expenses incurred on behalf of the other company, loans, or other transactions), this organization becomes increasingly important. Otherwise, the monthly closing quickly ends up looking like: "Which invoice in Pennylane corresponds to the $14,600 in QuickBooks?"
Reliable group reporting also requires closing accounts at the same pace.
The most beautiful dashboard in the world is of little use if France is up to date as of September 30th and the United States still has August bills to integrate.
To compare the two companies, they must work over comparable periods.
Blendy therefore sets up a common closing schedule: bank reconciliations, customer and supplier invoices, control of operations between France and the United States, adjustments and then production of the report.
The frequency obviously depends on the company. A small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) just starting its American operations won't necessarily have the same needs as a group where 40% of the revenue already comes from the United States...
But as soon as the leader wants to manage on a monthly basis, both sides of the Atlantic must produce sufficiently reliable data at the same time .
Finthesis then allows you to move from two companies to a true group view
Once the data is integrated and structured, the value of the third layer really becomes apparent.
Finthesis makes it possible to group companies into a common report, to obtain a profit and loss statement or cash flow at the group level and, conversely, to return to a view by entity to understand the contribution of each.
The manager can therefore start with a question like, "Why is our group margin decreasing?" Then check if the problem originates in France, the United States, or both markets. This is much more useful than simply comparing two accounting PDFs.
And most importantly, reporting can be built using indicators that are truly useful to the company, rather than being limited to standard accounting statements. Finthesis, in particular, allows users to build dashboards by combining accounting, analytical, and other data sources.
Note: Group reporting and legal consolidation are not the same thing.
When we talk about consolidated reporting here, the primary objective is to guide the manager .
The aim is to combine data from several companies to understand overall performance, reprocess internal flows and have consistent indicators.
This does not automatically mean that the company produces regulatory consolidated accounts within the meaning of applicable accounting standards.
An SME may need a group financial overview very early on, even if it's not legally required to consolidate. In practice, this need often arises much sooner. Initially, the manager is perfectly familiar with the figures for both France and the United States. Then the teams grow, the cash flow increases, and the American subsidiary becomes more significant. At this stage, knowing that each company is performing well individually is no longer sufficient.
The 6 key elements to align for leading a France-US group
Before attempting to automate reporting, six elements must first be aligned.
1. The joint reporting plan
What positions would you like to see included in your group reading each month?
2. Account mapping
How to match Pennylane's French accounts and QuickBooks' American accounts in a common grid?
3. KPIs
How do you define margin, EBITDA, trading costs, or recurring revenue so that they are calculated the same way on both sides?
4. The motto
In which currency do you want to read the group's performance, and how do you distinguish the actual performance from the EUR/USD effect?
5. Intragroup flows
Which transactions between France and the United States need to be identified and then reprocessed in the group view?
6. The closing schedule
At what point are the two accounting systems sufficiently reliable to produce the report?
Once these six points are defined, Finthesis can serve as a common layer for aggregating and presenting the data. But the order is important: the tool comes after the method .
Pennylane for France. QuickBooks for the US. Finthesis to view the group.
This is the approach taken by Blendy. Pennylane remains suited to French accounting. QuickBooks to American accounting. And Finthesis allows you to combine both systems into a single report.
The manager thus has a consolidated view of his business, with consistent indicators, adjusted intra-group flows and a common reading of France-US performance.
The real work then consists of building the right mapping, aligning the KPIs, defining the currency conversion method and coordinating the closings.
That's where Blendy comes in.
Because an international group can perfectly well operate with several accounting tools.
What he shouldn't have are multiple versions of his financial performance .
Do you need a clear view of your France-US figures?
Let's discuss how to structure your group reporting.
Sources:
With Blendy, international CPA based in France, Canada and the USA, take advantage of digital accounting and tailor-made advice to accelerate your financial process and develop your business.
Pennylane, Dext, QuickBooks and Stripe certified, we support digital and IT companies, e-Commerce, SaaS in France and internationally.
