Does anyone have a shortlist of q’s to decide how to integrate a newly acquired company’s financials? e.g. how do you decide whether it’s more appropriate to create a new sub, or to create a department for instance? so far, most of my experience lends itself to saying it’s based on materiality. but curious what others have experienced.

Whether or not to have a separate subsidiary is really a legal/leadership question more than an accounting one. If you want them to be an independent legal entity then you need to account for it accordingly (create a subsidiary). If the intent is to shut down the other entity entirely and have everything under one legal entity, then you should have everything under one subsidiary. In most instances I've seen, even when the intent is to move forward with one legal entity, it takes legal and leadership 1-2 years to get their ducks in a row to shut down/integrate the other company's operations. In those cases the other company typically stays on it's existing accounting system, and the new company sets up a sub for running monthly JEs through, until they're ready to migrate. My only advice here (or for any go-live for that matter) is don't do it on January 1st like everyone always wants to do. Much easier to do it 2/1 or 3/1 and backfill history versus have to fight holidays when you need all hands on deck, plus that way you're prepared for pushing a month when things inevitably take longer than expected.

@James Morris - agreed about the parallel system and a summary JE as a stopgap. thanks so much for sharing your experience!