For families moving to India
A family arriving in India rarely has one set of accounts. There are several people, often a trust or a holding company, and money in more than one currency. HNISQR keeps each of them as its own set of books — then consolidates them into a single position for whoever is accountable for the whole.
| Member | Net position |
|---|---|
| Head of the family books in INR | 4,82,60,000 |
| Spouse books in INR | 1,15,40,000 |
| Son books in USD | 5,41,62,000 |
| $612,000 translated at 88.50 | |
| Family trust books in INR | 2,20,00,000 |
| Consolidated | 13,59,62,000 |
Illustrative figures. Balances between members are removed before this total, so a loan from one to another is not counted twice; the gap left by translating at two different rates is carried as a translation reserve rather than folded into the number.
What it does
Every member keeps their own books, chart of accounts and financial years, and reports on them alone whenever they need to. The head of the family gets the consolidated statement and the breakdown showing which member each figure came from — not a single number to be taken on trust.
Members who keep books abroad are translated into the family’s reporting currency: balances at the closing rate, income and expenses at the average rate for the period. Those two rates disagree, and the gap between them is shown as a translation reserve in equity rather than quietly absorbed. A missing rate stops the report instead of being assumed.
Lending between family members is routine, and it appears as an asset in one set of books and a liability in another. Consolidating naively counts both and inflates the family’s position. Those balances are cancelled — and where the two sides disagree about what is owed, you are told, rather than having the difference split for you.
Where members transact with each other, the amount and its share of the total is stated on the face of the accounts. A headline figure is never quietly inflated by the family transacting with itself.
Balance is not a report you run at the year end to find out what went wrong. Every entry is checked as it commits, by the database rather than by the application, so an entry that does not balance cannot be recorded by any route.
Drop in a statement and HNISQR recognises the bank, reads the rows and proposes an account for each line with a confidence score. Spreadsheets from ICICI, Axis and SBI; PDFs from those three plus HDFC and its credit card, Kotak, HSBC, Union Bank, Bank of Baroda and Indian Bank. Correct one and the rule is remembered for next month.
The reporting cycle
Upload each member’s statements. The format is recognised, and rows from an overlapping export are ignored rather than duplicated.
Each transaction gets a proposed account and a confidence score. You confirm, correct, or leave it for later.
Confirmed transactions become balanced entries in that member’s books — or they do not post at all.
Translate, cancel what the family owes itself, and produce one position as at any date you choose.
| Account | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| Bank & cash | 3,84,20,000 | — |
| Investments | 7,10,00,000 | — |
| Property | 4,60,00,000 | — |
| Loans from family members | — | 1,86,50,000 |
| Translation reserve | — | 7,65,000 |
| Capital & retained | — | 13,60,05,000 |
| Σ | 15,54,20,000 | 15,54,20,000 |
Reporting
Because every account carries its type and the statement it belongs to, the reports are not assembled by hand. They are a reading of the ledger at a date — for one member, or for the family as a whole, in whichever currency you report in.
Illustrative figures.
Where it is today
Early access
We are working with a small number of families relocating to India, and with the advisers who look after them. If that is you, we would like to hear how you keep track today.
Request access