Sub-ledgers under scrutiny

The challenge

Fragmented systems that increase cost and risk

In the rapidly evolving financial reporting and regulatory landscape, one of the most pressing problems finance organizations face is the fragmentation of the post trade processing landscape for different asset classes, markets and lines of business.

Each of these platforms maintains their own sub-ledger, implementing accounting rules, posting mechanisms, and journal creation processes. Financial institutions often rely on multiple, disconnected sub-ledgers, stitched together over years of acquisitions and legacy system growth. This patchwork creates significant challenges:

• Increased cost and complexity from redundant sub-ledger systems and middleware
• Prolonged reconciliations that delay month- or quarter-end close cycles
• Limited transparency that undermines decision-making
• Greater audit risk due to difficulties substantiating balances back to original transactions

These issues not only inflate costs but also prevent firms from scaling efficiently, creating friction in compliance, expansion, and reporting integrity.

The Solution

Global Sub-Ledger (GSL) for accuracy, efficiency,  control and AI enabled innovation

Global Sub-Ledger (GSL) addresses these challenges by creating a unified, standardized accounting backbone connecting the general ledger to underlying transaction activity. Built with AI-enabled, including a GPT-style conversational interface, GSL allows finance teams to query, analyze, and reconcile financial data in real time. This transforms complex accounting processes into proactive, insight-driven operations, while providing flexibility to segregate reporting by legal entity for reporting purposes.

Unlike legacy approaches that attempt to reconcile and stitch together multiple sub-ledgers, GSL builds the sub-ledger directly from source activity, creating a single version of financial truth.

Core benefits

• End-to-end substantiation: traceability from corporate ledgers back to original transaction data
• Activity-based construction: ensures sub-ledger integrity by starting from raw transactions rather than piecing together fragmented systems
• Rules-driven posting and aggregation: applies business-attribute–based rules to generate postings and aggregate balances consistently, reducing errors and ensuring alignment across products, geographies, and regulatory views
• Standardized posting models: less manual adjustment, more accuracy
• Real-time transparency: enabling faster audits and compliance reporting
• Simplified consolidation: across multiple entities, systems, geographies, and asset classes
• Flexible reporting: with the ability to segregate along legal entity structures for statutory and regulatory purposes

GSL enables full substantiation — allowing balances to be traced from the corporate general ledger, through the sub-ledger, down to originating transaction activity, and back again. This provides a unified source of financial data and enhanced traceability for audits, improved financial control and streamlined reporting.

Unlike temporary middleware “patches,” GSL is a strategic infrastructure investment, designed to streamline reporting and strengthen financial controls.

The Outcome

Substantiation through transparency

From Costly Patchwork to Trusted Financial Intelligence GSL represents a shift from fragmented, reactive accounting to a proactive financial intelligence model. By removing layers of complexity and providing a single point of financial truth, GSL equips finance leaders with both immediate cost savings and long-term strategic control.   

Where disconnected sub-ledgers once introduced delays, duplicated effort, and audit uncertainty, GSL enables clarity, reliability, and agility at scale. CFOs and their teams gain the ability not only to close the books faster, but also to trust the numbers that drive decisions, compliance, and investor confidence.

• Cost reduction: By eliminating redundant middleware, reconciliation effort, and overlapping sub-ledger platforms, GSL delivers measurable financial savings. Freed-up resources can be reallocated to higher-value activities such as analysis and strategy.
• Improved efficiency: End-to-end automation accelerates monthly and quarterly closes, reduces manual adjustments, and creates streamlined workflows. Finance teams gain more time for forward-looking insights instead of backward-looking checks.
• Audit readiness: Full traceability from the general ledger down to individual transactions — means auditors and regulators can substantiate balances with confidence and speed. This reduces audit risk and strengthens trust with stakeholders.
• Consistency and control: Rules-driven posting and standardized aggregation logic enforce global consistency across products, entities, and jurisdictions. Finance leaders no longer need to reconcile conflicting numbers coming from different corners of the business.
• Scalable growth: A consolidated accounting backbone allows organizations to expand into new markets or launch new product lines without multiplying reconciliation processes or system silos. GSL provides a sustainable foundation to scale with confidence.

These outcomes enable CFOs and finance leaders to meet today’s regulatory, operational, and investor expectations with confidence in both timeliness and accuracy.

Case Study

A global capital markets firm simplifies reporting with Broadridge

A leading global capital markets firm was struggling with financial reporting processes hampered by multiple, disconnected sub-ledgers and middleware solutions.  In total, the firm was maintaining 8 separate sub-ledger solutions supported by 7 custom middleware applications -a fragmented environment that increased complexity and costs, made reconciliations more time-consuming, and limited the transparency needed for accurate reporting.

To address these challenges, the firm partnered with Broadridge to implement Global Sub-Ledger (GSL) for its newly created new line of business. This deployment not only streamlined reporting for the new business but also served as the entry point into a wider strategic roadmap of consolidating and eliminating redundant sub-ledgers across the organization.

Through collaborative workshops with the CFO and finance operations teams, Broadridge ensured that the go-live was smooth and aligned with the firm’s long-term objectives. Importantly, the solution introduced complete end-to-end substantiation: enabling traceability from the corporate ledger back through the sub-ledger to the original transaction activity. This capability significantly reduces audit risk, strengthens control, and boosts confidence in financial reporting integrity.

By starting with its new line of business, the firm not only achieved immediate simplification and cost reduction, but also set the stage for a unified, transparent, and scalable reporting infrastructure that supports long-term growth.

From complexity to clarity: A path forward for CFOs

The challenges faced by this firm mirror those across the financial services industry. Many institutions remain weighed down by fragmented, legacy accounting infrastructures that introduce unnecessary cost, compliance risk, and barriers to growth.

By implementing Global Sub-Ledger (GSL), CFOs can:

• Simplify reporting infrastructure and reduce reliance on middleware
• Enhance financial accuracy with standardized posting and substantiation
• Accelerate close cycles and drive operational agility
• Enable scalable, sustainable growth across geographies and business units

The capital markets case study demonstrates what’s possible, but the principle applies broadly: Global Sub-Ledger is the foundation for reducing risk, cutting costs, and creating sustainable scale.