Fathom review

A mature management reporting and analysis tool for advisors, with consolidation built in.

By the ConsoHQ editorial team. Updated 4 November 2026.

What Fathom is

Fathom is a reporting and analysis app that connects to your accounting system and turns raw figures into something a business owner can understand. Think of it as the layer an advisor uses between "here are your accounts" and "here's what's happening in your business and what to do about it". It started in Australia and is widely used across Australia, New Zealand, the UK and North America.

Its signature is analysis: trends, ratios, KPIs, cash conversion and profitability broken down in ways a non-accountant can follow. Fathom has also promoted a 2026 award as the best management reporting app for Xero users in a community survey.

Features in detail

Management reports

Fathom produces multi-page reports that mix financial statements, charts, KPIs and commentary. You build a template once and apply it to clients or companies. Scheduled reports can go out automatically each month. For advisors, the strength is consistency: every client gets the same structure, which makes monthly meetings easier to run.

KPIs and analysis

Listings describe more than 50 pre-built KPIs, plus custom KPIs. Profitability, efficiency, liquidity and cash metrics are all there, with trend views and traffic-light status. If a client asks "why is cash tight when we're profitable?", Fathom's cash and working capital analysis is designed to answer exactly that question.

Forecasting

Three-way forecasting (P&L, balance sheet and cash flow linked together) and scenario planning are long-standing Fathom features. You can model "what if we hire two people" or "what if the big customer pays 30 days later" and see the cash effect. This is one of the areas where Fathom has a head start on newer tools. Our cash flow forecast guide explains why linked forecasts matter.

Benchmarking

Fathom lets you compare a company with its own targets, with other entities, and with benchmark data, which is useful for advisors and for multi-site businesses comparing locations.

Consolidation

Fathom says it can aggregate financial statements for up to 300 entities and handle advanced consolidations, with multi-currency consolidation included in all plans. Intercompany eliminations and multi-currency are listed on software marketplaces. In practice it covers the needs of most small groups; where it's weaker than a consolidation-first tool is mixing many different ledgers in one group and the cost as company counts rise.

Integrations

Xero, QuickBooks Online (including Advanced), MYOB Business, Sage Accounting and Excel are listed, with some lesser-known systems too. If one of your companies is on a ledger Fathom doesn't support, you'll need to import it via a spreadsheet, so check before you commit.

Pricing

Fathom's pricing is organised around how many companies you connect, with each plan including a bundle and extra companies charged on top. US listings show Starter at about $50 a month for one company, with Silver, Gold and Platinum at roughly $260, $380 and $680 a month (Capterra listing). Fathom's Australian page lists Starter for 1 company, Silver for 10, Gold for 25 and Platinum for 50, priced in AUD excluding GST, with a per-company rate for extras that falls on larger plans. All plans include a 14-day trial, and enterprise pricing is available.

The comparison isn't perfectly like-for-like: Fathom's price includes its analysis and forecasting depth, and Joiin's forecasting and multi-currency need its Pro plan. But for consolidation alone, the difference is significant.

Who Fathom suits best

• Advisory-led accounting firms that run monthly or quarterly performance meetings with mostly single-company clients.
• Businesses that want KPI analysis and forecasting in one place and are happy to pay for depth.
• Multi-site businesses that want benchmarking between locations.

Who might be better served elsewhere

• Groups whose main job is consolidation: Joiin is usually cheaper and more focused.
• Groups with companies on several different ledgers: check coverage carefully; Joiin supports more.
• Firms wanting a complete advisory platform with training: compare Spotlight Reporting.
• Budget-conscious Xero users: Syft starts lower.

Questions to answer in your Fathom trial

• Does every one of your ledgers connect directly?
• How long does it take to set up your group and eliminations?
• Do the consolidated figures match last month's workings?
• Which plan do you need once you count every company, now and in two years?
• Will your clients or managers actually read the KPI pages, or just the P&L?

Read our head-to-head Joiin vs Fathom comparison, or see the full list of Fathom alternatives.

A typical month with Fathom

Here's how Fathom usually fits into an advisor's month. Once the bookkeeping is closed in Xero or QuickBooks, Fathom picks up the new figures. The advisor opens the client's report template, which already holds the structure agreed with the client: a one-page summary, the P&L against budget, a cash flow waterfall, eight or ten KPIs with traffic lights, and a page of commentary. The figures refresh; the advisor reads them, adjusts the commentary and sends the report or presents it in a meeting.

The real value shows up in that meeting. Rather than walking through a balance sheet line by line, the advisor can point to a KPI that has turned red, such as debtor days drifting from 38 to 51, and show what that has done to cash. Then they can open a scenario and show what happens if the client tightens credit terms. That's the conversation Fathom is designed to support.

For a group client, add one step: run the consolidation to produce group figures alongside each company. If the group's companies are all on Fathom-supported ledgers and the intercompany accounts are clean, that step is quick.

Setting up Fathom: what to expect

Connecting a company takes minutes. The time goes on the parts that require judgement:

• Choosing KPIs. Resist turning on all of them. Pick the handful that actually drive decisions for each client and add more later.
• Budgets and targets. KPIs are only meaningful against a target. If the client has no budget, set simple targets first.
• Report templates. Build one firm-standard template and adapt it, rather than designing each client from scratch.
• Consolidation settings. For groups, map accounts and set up eliminations before you trust the group figures. Check them against a month you've already closed.

Most firms find it takes a couple of client cycles before the templates settle down.

Mistakes to avoid

• Reporting on unreconciled books. No reporting tool fixes miscoded transactions. KPIs built on messy data mislead faster.
• Too many KPIs. Thirty traffic lights is noise. Five to ten that the client cares about is a conversation.
• Ignoring intercompany balances. In groups, unmatched intercompany accounts produce consolidated figures that don't balance. Reconcile them first.
• Buying the wrong bundle. Count every company you'll connect within a year, including dormant ones you may still need to report on, before picking a plan.

How Fathom stacks up

The pattern is clear: Fathom's sweet spot is analysis and forecasting for advisors. If your priority is the consolidation itself, especially across several different ledgers or at a lower cost per company, a consolidation-first tool fits better. Our consolidation software shortlist ranks the options for that job.

Support and learning

Fathom has a large help centre and an established community of advisors who share templates and approaches, which shortens the learning curve. Because it's been around for years, many accountants you hire may already know it, which is a real but underrated advantage.

Using Fathom for a multi-company group: what to check

If you're buying Fathom mainly for a group rather than for advisory work, run through these questions before you commit. First, list every entity, including dormant ones and any acquired company on a different ledger, and confirm each connects. Second, ask how your intercompany accounts will be eliminated and whether part-owned subsidiaries are handled the way your accountant expects. Third, check how foreign subsidiaries are translated and whether you can set rates to match your auditors. Fourth, price the plan for your total company count in two years, not today. And finally, rebuild one closed month end to end and compare it with your existing consolidation. If any of those steps is awkward, compare the same exercise in a consolidation-first tool during the same fortnight.

The bottom line on Fathom

Fathom earns its reputation. It turns accounts into something a business owner can act on, and its forecasting and KPI tools are among the most mature in this market. Choose it when the conversation about performance is the product you're selling or the thing your business needs most. If you mainly need accurate group numbers each month, you can get those for less elsewhere and add analysis later if you miss it.

Frequently asked questions