"i bilanci di esercizio e consolidato"

my take:
"financial statements for the fiscal year and the consolidated financial statements"

"I bilanci", a convienent, catch-all byword in Italian, refers to all the financial statements: the balance sheet, income statement (known in the UK as the profit and loss statement), cash flow statement, and the various reports and attachments that accompany them and drive us all crazy when we have to translate the wordy and complicated "smart-arse" business-speak verbiage contained therein! :)

The "esercizio" refers to the fiscal year, which in most cases coincide with the solar calandar and goes from 1 Jan to 31 Dec; but in the case of some companies goes from 1 June to 31 May, or September to Aug., or April to March, like I.Net I think. So they say "esercizio" to differentiate the fiscal year from the calendar year. So sometimes "annual" is different from FY.

In some cases, e.g. large holding companies or companies having various subsidiaries and associated cos., the consolidated financial statements differ from unconsolidated financial statements because some the assets and liabilities--or income and expenses--in some cos. might not be contained within the consolidation perimeter. Sometimes the FY statements are not consolidated (hence the phrase "unconsolidated financial statements for the fiscal year), hence the importance of the qualifyer "consolidated".

Thus, if you really want to be accurate in this case, you have to be wordy. It's a pain, but once you know the machinery behind the terms it's easy.

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Note added at 3 hrs (2006-04-23 19:07:04 GMT)
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Sorry, about the spelling mistakes but I'm in the middle of translating... guess what??? un bilancio!



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Note added at 20 hrs (2006-04-24 12:44:28 GMT)
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I guess it depends on how true to the original Italian you want to be.

I translate "bilancio annuale" as "annual financial statements" and "bilancio d'esercizio" as "fiscal (or financial) year financial statements".

I usually avoid saying "financial year"--which is what Paul likes to use--so that I avoid the repetition: "financial year financial statements" sounds horrible" :)

Paul is more wary of the word "fiscal" for some reason (not to cast aspersions on your payment of Italian taxes, Paul ;), but it is perfectly suitable in this case.




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Note added at 21 hrs (2006-04-24 13:04:05 GMT)
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fiscal year definition:
http://www.investorwords.com/1984/fiscal_year.html

a few google examples of the (albeit subtle) differences

bilancio annuale:
Google results about 596,000 for "bilancio annuale".
Ex.: http://www.acs-italia.org/bilancio.html

bilancio d'esercizio:
Results about 247,000 for "bilancio d'esercizio"
http://www.soldisoldi.org/index_file/bilanci/help/bilancio_d...

annual financial statements:
Results about 1,860,000 for "annual financial statements".

fiscal year financial statements:
Results about 17,500 for "fiscal year financial statements
http://www.sec.gov/about/forms/reg13a.pdf

I'm not sure that the number of hits are a valid indication, but I posted them for you anyways to get an idea of the usage of the four terms. "FY fin. stats." don't get many hits, but the documents they lead to I feel have more authority. That last one is for the SEC, to whom I usually turn in times of translation crises! :))

CAVEAT: I think I may be the only weenie who actually distinguishes between "bilancio d'esercizio" and "bilancio annuale". That may or may not be pathetic. ;)))