Consolidated accounts

[Brendan Simon]

I've got a number of small companies (that don't do much at the moment), 
a couple of investment properties (in my name), a Family Trust with 
associated company trustee, a Self Managed Superannuation Fund and an 
associated company trustee.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to see the accounts of each of these 
entities separately.  ie. as if they were standalone businesses, etc.

However, I would also like to have them all consolidated, particularly 
as my some of my main transaction bank accounts are used for multiple 
entities (eg. savings and VISA is used for personal, properties and for 
paying fees for companies, etc).

How can I use GnuCash to be able to view these entities individually and 
also as a consolidated view.  I'm think the entities would be:
    Personal, Property1, Property2, Company1, Company2, Family-Trust, 
Superannuation-Trust.


Can GnuCash do this?

Can I have individual databases for each entity, and then some kind of 
consolidated database?  I'm not sure if I would like this???

Can I have multiple entities within the one database with their own 
Income, Expense, Assets, Liabilities, etc?
Example:
    Personal
       + Assets
          + Savings-Account
       + Liabilities
          + VISA
       + Income
          + Salary
       + Expneses
          + Mobile-Phone
    Property1
       + Assets
          + Savings-Account
       + Liabilities
          + Bank-Loan
       + Income
          + Rent
       + Expenses
          + Commission

Or do I have to have to split them like this? (presumably with some kind 
of filter or report to see accounts for each entity).
    Assets
       + Personal
          + Savings-Account
       + Property1
          + Savings-Account
    Liabilities
       + Personal
          + VISA
       + Property1
          + Bank-Loan
    Income
       + Personal
          + Salary
       + Property1
          + Rent
    Expenses
       + Personal
          + Mobile-Phone
       + Property1
          + Commission

As another scneario, how would a parent company that owned other 
companies/subsiduaries use GnuCash to report individual company 
accounts, and then consolidated accounts ???

Thanks, Brendan.