you have to be flexible here because you cannot rely on just one, few months back I use to concentrate only on consolidate balancesheet, but then i meet tata steel, their standalone networth is of about 55,209.68. but if you include all the subsidiaries(corus etc etc) of all the subsidiaries then you'll get consolidated net worth of 34,193.45.. sudden drop in networth
(from here different analysts can have different conclusion so let stop here, by the way its because of their aggressive loans and bonds which they are selling to support their business).
what if tata steel don't have much of the big subsidiaries like corus etc.. in that case we can just do our analysis on standalone balancesheet. then no need to look at them.
another example for standalone and consolidated is sun pharma, if you take a look at their consolidated balancesheet you'll find their total inventories(raw material, machines etc) is of worth 2577 crores, where as standalone its only worth 868 crores, this tells us that sun pharma's subsidiary companies are producing finished goods for the company.
add: if company is selling their subsidiary company which hold their invent roes, could means that company might not be able to produce as much sales as it was before.. then you know where NOT to invest..
back to your question on which is more important, both are. just depends on the company, as a beginner just concentrate on consolidated one. but always use common sense for better analysis.