Budget planning overview

Article
11/19/2014

Important

This content is archived and is not being updated. For the latest documentation, see Microsoft Dynamics 365 product documentation. For the latest release plans, see Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform release plans.

Applies To: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2

This topic introduces budget planning and contains information to help you configure budget planning and set up budget planning processes.

About budget planning

Budget planning is the process of preparing the budgets that are implemented by an organization. Private sector and public sector organizations can configure budget planning, and then set up budget planning processes to meet their organization’s policies, procedures, and requirements for budget preparation. You can use budget planning to perform the following tasks:

Associate budget planning processes with budget cycles, ledgers, and organization hierarchies.
Analyze and update budget plans by using multiple scenarios. You can automatically route the budget plans, together with worksheets, justifications, and attachments, for review and approval.
Consolidate multiple budget plans from a lower level of the organization into a single parent budget plan at a higher level in the organization. You can also develop a single budget plan at a higher level of the organization and allocate the budget to lower levels of the organization.

When you use budget planning, budget planning rules are added to advanced rules and account structures, and budget planning tasks and elements are added to Budgeting workflows. The Budget planning and Security purposes are also added to organization hierarchies.

Budget planning is integrated with other modules, so you can bring in information from previous budgets, actual expenditures, fixed assets, and human resources. Budget planning is also integrated with Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word, so that you can use these tools to work with the budget planning data. For example, a budget manager can import a department’s budget request into an Excel worksheet from a budget plan scenario. The data can be analyzed, updated, and charted in the worksheet, and then published back to the budget plan lines.

Budget planning requirements

The Budget configuration key for basic budgeting and the Budget planning configuration key must be enabled. The Budget control configuration key is optional but is typically enabled. For more information, see Configuration keys and “Budgeting configuration keys” in Setup overview: basic budgeting and budget control.

Before you configure budget planning and set up budget planning processes, you must set up basic budgeting. You must also set up budget control if you’re using budget control. When you set up basic budgeting, include the financial dimensions, number sequences, budget cycles, and currency exchange rates for budget planning. For overview information, see Setup overview: basic budgeting and budget control. For a list of topics about basic budgeting, see Setting up basic budgeting.

The following table describes the information that you must compile before you configure budget planning and set up budget planning processes.

Information to compile	More information
The financial dimensions that are required for budget planning, but that are not available in the chart of accounts.	For more information, see Budget planning rules (form) and Create advanced account structures and rules for budget planning.
The departments, business units, and cost centers in the organization hierarchy.	The budget manager must be assigned to a role that has permission to create and maintain organization hierarchies. For information about how to assign the Budget planning purpose to an organization hierarchy, see Create or modify an organization hierarchy. Note Only one organization hierarchy can be assigned to a budget planning process.
The users who are outside the budget planning organization hierarchy or not associated with an organization unit in the hierarchy, but who must work with budget plans.	Users who are outside the budgeting planning organization hierarchy can be assigned to a budget planning user group. This user group can then be associated with the budget plan that the users work with. For more information, see User groups (form), Manage user groups, and Key tasks: Create and process budget plans.
The allocation, stage transition, review, and approval requirements for the Budgeting workflows.	For more information, see About budget planning configuration and setup and Set up Budgeting workflows.
The budget planning stages and workflows for the budget planning processes.	For more information, see About budget planning configuration and setup and Key tasks: Configure budget planning and set up budget planning processes.
The access that users must have to view, modify, and add budget plan data.	For more information, see About budget planning configuration and setup and Key tasks: Configure budget planning and set up budget planning processes. For information about how to assign the Security purpose to an organization hierarchy, see Organization hierarchies, Configure budget planning security, and Configuring Budget Planning for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2.
The templates for Office Add-ins for Microsoft Dynamics AX for the data that you want to see in the worksheets and justifications.	A template author must create the Excel and Word templates that structure the data for the worksheets and justifications. The fields for the templates are available through the Budget planning web service. For more information, see Create budget plan templates manually and Create budget plan worksheet templates by using a wizard.
The folder locations for attachments, templates, worksheets, and justifications.	For more information, see About budget planning configuration and setup and Key tasks: Configure budget planning and set up budget planning processes.
If you use Enterprise Portal for Microsoft Dynamics AX, the security and permissions for network folders and files.	The appropriate user accounts must have access to the documents on the network. For more information, see Create service accounts.
The types of data in the budget plan scenarios, such as monetary or quantity.	For more information, see About budget planning configuration and setup and Key tasks: Configure budget planning and set up budget planning processes.
The data in the budget planning scenarios that must be entered manually or allocated.	For more information, see About budget planning configuration and setup and About budget plans.
The budget planning data that must be generated from sources such as previous budgets, actual expenditures, fixed assets, and forecast positions.	For more information, see Generate budget plans from source information.

Note

We recommend that you use Management Reporter for Microsoft Dynamics ERP to create, maintain, deploy, and view financial reports that include budget planning data. Management Reporter lets you design financial reports based on ledger accounts and financial dimensions, drill down to transaction-level detail, and use web-based report viewing. For more information about how to print financial reports by using Management Reporter, see Management Reporter for Microsoft Dynamics ERP.

You can use Management Reporter to report on budget planning data only if you have rollup 4 or a later version of Management Reporter 2012 installed.

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Budget planning overview

About budget planning

Budget planning requirements

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