15.6 Budget Planning Framework, Organization Hierarchies & Planning Processes

Microsoft Certified: Dynamics 365 Finance Functional Consultant Associate MB-310

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1 Chapter 1: MB-310 Exam Overview & Financial Architecture

1.1 MB-310 Exam Structure, Skills Measured & Consultant Role 1.2 Dynamics 365 Finance Architecture, Legal Entities & Global Address Book 1.3 Hands-on Lab Strategy & Preparation Framework

2 Chapter 2: Chart of Accounts & Main Accounts

2.1 Designing Chart of Accounts & Main Account Types 2.2 Main Account Categories & Ledger Account Aliases 2.3 Balance Control Accounts & Year-End Opening Account Setup 2.4 Legal Entity Overrides for Main Accounts & Dimensions

3 Chapter 3: Financial Dimensions & Account Structures

3.1 Custom & Entity-Backed Financial Dimensions 3.2 Financial Tags: Limits, Storage & Ledger Settlement Use 3.3 Account Structures, Segment Criteria & Activation 3.4 Advanced Rules & Advanced Rule Structures 3.5 Derived Dimensions & Dimension Default Templates

4 Chapter 4: Ledgers, Calendars & Currencies

4.1 Fiscal Calendars, Period Statuses & Module Access Control 4.2 Posting Layers, Multi-GAAP Reporting & the Ledger Form 4.3 Currency Exchange Types, Rate Providers & Triangulation 4.4 Accounting & Reporting Currencies (Dual-Currency Architecture) 4.5 Foreign Currency Revaluation & Revaluation Posting Profiles

5 Chapter 5: General Ledger Journals & Allocations

5.1 Journal Names & Voucher Number Sequences 5.2 Journal Control & Posting Restriction Rules 5.3 Journal Entry, the One-Voucher Rule, Validation & Posting 5.4 Reversals, Storno Corrections & Excel Integration 5.5 Ledger Allocation Rules & the Four Allocation Methods 5.6 Allocation Processing & Periodic (Recurring) Journals

6 Chapter 6: Intercompany Accounting & Settlements

6.1 Intercompany Accounting Setup & Due-To / Due-From Postings 6.2 Intercompany Journal Processing & Multi-Company Vouchers 6.3 Ledger Settlements Configuration & Processing

7 Chapter 7: Cash and Bank Management

7.1 Bank Groups, Bank Accounts & Ledger Integration 7.2 Payment Formats, Bank FX Revaluation & Shared Payment Setup 7.3 Manual vs. Advanced Bank Reconciliation & Statement Formats 7.4 Matching Rule Sets, Reconciliation Execution & Reversals 7.5 Cash Flow Forecasting Setup & Automation 7.6 Customer and Vendor Netting

8 Chapter 8: Periodic Closing & Financial Consolidations

8.1 Financial Period Close Workspace, Closing Roles & Schedules 8.2 Year-End Close Configuration & General Ledger Balance Carryforward 8.3 Consolidations Online: Legal Entity Setup, COA Mapping & Currency Translation 8.4 Import Consolidations & Intercompany Elimination Rules

9 Chapter 9: Sales Tax & Withholding Tax

9.1 Sales Tax Engine Hierarchy, Authorities & Settlement Periods 9.2 Ledger Posting Groups, Sales Tax Codes & Calculation Methods 9.3 Sales Tax Groups, Item Sales Tax Groups & Tax Exemptions 9.4 Sales Tax Adjustments and Settle and Post Sales Tax 9.5 Withholding Tax & US 1099 Vendor Reporting

10 Chapter 10: Accounts Receivable Setup & Invoicing

10.1 Customer Master, Customer Groups & Shared Customers 10.2 Customer Posting Profiles & Account Code Precedence 10.3 Free Text Invoices, Recurring Invoice Templates & AR Charges 10.4 Sales Order Invoicing, Billing Classifications & Prepayments 10.5 Customer Payment Methods, Payment Processing & Customer Bank Accounts

11 Chapter 11: Credit Management & Collections

11.1 Credit Management Architecture & Customer Credit Groups 11.2 Risk Scoring, Credit Limits, Blocking Rules & Credit Holds 11.3 Aging Definitions, Collections Workspace & Customer Pools 11.4 Collection Letter Sequences & Interest Notes 11.5 Customer Write-Offs, Bad Debt & Write-Off Reversals

12 Chapter 12: Subscription Billing & Revenue Deferrals

12.1 Recurring Contract Billing, Billing Schedules & Milestones 12.2 Deferral Principles, Deferral Defaults & Schedule Calculation Methods 12.3 Recognition Processing, Expense Deferrals & Modifying Schedules 12.4 Multiple Element Revenue Allocation (MEA / ASC 606)

13 Chapter 13: Accounts Payable & Invoice Processing

13.1 Shared Vendors, Global Address Book & Vendor Groups 13.2 Vendor Posting Profiles, AP Parameters & Vendor Bank Accounts 13.3 Invoice Matching Setup (2-Way, 3-Way), Tolerances & Exceptions 13.4 Vendor Invoicing Methods, Journals & Invoice Automation

14 Chapter 14: Vendor Payments & Expense Management

14.1 Methods of Payment & the Vendor Payment Proposal Engine 14.2 Generating Payments, Centralized Payments & Check Lifecycle 14.3 Expense Management Configuration, Categories & Policies 14.4 Expense Reports Processing, Mobile Receipts & Intercompany Expenses

15 Chapter 15: Budgeting & Budget Control

15.1 Budget Models, Budget Codes & Allocation Terms 15.2 Budget Register Entries, Workflows & Budget vs. Actual 15.3 Budget Transfer Rules & Processing Budget Transfers 15.4 Budget Control Configuration, Cycles, Rules & Budget Groups 15.5 Budget Funds Available, Over-Budget Permissions & Document Budget Check 15.6 Budget Planning Framework, Organization Hierarchies & Planning Processes 15.7 Budget Plans, Scenarios, Allocations & Generating Register Entries

16 Chapter 16: Fixed Assets Configuration & Transactions

16.1 Fixed Asset Groups, Asset Records & Group/Book Mapping 16.2 Depreciation Profiles: Methods & Conventions 16.3 Fixed Asset Books, Derived Books & Posting Profiles 16.4 Fixed Asset Acquisition Pathways 16.5 Depreciation Proposals, Multi-Company Runs & Fixed Asset Budgets 16.6 Fixed Asset Disposals: Sale, Scrap & Disposal Accounting 16.7 Fixed Asset Splits, Transfers & Reclassification 16.8 Asset Leasing (IFRS 16 / ASC 842)

15.6 Budget Planning Framework, Organization Hierarchies & Planning Processes

Key Takeaways Explain This Topic AI

Scenarios, stages, workflow stages, allocation schedules, priorities, columns, and layouts are all defined on the Budget planning configuration page; stage rules are not.

An organization hierarchy must carry the Budget planning purpose, and be published with an effective date, before a budget planning process can select it.

Each budget planning process binds exactly one budget cycle, one ledger, and one organization hierarchy.

A budget planning process is activated from Actions > Activate and cannot be used until it has been.

Plan visibility needs both a Budget clerk, contributor, or manager role and, per legal entity, an organization grant made with Grant with children.

Last updated: August 2026

15.6 Budget Planning Framework, Organization Hierarchies & Planning Processes

Quick Summary: Basic budgeting records a number that has already been decided, and budget control polices spending against it. Budget planning is the collaborative process that produces the number in the first place. Microsoft added Configure and manage budget planning as a brand-new skill group on the August 14, 2026 MB-310 blueprint, and one of its two bullets is explicitly "Configure budget planning process, including organization hierarchy." Expect scenario items in which a hierarchy, a workflow, or a process refuses to behave, and you must name the one missing configuration step.

1. The Budget planning configuration page

Almost every reusable building block lives on a single page: Budgeting > Setup > Budget planning > Budget planning configuration . Each tab produces an artifact that a budget planning process later consumes.

Tab What you define there Why the exam cares

Parameters The Security model for budget plans, plus the default financial dimensions used when a user drills into a plan amount Choosing Based on security organizations is what makes hierarchy-driven access work at all

Scenarios Named containers for one version of budget data — monetary ( Previous year actuals , Budgeted ) or quantity-based ( FTE count , Number of sales calls ) Every allocation moves data from a source scenario to a destination scenario

Stages The ordered steps a plan travels through, such as Initial , Submitted , CFO review , Final Stages exist independently and are then arranged inside a workflow

Workflow stages The budget planning workflow : an ordered set of stages plus the budgeting workflow that moves plans between them Recommended practice is one budget planning workflow per level of the budgeting hierarchy

Allocation schedules Reusable source-scenario-to-destination-scenario allocation definitions Six allocation methods are available (detailed in 15.7)

Stage allocations Bind an allocation schedule to a workflow and a stage so that it fires automatically during workflow processing Only works if the budgeting workflow contains the Budget planning stage allocation automated task

Priorities Optional categories, objectives, and ranking numbers — for example Health and safety Priorities are selected on plans and constrained on the process

Columns Budget plan columns: a scenario, optionally filtered to a period and to ledger accounts The default ceiling is 36 columns , and it can only be raised by extending the budget planning layout

Layouts The grid itself — a ledger dimension set supplies the rows, columns are added as elements, and each element is flagged editable or read-only Generating the Excel template locks the layout , so finish the layout first

High-value trap: stage rules are not on this page. Which stages permit Add lines and Modify lines is defined per process, on the budget planning process record itself. That separation is deliberate: one shared set of scenarios and stages can be reused by several processes that grant completely different permissions.

A second setup detail worth remembering: the Budget planning query optimization for performance feature in the Feature management workspace (under Budgeting ) speeds up the Publish action when a user pushes many edited rows back from Excel, and Microsoft recommends turning it on.

2. The organization hierarchy behind a plan

Budget planning borrows the Organization administration hierarchy engine to decide two things at once: how plan amounts aggregate upward and distribute downward , and who may see which plan . +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Budget planning organization hierarchy |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| [ CFO / Executive committee ] |
| (consolidated parent plan) |
| | |
| +----------------------+----------------------+ |
| | | |
| [ VP Operations ] [ VP Commercial ] |
| | | |
| +------+------+ +-------+-------+ |
| | | | | |
| [ 020 IT ] [ 021 Mfg ] [ 030 East ] [ 031 West ] |
| child plan child plan child plan child plan |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Aggregate = children roll UP into the parent plan
Distribute = parent pushes targets DOWN into the child plans

Configuration rules that scenario questions key on:

Assign the Budget planning purpose. On the Organization hierarchies page choose Assign purpose , select the Budget planning purpose, select Add , and attach your hierarchy. (The same purpose list is reachable at Organization administration > Organizations > Organization hierarchy purposes .) A hierarchy without that purpose never appears in the budget planning process lookup, no matter how correctly it is drawn.

Assign the Security purpose as well when you intend to drive plan access from the hierarchy. Microsoft's own walkthrough assigns both the Budget planning purpose and the Security purpose to the same hierarchy.

Publish it. Draw the nodes in the Hierarchy designer , then choose Publish and Close and supply an effective date . A hierarchy that exists only as a draft has no published version for a process to bind to.

One hierarchy per process. Only one organization hierarchy can be assigned to each budget planning process.

It need not mirror operations. The budgeting hierarchy exists to aggregate and distribute money, so it commonly groups departments differently from the operational org chart.

3. User security for budget plans

Access is a two-layer test, and candidates routinely fix only one layer.

Role. To open the Budget plan page a user must hold Budget clerk , Budget contributor , or Budget manager .

Organization. Set Security model to Based on security organizations on the Parameters tab, then in System administration > Users > Users select the user's role, choose Assign organizations , select Grant access to specific organizations , pick the node, and use Grant with children to cascade access down the branch.

Organization security is applied per legal entity , so the grant must be repeated in each company that participates in the plan. A department manager granted at node 020 sees only the IT plan; the VP granted with children at the Operations node sees every child plan beneath it.

4. Building and activating the budget planning process

The process ( Budgeting > Setup > Budget planning > Budget planning process ) is the container that binds everything together.

Field or FastTab Setting
Budget planning process Identifier, e.g. DEMF budgeting FY2026
Budget cycle Exactly one cycle per process
Ledger Exactly one ledger per process
Default account structure The structure used for new plan lines
Organization hierarchy The published, Budget-planning-purposed hierarchy

Budget planning process administration Assigns a budget planning workflow to every responsibility center in the grid; Assign workflow bulk-applies one workflow to an organization type

Budget planning stage rules and layouts Per stage: allow Add lines , allow Modify lines , and the default layout; Alternate layouts exposes extra layouts

Budget plan priority constraints Optional list of priorities selectable on plans

Activation is the final step, and it is a menu action, not a status field. Choose Actions > Activate ; a budget planning process cannot be used until it has been activated. Two other commands on the same menu matter in practice: copying an existing process to seed next year's cycle, and View budget process status , which graphically shows every plan in the process with its workflow status, amount and unit summaries, and one-click navigation into the plan.

Exam traps in this section

Hierarchy missing from the lookup → the Budget planning purpose was never assigned.

Hierarchy assigned but nobody can see plans → missing Security purpose, wrong Security model , or a missing role.

Everything configured but no plans can be created → the process was never activated with Actions > Activate .

Layout cannot be edited → an Excel template was already generated against it.