Budget Planning in Microsoft
Dynamics AX 2012
Almost
every organisation goes through the process of periodic budget planning as part
of their normal business operations. There is a wide range of third party applications available to facilitate the
process of building and modelling an organisational budget.
Prior
to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, Microsoft Forecaster was the recommended solution for customers running
Microsoft Dynamics ERP. Forecaster used precision budgeting components
that consisted of Revenue, Expense, Human Resources and Capital. When
describing the precision components of building a budget model, these concepts
were almost always in line with how most organisations built their internal
organisational budgets.
Different
industries have different requirements. While one industry comprises of
organisations whose staff costs make up a major portion of their annual
expense, another industry might face complex revenue streams. Using Forecaster
meant integrating base financial accounts and dimensions with ERP systems as
well as providing a means to report budget to actual results.
It
was, however, not always a seamless tactic. One of the frustrations using this
integration approach was that the financial hierarchies and reporting trees had
to be re-created in Forecaster as well as Management Reporter.
Another
issue was the integration with Microsoft Excel. Excel is the #1 budget
planning application used today by organisations. Although Forecaster had
strong functionality for budget modelling, its Excel integration capabilities
were minimal at best. Relying on Excel for budget planning was also prone
to error. Keeping track of multiple sheets and templates could become
unmanageable, not to mention the difficulty to aggregate data across different
workbooks. The best practice was to maintain budget data in a central data
repository to represent one version of the true budget. Uploading the
approved budget to the ERP system also allowed systems to validate against
budget dollars in Procurement and Sourcing using budgetary controls.
As
a result of these pain points, and the fact that Forecaster technology is fast
becoming obsolete across the Microsoft Dynamics ERP offering, the Microsoft
Dynamics AX Budget Planning module was introduced in AX 2012 R2. Budget
planning is integrated to the core financial systems including the chart of
accounts, financial dimensions, organisational hierarchies, and human resources
as well as including budget to actual results.
The
major design and integration points for Budget Planning are as follows:
Below
is an overview of the phases to be considered as you are building your
implementation.
Budget
Planning will have some new features coming in AX 2012 R2 CU8 to be released
later this year. CU8 will include deeper integration with Worker
Compensation in HR as well as more accurate date sensitivity when adding
positions mid cycle.
Since
every organisation needs to do budget planning, all Dynamics AX 2012 R2 or R3
customers should consider using budget planning as part of their initial or
post go live implementation.
No comments:
Post a Comment