Flexibility—it’s a quality that organizations often require when developing, modifying, and controlling budgets. Organizations need flexibility for a variety of budget tasks; the most important of which include:
 Determining the financial components used to establish and control budgets.
 Updating or revising budgets based on economic events.
 Defining workflows and policies that match organizational requirements.
 Using a budgeting tool that is right for the organization.
 Enforcing a budget control process that meets the needs of the organization, regardless of the industry in which they do business.
With the introduction of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, organizations will have the budget flexibility they require while ensuring that budget rules and policies are followed.

FLEXIBILITY TO BUDGET AGAINST THE APPROPRIATE FINANCIAL ELEMENTS
Organizations often establish budgets at the department or cost center level. The budgeting software that organizations use should be flexible enough to accommodate the needs of users at these levels. Before Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 was introduced, organizations were often bound by conditions set forth in the application that limited custom budgeting.
For example, a department manager might have budget funds allocated for employeerelated expenses (such as travel, training, morale events, and so on). Ultimately, it does not matter how the funds are spent across these areas, as long as the department stays within budget. In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, an organization can specify the financial dimensions within the chart of accounts that are used to establish a budget that is internal to the organization.
Budgeting is governed by the following general strategy:
A set of financial dimensions is enabled within the chart of accounts and used to establish a budget. The main account can be optionally included.
Rules are established for the chart of accounts that specify how dimension values can be used in combination with one another. The financial dimensions that are enabled for budgeting will adhere to these rules.
Any relationships that exist between the account structures in the chart of accounts and an organization model are also adhered to for budget entry.
Flexible account entry for budgeting requires the user to enter only the financial dimensions that have been enabled for budgeting, which can be different from those required for source documents or .accounting journals.
FLEXIBLILITY IN DEFINING AND ADJUSTING BUDGET WORKFLOWS AND POLICIES
Budgeting is often an infrequent task for many of the individuals involved in the process.
It is therefore important to have policies in place that ensure the accuracy of budget information.
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 gives budget analysts and controllers the ability to define policies and workflows that meet the needs of an organization and to modify or adjust budgets as market conditions change. These capabilities are provided through the following features:
User-defined budget codes that enable greater budget analysis and an audit trail related to the origination of budget amounts.
Budget types that enable business logic to enforce rules. For example, one budget type—a budget transfer—requires that positive and negative adjustments sum to zero across budget account entries.
Workflows that can define requirements, for example:
Approval of budgets prior to allocation of amounts.
Approval of adjustments to approved budgets.
Budget transfer policies that can be defined to specify the cases of financial
Define budget transfer rules

dimension values (such as departments) in which a budget transfer is allowed without approval. For example, a budget transfer within a specific department might be allowed without approval, but an interdepartmental budget transfer would require approval.
Rules defined by the organization that enforce budget control.
FLEXIBILITY TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT BUDGETING TOOL
Organizations can take advantage of the budget register entry capability in Microsoft
Dynamics AX 2012 for developing budget amounts, applying rules or policies, and approving budget allocations. However, many organizations prefer to use an external budget service or the capabilities of Microsoft Excel ® as a budgeting tool.
By using the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Add-ins for Microsoft Office, an organization can directly create or update budget register entries with a tool to which it is accustomed.
Within Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, you can use the budgeting tool to:
Copy realized ledger balances as budget register entries to initiate the budget process.
Take advantage of allocation processes for distributing budget amounts across financial dimensions or across time periods.
Easily replicate or provide a recurrence pattern to budget amounts that remain constant period over period.
Outside Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, you can:
Use a budget service that provides the ability to create, read, update, and delete budget register entries.
Use Excel to create and update budget register entries by utilizing the Microsoft
Dynamics AX 2012 Add-ins for Office.
FLEXIBILITY IN DEFINING BUDGET CONTROL POLICIES
Budget control enables organizations to proactively manage their expenses by providing notifications when the budget funds available have been exceeded. Organizations can flexibly configure their budget control policies by defining the “budget funds available” calculation, selecting the source documents or accounting journals that are subject to a budget check, and specifying the criteria for setting the range of dimension values for budget control dimensions that are subject to a budget check.
An organization can define a number of elements to meet its budgeting objectives:
“Budget funds available” calculation. Organizations have the flexibility to define the calculation that is applied for checking budget funds availability. This calculation is applied to the source documents and accounting journals that are enabled for budget control.
Budget control dimensions. Budget control dimensions are financial dimensions that are subject to a budget check, and allow organizations to create budget
Budget control statistics

allocations at one level while performing a budget check at another. For example, budget may be allocated for a combination of financial dimensions such as departments, cost centers, and purposes. An organization may choose to control budget for the department–cost center combination.
Budget groups for pooling budget funds. When budget groups are in use, a secondary budget check occurs at the budget group level.
Budget cycles and budget intervals. These are used for aggregating amounts for the budget funds available check.
Source documents and accounting journals. Organizations can select where a budget check should be invoked.
Note The “budget funds available” calculation allows organizations to specify the amounts to include when determining budget funds availability. For example, an organization may want to perform budget checks on draft documents, but does not want to create a formal reservation of budget funds for source documents in draft. Budget control provides the flexibility to specify these criteria through the definition of the
“budget funds available” calculation.

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 gives organizations the capacity to define budget amounts for some or all of the financial dimensions in a chart of accounts. Organizations have the flexibility to determine how budget amounts are defined to meet organizational policies. Budget codes and budget types provide an additional audit trail related to budget revisions.
Optionally, organizations can define approval workflows to ensure that budget amounts are approved prior to updating the budget funds available. Rules can also be defined to ensure that transfers of budget are within the organizational policies, and are used in addition to budget control. Applying rules prevents the misuse of funds, whereas budget control prevents overspending of budget funds.
You can establish budgets by using either Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 or Excel, which gives organizations the flexibility to determine the tool that best suits their business needs. You can easily update or create new budget register entries through the use of Excel or other applications that utilize budget services.
Organizations can take a proactive approach to managing expenditures against budget by using budget control. You can establish budget control rules that, for example, determine the budget dimensions that are subject to a budget check when used on:
 Source documents enabled by budget control.
 Accounting journals designated by the organization.
Flexible analysis of the amounts impacting budget fund availability gives you greater insight into how to make better budget approval decisions.
Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions that enables you and your people to make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics works like and with familiar Microsoft software, automating and streamlining financial, customer relationship and supply chain processes in a way that helps you drive business success.
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