Our organization is implementing D365 Finance 10.0.42 across five legal entities in different countries, and we need to establish a consolidated budgeting process. Each entity will maintain its own budget in local currency, but we need to roll everything up to a consolidated view in USD for corporate reporting.
I’m interested in hearing how others have approached budget code standardization across multiple entities, especially when dealing with different chart of accounts structures. Also curious about planning hierarchy configuration - should we create separate hierarchies per entity or one global hierarchy with entity nodes?
The consolidated reporting requirement is particularly challenging because we need to eliminate intercompany budget entries and apply different consolidation rates by period. Would love to hear real-world experiences with this type of setup.
For planning hierarchies, I strongly recommend a single global hierarchy with entity-level nodes rather than separate hierarchies per entity. This gives you flexibility to aggregate at different levels - by entity, by region, by business unit, etc. We set up our hierarchy with corporate at the top, then regional nodes, then entity nodes. Each entity can still maintain its own budget planning process, but the hierarchy structure enables automated rollup to any level you need for reporting.
The intercompany elimination challenge is real. We handle this through budget planning allocation rules that identify and tag intercompany budget entries during the planning process. Then we have a separate consolidation scenario that applies elimination rules. The key is establishing clear naming conventions for intercompany accounts so the elimination logic can identify them automatically. For consolidation rates, we maintain a rate table by period and apply it through budget planning document layouts that reference the rate table.
Yes, different fiscal calendars are supported within the same hierarchy. Each legal entity maintains its own fiscal calendar definition, and the budget planning process references the appropriate calendar based on the entity context. The consolidation process handles the period mapping automatically when rolling up to corporate level. Just make sure your corporate fiscal calendar is defined to accommodate all the entity calendars you need to consolidate.
One aspect that often gets overlooked is version control for consolidated budgets. When entities revise their budgets throughout the year, you need a clear versioning strategy. We use budget plan scenarios to track original budget, revisions, and forecasts separately. This way, consolidated reports can show variance not just against actuals, but also against different budget versions. It’s essential for meaningful management reporting.