Within this and the following post I would like to show how one can setup budget control for fixed assets in AX2012 and AX7. Let’s start with the setup and configuration in AX2012 first by referring to the following example.

Setup
The first step in my setup process is specifying the main account that is used for posting fixed asset acquisitions in the fixed asset posting profile form. Please note that the main account setup here (account no. 180100) is a balance sheet account.

Because I am aware that the budget control configuration form does only allow setting up a single account structure, I setup my ledger with only one account structure that includes all of my balance sheet and income statement accounts.

My next step was selecting this account structure in the budget control configuration form and specifying that budget control shall be executed at the main account level only.

To let Dynamics AX check and ensure that I do not spent more money than the amount budgeted, I setup the following budget control rule, which defines that my main (balance sheet) accounts that start with “180” shall be subject to budget control.

 

Record budget amounts for the fixed assets
After setting up and activating budget control, I recorded fixed asset budgets for the different fixed assets that I setup for the years 2020 to 2024. For details, please see the next screen-print.

After transferring those budget values to the budgeting module, I double-checked the amounts transferred and updated the budget balances.

A first thing that I noticed in the budget register entry form was that the first column denominated “budget check results” did not include a green check mark for my transferred budget values.

As I wanted to compare this behavior with the one that can be identified for ordinary expense related budgets, I modified my budget control configuration and setup a second budget control rule for my travel expense accounts. Once that was done, I recorded a budget for one of those travel expense accounts and noticed that Dynamics AX automatically shows me a green check mark when entering the budget amount. Please see the next screen-print.

 

Post vendor invoice
Irrespective of the issue with the green check mark and after having done all the necessary setup, I finally tried recording and posting a vendor invoice. Please note that the invoice amount that I entered exceeds the budgeted amount. Details of my test are included in the next screen-print.

What you can identify from the screen-print above is that Dynamics AX allowed me posting the invoice for my fixed asset even though the invoice exceeds the budgeted amount by 25000 EUR.

This was not quite what I expected. For that reason, I changed the budget control configuration several times in order to execute the budget control at different levels and with different main account-financial dimension combinations. Yet, irrespective of the budget control configuration that I used, I was always able to post the vendor invoice even though the posted amount exceeded the budgeted one.

 

Solution: Code adjustment
After this disappointing result, I started having a look at the program code that is responsible for executing the budget control check and noticed that standard Dynamics AX runs the budget control check only for expense, profit&loss and total accounts. As balance sheet accounts – such as the one that I setup for my fixed asset acquisitions – are by default excluded from budget control, I slightly modified the code in the following two methods:

 

Second test run
Once the code adjustments were implemented, I setup a new fixed asset and entered a budget for it. The next screen-print shows you the process of entering the budget amount for the newly created fixed asset. The main difference that you can identify in the screen-print below compared to the earlier budget registration is the green check mark in the budget check column.

Please note that the previously recorded budgets for my „old“ fixed assets are not influenced by the code change, which induced me setting up a new fixed asset and fixed asset budget for the following tests.

With the new setup in place I tried once again recording a vendor invoice for the acquisition of my fixed asset. Interestingly and different from before, Dynamics AX did now prevent me from posting the invoice as the total invoice amount exceeded the budget amount. Please see the next screen-print.

After reducing my total invoice amount to one below the total budgeted amount I was finally able to get the invoice posted.

 

Summary
By doing some little code modifications you can let Dynamics AX check available budgets for balance sheet accounts. An important prerequisite for this budget control check is that the balance sheet accounts – for which you want to have the budget control enabled – are included in the account structure that is setup in the budget configuration form. In other words, if you want to have also balance sheet accounts checked for available budget funds, you might have to reconsider the setup of your account structures e.g. by including all accounts into a single account structure and by making use of advanced account structure rules.

Please do also note that additional code modifications are necessary in the budget control inquiry forms to get the balance sheet accounts included for subsequent comparisons.

Within the next post I will take a look at the same process and differences in the new Dynamics AX7. Till then.