Budget Management in Dynamics 365 Project Operations vs. PlanAutomate

It only makes sense to be able to see the financial impact of operation issues in your projects, right? But that’s not the case for many project-based companies. Unfortunately, many project businesses are using one solution for their project financials and another for their project operations. As a result, time and resources are spent manually consolidating and integrating data from each system, leaving room for lots of errors.

Project businesses need more than what traditional project accounting and ERP systems provide. To effectively manage your project financials, project businesses need a project-centric solution that eliminates the need for additional point solutions. You need a project business system

If you’re considering Dynamics 365 Project Operations as part of your solution evaluation process, we want to make sure you understand what will work for you and where you may need to seek something more robust. While we love Dynamics, after all, PlanAutomate is built on D365, there are significant differences between the two.

[This is the third blog in a series that provides a comprehensive high-level overview of the project business functionality found in D365PO and PlanAutomate. See the second blog here.]

This blog explores the project budget management functionality in D365PO and PlanAutomate.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations

D365PO does support the project budget management functionality to a certain degree. In D365PO, budgets are entered in a flat journal format, detached from a financial hierarchical context of the project, such as a Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS). Budget entries are referenced to Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) activity numbers as the WBS serves as both the financial and operational hierarchy of the project. Some new functionality in D365PO does include integration with sales opportunities and price quotes, but little else when it comes to budget management.

Download this Quick Guide: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations vs PlanAutomate to gain a detailed understanding of the capabilities of both systems and when to use each.

PlanAutomate

PlanAutomate introduces a dedicated financial hierarchy, the Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS). Budgets are entered directly against the CBS and financial values are immediately rolled up to higher level parent accounts. In addition, budget versions are subject to approval, capturing cost and revenue estimates as well as cash-flow projections.

In PlanAutomate, you can establish project budgets using the built-in templates and formula-driven estimation tools. Any change made to the original budget are processed as revisions, change orders or transfers. A full audit trail of all budget versions is available.

It’s important to detach the CBS from the WBS. Companies trying to manage projects financially and operationally using a single hierarchy (the WBS) are setting themselves up for failure. A single hierarchy contains insufficient details for operational planning. It’s also too granular for budget, estimation, cost collection and variance management. Compromising on both sides results in poor project and business performance.

More than D365PO, PlanAutomate adds additional capabilities to budget management:

• Cost breakdown structure (CBS)
• Planning packages and work packages
• Contingencies and undistributed budget
• Deliverable budgets
• Cost codes
• Link to WBS estimates and change sets
• Change orders, revisions and transfers
• Schedule (WBS) driven time-phasing of budget
• Payment plan links into project schedule
• Cash-flow projections
• Static CBS templates
• XML CBS import
• Formula based templates
• Project change management workspace

Be in the Know Financially and Operationally

While D365PO may be enough for companies with projects that are simple in complexity, it’s not enough to meet the needs of a project business with a high-level of complexity in their project and business structure. PlanAutomate was specifically built to meet all the demands of financial project management all within a single integrated solution.

When all your project business processes are inside one comprehensive solution that supports the entire project business value chain, you have more visibility and control into what’s going with your projects at any given time.