Budgets in Dynamics GP vs. Business Central: One Budget or Many?-Round 2

Budget season. For some finance teams, those two words mean weeks of spreadsheets, emailed versions with names like “FINAL_v7_REALLYFINAL.xlsx,” and a scramble to get numbers into the ERP system. Your ERP should make budgeting easier, not harder. So today, in part two of our Dynamics GP vs. Business Central: Functionality Face-Off series, we’re looking at how you enter budgets in Microsoft Dynamics GP and in Dynamics 365 Business Central (BC) — and why BC’s approach to multiple budget types is a game changer.

Missed part one? Catch up on journal entries in GP vs. BC, or start with our big-picture look at Dynamics GP vs. Dynamics Business Central.

How You Enter a Budget in Dynamics GP

In GP, budgets live in the Financial module. Here is the usual path:

1. Go to Financial > Cards > Financial > Budgets to open the Budget Selection window.
2. Click New and choose Using Microsoft Dynamics GP (or Using Excel if you want the wizard to build a spreadsheet).
3. In Budget Maintenance, name your budget ID, pick the fiscal year, and select the range of accounts to include.
4. Use the Methods button to fill in starting numbers — for example, a percent of last year’s actuals or an open-year amount — so you are not starting from zero.
5. Enter or adjust amounts period by period, then save.

GP also has a helpful Excel budget wizard: you can export a budget to Excel, work on the numbers there, and import it back in. One tip from experience — make sure Maintain Budget History is turned on in your General Ledger setup so you keep prior budget versions.

This all works. But GP budgets are tied to the account string, one amount per account per period. If you want to budget by department, that only works if department is baked into your account segments. And comparing several what-if versions usually means juggling several budget IDs and pulling them into Management Reporter or Excel to see them side by side.

How You Enter a Budget in Business Central

In BC, budgets are called G/L Budgets, and the experience feels made for the way finance teams actually plan:

1. Search (Alt+Q) for G/L Budgets and choose New.
2. Name the budget, give it a description, and — here is the fun part — assign up to four budget dimensions on top of your two global dimensions (think Department, Project, Customer Group, Region).
3. Choose Edit Budget to open the budget matrix — a grid with accounts down the side and periods across the top. Click any cell and enter the amount.
4. Flip the view by month, quarter, or year, or filter the whole matrix by any dimension.

Because budget entries carry dimensions, you can budget sales by region, expenses by department, and projects by job — all in one budget — and later report budget vs. actual by any of those slices (Microsoft Learn: Create G/L budgets).

The Big Difference: Multiple Budget Types

Here is where BC really pulls ahead. BC lets you create as many budgets as you want for the same period, each with its own name. That means you can keep separate, living versions such as:

• An approved budget (the official plan)
• An optimistic budget and a pessimistic budget for scenario planning
• A forecast you update mid-year without touching the original budget
• A revised budget after a reorganization

Each one is just another named G/L Budget. You can copy one budget into another with the Copy Budget function and apply an adjustment factor — say, last year’s numbers plus 5% — in seconds. You can also export any budget to Excel, tweak it, and import it back, dimensions included (Microsoft Learn: Export and import budgets). Then, in BC’s financial reports, you choose which budget to compare actuals against. Board wants to see actuals vs. the approved budget? Two clicks. CFO wants actuals vs. the latest forecast? Two clicks.

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	Dynamics GP	Business Central
Where budgets live	Budget Maintenance (Cards > Budgets)	G/L Budgets page
Multiple budgets per year	Multiple budget IDs, clunky to compare	Unlimited named budgets, easy to compare
Budget by department/project	Only via account segments	Up to 4 budget dimensions + 2 global dimensions
Starting numbers	Methods (percent of actuals, etc.)	Copy Budget with adjustment factor, balance-to-budget
Excel round-trip	Budget wizard for Excel	Native export/import, dimensions included
Budget vs. actual reporting	Management Reporter / Excel	Built-in financial reports, pick any budget
Mid-year forecasting	New budget ID, manual setup	Copy, adjust, done

Why Business Central Comes Out Ahead

GP budgeting gets the numbers in, and the Excel wizard was ahead of its time. But it was built around a fixed account string and one-amount-per-account thinking. BC treats budgets the way modern finance teams do: multiple versions, sliced by dimensions, compared against actuals in real time, with Excel as a first-class citizen instead of a workaround. If your budgeting process today involves more spreadsheet wrangling than actual planning, BC gives you those hours back.

Let’s Talk About Your Budget Process

Aisling Dynamics helps GP users move to Business Central without losing the history and processes they rely on. Want to see a multi-budget, dimension-driven setup built around your chart of accounts? See what we offer or contact us to set up a demo.

Next up in the series: entering a purchase order — GP’s PO Entry vs. BC’s Purchase Orders.