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Write-back to Dynamics 365 Finance budget register entry

[This article is prerelease documentation and is subject to change.]

Overview

The Write back to budget register entry feature enables organizations to export finalized budgets and forecasts from Business performance planning into Dynamics 365 Finance.

This integration ensures that budgets created in Business performance planning are validated and recorded in the budget register entry tables of Dynamics 365 Finance. It preserves governance and compliance while eliminating manual uploads or data transformation steps.

With this capability, finance teams can:

  • Write back budgets and forecasts at the same level of detail defined in their Budget Model in Dynamics 365 Finance.
  • Maintain full schema validation, ensuring field alignment and dimensional accuracy.
  • Automate data transfer between Power BI–based planning and ERP governance.

Note

The Write back to budget register entry feature is available as part of the Business performance planning app version 1.14 (November 2025 release).
You can access this capability within the new Data model builder experience, under the Cube (preview) page. It's only available for cubes created using the Cube (preview).

Prerequisites

Before using the Write back to budget register entry feature, ensure the following requirements are met:

  1. You have the Business performance planning administrator or Business performance planning Power User security role assigned.
  2. Your Business performance planning environment is connected to a Dynamics 365 Finance environment through Dataverse (via virtual tables or Dual-write).
  3. At least one Budget model exists in Dynamics 365 Finance under the target legal entity.
  4. You created the planning cube in Business performance planning through the Cube (preview) page in the new Data model builder, and it contains the financial dimensions and measures required by the target Budget model (such as Main account, Department, Cost center, Date, and Amount).
  5. Supported environments: both Sandbox and Production with valid Dynamics 365 Finance linkage.
  6. At least one column in your Date dimension link to your cube you want to export, must be of Date type.

Important

In Dynamics 365 Finance, you must configure a default account structure before you can create a budget register entry.
For setup guidance, see Budget overview configuration.

Finance and operations user and security prerequisites

To enable Business performance planning to write back to budget register entry in Dynamics 365 Finance, configure specific user roles and connection ownerships correctly.
The user who installs or updates the app, as well as the user designated as the flow owner, must have the appropriate Dynamics 365 Finance roles to allow data upload and workflow execution.

Default flow ownership behavior

By default, the user who installs or updates the Business performance planning app automatically becomes the default owner of all Power Automate flows related to the budget register entry export process.
This behavior means that:

  • All flows use their Dataverse connection by default.
  • The installation process inherits their current access level to the Finance virtual entities.

If this installer user doesn't have the correct Finance roles or connections, the export fails. In such cases, reassign ownership of the flows to a user with the required Finance privileges (typically the Business performance planning administrator or flow owner).

Required roles and duties in Dynamics 365 Finance

Role / Duty Purpose Required for
Custom role including duty Inquire into dimension parameters master Enables access to dimension parameters and allows the BREExportFromDataverseToFnO workflow to execute successfully. This duty ensures every entry created in Dynamics 365 Finance includes the correct user tag (flow owner). Flow owner / user configuring budget register entry export
Role: Data management operations user Grants access to all Virtual entities in the environment. This role is the minimum required for any user who triggers the export from Business performance planning. Flow owner and any export-triggering user

Important

The user who installs, updates, or configures the export for the first time must have both roles listed above.
If either role is missing, the upload to Dynamics 365 Finance fails.

Example: How role ownership affects export behavior

Consider the following scenario:

  • User A – IT Administrator

    • Installs or updates Business performance planning in the environment.
    • Automatically becomes the default flow owner after installation.
    • Doesn't have any Dynamics 365 Finance security roles and doesn't want to be assigned them.

  • User B – Business performance planning Administrator

    • Responsible for maintaining the Power Automate workflows and managing exports.
    • Has both Data management operations user and custom role with the Inquire into dimension parameters master duty.
    • Should be reassigned as the flow owner for all budget register entry related flows.
    • All budget register entry entries created from exports are tagged in Dynamics 365 Finance under User B’s name.

  • User C – Planner or end user

    • Triggers the export directly from the Business performance planning app.
    • Has only the Data management operations user role.
    • Their export executes under User B’s context (the flow owner).

In this setup:

  • User B must open Power Automate, Dynamics 365 Finance extended planning and analysis workflows, and reassign ownership of all budget register entry related flows: BREExportFromDataverseToFnO, CountTotalCubeRows, and BREExportFnOStatusUpdate.
  • When taking ownership, User B must reconnect both Dataverse and Dynamics 365 Finance connections by using their own credentials (the credentials that have the required roles).
  • Any export triggered by any user creates budget register entry records under User B’s Dynamics 365 Finance account, as the export runs in their context.

Summary of role and ownership requirements

User type Example user Required roles in Dynamics 365 Finance Purpose / Responsibility
IT Administrator User A None Installs or updates Business performance planning. Becomes the default flow owner by installation, but should reassign ownership if lacking Finance privileges.
BPP Administrator (Flow Owner) User B Data management operations user, and custom role with the Inquire into dimension parameters master duty Maintains workflows, owns Dataverse and Finance connections, and serves as the user context for budget register entry entries.
End user (Export Trigger) User C Data management operations user Initiates exports from the Business performance planning app. The export runs under the flow owner’s context.

Tip

If the export fails with the No permission to execute Finance operation error, verify that the flow owner (for example, User B) has both required roles and that all Power Automate flows are owned and connected under their account.

For more information, see Set up Dynamics 365 Finance user roles for budget register entry write-back

Dynamics 365 Finance connection and virtual entities

During installation, Business performance planning automatically creates an environment variable to store the Dynamics 365 Finance connection URL.

Property Value
Display name BPP App FinOps URI
Name msdyn_xpna_BPPAppFinOpsURI

If you don't link the Dynamics 365 Finance environment during deployment, you need to configure this variable manually.
In addition, you need to enable several virtual entities in Dataverse so that Business performance planning can access Dynamics 365 Finance data such as ledgers, budget models, and dimension parameters.

For configuration guidance, see Configure the Dynamics 365 Finance connection and virtual entities for budget register entry write-back.

Power Automate workflows and connections

The write-back to budget register entry process uses several Power Automate workflows to orchestrate the export between Dataverse and Dynamics 365 Finance.
You must install, connect, and activate these workflows correctly for the export to function.

Required Power Automate workflows

Workflow name Connection type Purpose
BREExportFromDataverseToFnO Dataverse Triggers the export process and calls the plug-in that sends data to Dynamics 365 Finance.
CountTotalCubeRows Dataverse Calculates and validates the total number of rows to be exported from the selected cube.
BREExportFnOStatusUpdate Dataverse and Dynamics 365 Finance Retrieves and updates the export status from the Dynamics 365 Finance pipeline once the export process is complete.

Verify or create required connections

The BREExportFromDataverseToFnO and CountTotalCubeRows workflows rely solely on the Dataverse connection. The installation of Business performance planning automatically creates these connections. You can verify them in Power Automate > Solutions > Dynamics Extended Planning and Analysis Workflows and ensure they appear as active and are turned on.

The BREExportFnOStatusUpdate workflow requires both Dataverse and Finance & Operations connections. You must manually create this connection and associate it with the flow owner for proper execution.

Set up the Dynamics 365 Finance connection

  1. Open the Power Automate Maker portal at make.powerautomate.com.
  2. Go to Connections > + New connection.
  3. In the list, search for and select Dynamics 365 Finance (Dynamics 365).
  4. Under Authentication type, choose OAuth.
  5. When prompted, a Windows authentication pop-up appears.
    • Sign in with a user profile that has access to your Dynamics 365 Finance environment.
  6. Once created, confirm that the connection status shows as Connected.

Enable the BREExportFnOStatusUpdate workflow

  1. In Power Automate, navigate to Solutions.
  2. Locate the solution named Dynamics Extended Planning and Analysis Workflows.
  3. Open the workflow BREExportFnOStatusUpdate.
  4. Verify that the connections are mapped correctly. One for Dataverse and one for Dynamics 365 Finance.
  5. Turn the flow on.

Tip

The BREExportFnOStatusUpdate flow must run using the flow owner’s context. If the owner doesn’t have a valid Dynamics 365 Finance connection or sufficient privileges, the export status update fails. If you're unable to turn on the flow from the Details summary page, select Edit, then Save the flow.
After saving, return to the details page and you should now be able to turn on the flow successfully.

Summary of workflow behavior

Workflow Trigger Key responsibility Connection required
BREExportFromDataverseToFnO User export action in Business performance planning Calls the plug-in to write data from Dataverse to Dynamics 365 Finance Dataverse
CountTotalCubeRows System-triggered during export Counts total rows to validate the dataset before export Dataverse
BREExportFnOStatusUpdate Called post-export Retrieves export completion status from Finance Dataverse and Dynamics 365 Finance

Date dimension requirement

At least one column in your Date dimension must be of Date type. The export configuration uses this field to define the transaction date in the budget register entry records.

Important

If the cube’s Date dimension doesn’t contain a column of data type Date, the export configuration can't proceed and fails validation.

Export budgets to Dynamics 365 Finance

After you finalize and approve your budget or forecast in Business performance planning, follow these steps to create a budget register entry in Dynamics 365 Finance.

Open your planning cube

  1. From your Business performance planning workspace, in Cubes (preview), select a Published cube that contains your finalized scenario.
  2. On the command ribbon, select Export > Export to budget register entry.

Configure export settings

A sliding configuration pane opens. This pane guides you through setting up the export.

  1. Name your export (for example, FY26 OPEX Budget).
  2. Select the Legal entity in Dynamics 365 Finance where you want to create the budget.
  3. After you select a legal entity, Business performance planning automatically retrieves the list of Budget models available in that environment.
  4. Choose the target Budget model for this export.

Map your fields

After you select the Budget model, the Mapping parameters section displays all mandatory fields required by Dynamics 365 Finance, such as:

  • Financial dimensions (for example, Main account, Department, Cost center, Business unit)
  • Date (needs to be mapped with a column Date type)
  • Amount
  • Currency (optional)

Map each of these fields to the corresponding columns from your planning cube. The system highlights any unmapped required field until you resolve it.

Note

The planning cube in Business performance planning can contain data at a different or lower granularity than the budget model defined in Dynamics 365 Finance.
During write-back, Business performance planning creates one budget register entry line for each record returned by the applied filter in the cube.

Filter your export lines

Optionally, define filters to limit which lines are included in the export. For example, you can filter by department, period, or scenario to focus on a specific subset of data.

Note

Currently, filtering on Linked columns from Column link dimensions isn't supported. For example, if you want to filter scenarios where the status is approved, and that status value comes from a linked column, you can't use the Status linked column as a filter criterion.

Export to Dynamics 365 Finance

When you finish the mapping and filters, select Export.

Business performance planning validates your configuration against the budget model schema and then creates corresponding budget register entry records in Dynamics 365 Finance.
A confirmation message appears when the process is complete.

Review and reuse exports

To review all previously created exports from the same planning cube, follow these steps:

  1. In the ribbon, select All budget register entry exports.
  2. The list displays every export you created, including the export name, legal entity, budget model, creation date, and status.
  3. To reuse an existing configuration, open a previous export and select Reuse configuration.
    The system prepopulates the name, mappings, and filters. This step lets you quickly generate a new batch of budget register entries.

Note

The ability to review and reuse previous budget register entry exports is available starting with Business performance planning version 1.15. This feature allows you to view all past exports from a planning cube and quickly reuse existing configurations, including mappings and filters, to generate new budget register entries.

Validation and troubleshooting

Scenario System behavior
Missing required field mapping The system displays a validation message and prevents export until you map all required fields.
Invalid data type or value The system highlights the affected field and prompts correction before proceeding.
Cube granularity lower than Budget model Business performance planning automatically aggregates values to the correct Budget Model level before exporting to Dynamics 365 Finance.
Missing Finance connection URL variable The export fails with Finance service not reachable. Verify the msdyn_xpna_BPPAppFinOpsURI variable and update it with your Dynamics 365 Finance URL.
Missing Finance user roles The export fails with No permission to execute Finance operation. Ensure the export user exists in Finance and has required roles.
Export completed successfully A toast notification confirms budget register entries created successfully.
Export failed after multiple retries The system retries the export five times before failing. If you see repeated integration errors, contact your administrator or Microsoft support.

Benefits

  • Accuracy: Validations ensure exported data matches the Dynamics 365 Finance budget model schema.
  • Governance: Budgets are recorded in Dynamics 365 Finance with the same structure and controls as native entries.
  • Speed: No more manual Excel uploads. Exports happen directly from Power BI through Business performance planning.
  • Reusability: Previous configurations can be reused for faster future exports.
  • Flexibility: Support for cubes at a lower granularity ensures planners can model data in more detail without losing consistency in Dynamics 365 Finance.
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