What are the 'Financial dimension default templates' in D365FO?

When working with D365FO, a lot of companies are using financial dimensions to specify the postings in the General Ledger. In an earlier article I wrote about the core concepts of financial dimensions so I will not focus on that part here. In this article I will explain the use of the 'Financial dimension default templates'.

These templates can help to distribute amounts from source documents automatically over different financial dimension values. Be aware that this option is only available for some source documents, so you will not find this option in every form where you can make postings.

The setup

In the 'Financial dimension default templates' form you can create one or more templates with dividing of financial dimension values. On each template you create the lines for each percentage of dividing and for each line you select the financial dimension values to use:

At the bottom of the form you can see the total percentages allocated based on the existing lines:

The process

You can use the Financial dimension default templates in some source documents (purchase requisitions, purchase orders, free text invoices) that creates general ledger postings, but it is not a common setting for all functionalities where postings comes from.

In this example I create a free text invoice for delivered services with a value of USD 100,-. After creating the free text invoice, the first thing I do is opening the header of the free text invoice. In the field group for financial dimensions the field 'Accounting distribution template' is available. Here I select the Financial dimension default template I showed earlier in this article for advertising costs:

This header setting will be the setting for the lines that I create in this free text invoice. I create the line of the free text invoice now where I invoice delivered services for USD 100,- related to revenue account 401300:

Now I post the free text invoice. In the created Invoice journal of the free text invoice I open the created voucher in the General Ledger. Here the revenue is divided based on the percentages of the selected 'Financial dimension default template':

In this case my order was to first add the Financial dimension default template in the header and after that creating the free text invoice line. When I already have created the free text invoice line, the accounting distribution is already made and will not automatically be updated when I select the Financial dimension default template in the header:

This is because the header is the basis for the lines at the moment of the line creation (same as for other functionalities like sales order, purchases orders). When I first create the line and then change the header, the selected Financial dimension default template in the header is not taken into the free text invoice line because the line already exists:

So in that case to create the get the accounting distributions based that I have in the Financial dimension default template I have to:

1. create the line again after deleting the old line
2. enter the template ID on line level
3. use the 'Split' option in the accounting distributions

In my opinion entering the template ID on line level will be the quickest way to get the correct accounting distributions.

What if the template is not equal to 100% dividing?

It is not a must that the template is divided for 100% when you save the template and close the form. In that case you will be warned that there is a template which is not equal to 100%:

You can even use this template in transactions. Be aware that in case of using templates where the dividing is not set for 100%, one line will get all the amounts that are not divided in the template.

For example I have a template with four lines:

• 5% for Business Unit 003
• 12% for Business Unit 005
• 10% for Business Unit 006
• 1% for Business Unit 069
• This means that in total I divide 28% over the selected Business Units which you can see in the bottom of the template

I save this template (and will be warned that it is not equal to 100%) and will use this in a new free text invoice for an amount of USD 100. On this free text invoice line where I select this Financial dimension default template the already entered Business Unit value is 002 (based on the customer master data):

After posting the free text invoice the voucher transactions has a dividing of four lines related to customer revenue, based on the used Business Units in the Financial dimension default template:

Here you can see that the Business Unit value 002 (from the free text invoice line) is not used, also not used for the 62% what I did not divide in the Financial dimension default template. The percentage which I did not divide in the Financial dimension default template is taken into Business Unit 005, therefore this has an amount of USD 84,- in stead of the expected USD 12,- (based on 12% of USD 100,-). So D365FO will take one of the lines from the template in these cases to add the percentage that is not divided in the template I have used in the posting.