Domain 1: Implement financial management
- The chart of accounts, financial dimensions and account structures are three separate objects. Main accounts carry the natural account, dimensions carry the analysis, and an account structure decides which dimension segments appear for a given set of accounts and which of them are mandatory.
- Advanced rule structures add extra segments conditionally, so a project number can be demanded only on capital expenditure accounts without cluttering every other entry. A structure edited in draft has no effect until it is activated, which is the usual explanation for a change that appears to have done nothing.
- Suspending a financial dimension value removes it from new entry while every historical transaction that used it stays intact. Deleting a value that has been posted against is neither possible nor desirable, and the same one directional logic applies to suspending a main account.
- A ledger is defined by its chart of accounts, its account structures, its fiscal calendar and its accounting currency, with an optional reporting currency. Reporting currency amounts are stored on every entry as it posts, which is what makes group reporting reproducible rather than dependent on the rate when a report happens to run.
- Exchange rate types let daily transaction rates, budget planning rates and consolidation rates coexist, each process pointing at the type it should use. A rate provider can import published rates on a schedule so nobody has to remember.
- Posting layers keep statutory and tax adjustments apart from operational entries inside one ledger, and financial report columns select which layers to include. Layers are not a substitute for legal entities, dimensions or budget models.
- Journal names carry their own number sequence, offset account, approval workflow and journal control. Journal control is the mechanism that restricts which account structures and segment values a particular journal may post to, and it works at entry time rather than at posting.
- Accrual schemes spread an amount across periods, ledger allocation rules distribute an amount across dimensions, and periodic journals hold a recurring set of lines for retrieval. Reaching for the wrong one of the three is a common implementation mistake.
- Sales tax calculation intersects two groups: the sales tax group from the trading party and the item sales tax group from what is being sold. Only codes present in both actually apply, which is why a missing item group on a line is the usual cause of an invoice that unexpectedly shows no tax.
- Each sales tax code carries its origin, its value intervals with effective dates, its marginal base, its settlement period and its ledger posting group. A code belongs to exactly one settlement period, which is what makes settlement deterministic.
- Advanced bank reconciliation imports an electronic statement and matches lines by rule, leaving only exceptions for a person. Tuning the matching rules is what raises the automatic match rate, and unmatched lines such as charges are posted through bank transaction types.
- The financial period close workspace turns the close into a tracked schedule of tasks across legal entities, with owners and due offsets relative to the period end. Ledger settlement pairs off the offsetting entries on a clearing account so only genuinely open items remain to review.
- Consolidation brings entity balances together, with account mapping where charts differ and rate types assigned by account type. Elimination rules remove the balances that exist only because the group trades with itself.
- Year end close transfers the profit and loss result to a nominated retained earnings account and can be rerun when a late adjustment is posted, which recalculates the opening balances rather than requiring a manual entry.
Domain 2: Implement accounts receivable, credit, collections, and subscription billing
- The customer posting profile determines the summary account receivables post to along with the discount and interest accounts, and it can be selected per customer, per group or by a default. Terms of payment set the due date and cash discounts set the early settlement incentive.
- Free text invoices post directly to ledger accounts chosen on each line, which suits services and recharges with no item involved. Sales order invoices handle anything that moves stock, and both behave identically once posted.
- Settlement is what links a receipt to the documents it clears. Unapplied cash leaves invoices open, distorts aging and gives collections accounts with nothing to chase, which is why clearing it is worth doing daily rather than monthly.
- A credit note says the invoice should not have stood, a prepayment records money received before anything was earned, and a write off records a balance that will not be collected. The three look similar on an account and have entirely different accounting consequences.
- Credit management acts before an order proceeds, assessing exposure and holding orders that would breach a limit. The credit limit type decides what counts towards the limit, and including open orders is what turns a backward looking check into a forward looking one.
- Credit groups aggregate exposure across related accounts so a commercial group cannot multiply its limit across subsidiaries, and credit limit exclusions let prepaid or guaranteed orders bypass the check without releasing them by hand every day.
- Collections pools are saved queries that divide the receivables ledger into manageable workloads, and the aging period definition supplies the buckets that both the aging report and the collections list use. Aligning the buckets with the escalation policy is what makes the report actionable.
- Collection letters are created, reviewed, posted and then sent, and posting is what advances the escalation level so the next run issues the following letter rather than repeating the first. Interest notes are calculated from an interest code and can be waived through a process that records the concession.
- Write off configuration names the expense account and the journal used, so writing off is a single action rather than a journal a user has to construct. A subsequent receipt against a written off balance is handled by reversing the write off and settling the payment.
- Subscription billing holds the contract as a billing schedule, with lines that may each carry a different term and price, and invoices are generated for the periods that fall due. Amendments are made prospectively so the invoices already issued stay intact.
- Revenue recognition schedules are separate from billing schedules, which is what allows annual billing with monthly recognition. Deferred revenue is a liability released as the service is delivered, and it is not reduced by the customer paying the invoice.
- A deferred revenue balance that never moves almost always means the recognition process has not been run, which is why it belongs on the period close checklist rather than being discovered at a year end.
Domain 3: Implement and manage accounts payable and expenses
- The vendor posting profile determines the summary account payables post to, selected per vendor, per group or by a default. Terms of payment set the due date and cash discounts create the incentive that a discount driven payment proposal exists to capture.
- The invoice register records a liability against a holding account when an invoice arrives, and invoice approval reclassifies it to the correct expense once someone has coded it. That two step process keeps period end liabilities honest while approval takes its time.
- Three way matching compares the invoice with the purchase order and the product receipt, and tolerances let small price and quantity variances pass without intervention. A failure holds the invoice for review rather than returning it to the vendor.
- The product receipt creates the accrual for goods received but not invoiced, and the invoice clears it. A growing accrued purchases balance means receipts that were never invoiced or invoices matched to the wrong receipt, and investigating it recovers money in both directions.
- Payment proposals select invoices by due date, discount date, vendor and method of payment, and generating the payments produces the file while posting settles the invoices. Keeping generation and posting separate is what allows a file to be checked before anything is committed.
- Positive pay sends the bank a list of issued cheques so unmatched ones are refused, and separating the ability to change vendor bank details from the ability to release payments is the other half of a serious payment fraud control.
- Vendor prepayments are carried as an asset until they are applied, and linking a prepayment to its purchase order is what stops the application being forgotten. Duplicate invoice checking on entry prevents the single most common payables loss.
- Expense categories classify a claim and supply the ledger account and tax treatment, so claimants describe what they spent money on rather than choosing an account. Assigning categories well is what keeps coding consistent across many occasional users.
- Expense policies evaluate a claim as it is entered and either warn or block, with violations recorded for the approver to consider. Warning is often the more workable choice, because legitimate exceptions exist and an outright block invites workarounds.
- Per diems replace itemised meal receipts with a rate that can vary by location, cash advances are receivables from the employee until the claim clears them, and imported credit card transactions wait for the employee to attach them to a report with a purpose and a receipt.
- Employee reimbursements run through accounts payable with the employee linked to a vendor account, which gives them the same bank formats, controls and audit trail as every other payment.
- Travel requisitions move the approval to before the expenditure is committed, which is the only point at which the answer can still be no.
Domain 4: Manage budgeting
- Budget models keep independent sets of figures apart, so an original budget, a revised forecast and a what if scenario can coexist without interfering with each other. Budget control reads the single model named in its configuration.
- Budget register entries are where budget figures live, carrying the model, the account and dimension combination, the periods and the amounts. Everything downstream, including reporting and budget control, reads from them.
- Budget codes distinguish an original entry from a revision or a transfer, which is what allows reporting on how a budget has moved during the year. A transfer leaves the total unchanged while a revision records a change with the original still visible.
- Period allocation keys spread an annual figure across periods in proportions that reflect how the business actually trades. A budget spread evenly but spent seasonally will always look exhausted early, and the fix is the key rather than more money.
- Budget control checks a transaction against budget funds available before permitting it. The funds available formula decides which elements are deducted, and including purchase requisitions or orders moves the check forward to the point of commitment.
- Budget control rules are scoped by dimension and choose between warning and blocking, so a capital budget can be enforced absolutely while an overheads budget is treated as guidance. Over budget permissions let named roles exceed a limit deliberately.
- Budget groups pool the budget of several dimension combinations so an underspend in one offsets an overspend in another, which explains messages that otherwise look wrong when a single line appears exhausted.
- The budget control interval decides whether funds are measured per period, per quarter or for the whole year, which determines whether spending a year's budget in January is permitted or blocked.
- Budget planning is the process side: a planning process binds a budget cycle, an organisation hierarchy and a workflow, and a budget plan moves through stages whose security decides who may edit it at each point.
- Budget planning scenarios hold alternative sets of figures within one plan so an optimistic and a conservative case can be compared side by side, and allocation schedules do the arithmetic of spreading and distributing them.
- The Excel budget planning template is bound to the plan's data through the same entities the application uses, so figures typed in a familiar tool are validated and written back rather than living in a detached file.
- Completing a planning process generates budget register entries in the target model, which is the handover from planning to reporting and control. Until then the plan is a proposal rather than a budget.
Domain 5: Manage fixed assets
- The fixed asset group is the main configuration point, supplying the books a new asset receives, its number sequence and the posting profile combination its transactions use. Creating an asset in the right group means almost nothing else has to be decided.
- A book is a valuation of an asset under one set of rules, with its own depreciation profile, service life, convention and posting behaviour. Several books let one physical item be valued for statutory, tax and group purposes at the same time.
- A book configured not to post to the general ledger still calculates depreciation, which is the normal arrangement for a tax book that must be reported without disturbing the statutory accounts.
- The depreciation profile combines a method such as straight line or reducing balance with a convention that decides how the first and last periods are treated. Conventions affect the timing of the charge rather than the total.
- Assets can be acquired through a fixed asset journal or through a purchase order line linked to an asset, where posting the invoice creates the acquisition rather than an ordinary expense. Acquisition adjustments handle costs that arrive later, such as installation or an improvement.
- The depreciation start date is distinct from the acquisition date, which matters for anything with an installation period, and the remaining value always spreads over the remaining life when an estimate changes prospectively.
- Extraordinary depreciation and write downs recognise an impairment now rather than spreading a loss that has already happened, and bonus depreciation is an early allowance normally confined to a tax book.
- Disposal by sale clears both the acquisition value and the accumulated depreciation and posts the difference against the proceeds as a gain or a loss. Disposal by scrap recognises that nothing was recovered, so whatever remained becomes a loss.
- Fixed asset transfers move an asset between groups so future postings follow the new group's accounts, with the asset's history intact. Disposing and reacquiring an asset to reclassify it loses the acquisition date and the accumulated history.
- Financial dimension values assigned to an asset default onto every transaction it generates, which produces departmental analysis of acquisition, depreciation and disposal without anyone entering it each period.
- The fixed asset roll forward is the report that supports the disclosure note, showing opening balances, movements and closing balances with each figure drillable to the transactions behind it.
- Asset leasing recognises a right of use asset with a matching lease liability, the asset depreciating over the term while each payment splits between principal and interest. Short term and low value exemptions are policy elections rather than automatic behaviour.
MB-310 exam tips
- Learn which configuration object answers which question, because a large share of MB-310 items reduce to that choice. Account structures decide which segments appear, journal control restricts what a journal may post to, posting layers separate reporting bases, accrual schemes spread across time, and ledger allocation rules distribute across dimensions.
- Sales tax questions almost always turn on the intersection of the sales tax group and the item sales tax group. If an invoice shows no tax, check the line before the customer; if it shows the wrong rate, list the codes the two groups have in common and then look at the origin, the value intervals and the marginal base.
- Keep the receivables trio straight: a credit note reverses an invoice that should not have stood, a prepayment records money received before anything was earned, and a write off records a debt that will not be collected. Exam scenarios describe the situation and expect you to pick the right instrument.
- For payables, know the two step register and approval process and why it exists. Registration records the liability when the invoice arrives so the period is right; approval codes it and moves it out of the holding account. Three way matching adds the product receipt, which is the only evidence that goods actually arrived.
- Budgeting splits into three capabilities that are easy to confuse. Budget register entries hold the figures, budget control enforces them against transactions, and budget planning is the process of agreeing them. Publication of a plan produces register entries, which is the handover point.
- In fixed assets, most questions come down to books. Ask what each book is for, what method and life it uses, and whether it posts to the ledger. Divergence between a tax book and an accounting book is the intended outcome rather than an error to investigate.
- Watch for questions that offer a workaround as a distractor: editing a posted document, changing a purchase order to make a match succeed, adjusting a budget so nothing is ever blocked, or disposing and reacquiring an asset to change one field. The supported correction almost always preserves the history.
- Microsoft notes that MB-310 may include interactive components, so practise the Yes/No statement blocks, the drop down selections, and the ordering and drag and drop items as well as the multiple choice questions. Reading a three statement block carefully is a skill worth rehearsing.
Study guide FAQ
What is the MB-310 exam format and passing score?
MB-310 runs for 100 minutes with a passing score of 700 out of 1000. It is proctored, taken at a Pearson VUE test centre or online, and Microsoft notes that it may include interactive components. Microsoft does not publish a fixed question count for this exam, so treat any specific number quoted elsewhere as an estimate rather than an official figure. The exam is offered in English and Japanese.
What does the MB-310 skills outline cover, and how is it weighted?
Five areas, weighted as Microsoft published them on 14 August 2026: Implement financial management (35-40%), Implement accounts receivable, credit, collections, and subscription billing (15-20%), Implement and manage accounts payable and expenses (10-15%), Manage budgeting (10-15%), and Manage fixed assets (10-15%). Financial management is by far the largest area, so the chart of accounts, dimensions, journals, cash and bank, sales tax, financial reporting and period close deserve most of your preparation time.
What changed in the August 2026 update to the skills measured?
The 14 August 2026 revision removed 'Implement cost management' from the outline and added 'Configure and manage budget planning' to the budgeting area. If you are working from older study material, check that it is not still teaching cost accounting as an examinable topic, and make sure budget planning processes, stages, scenarios and worksheets are covered rather than only basic budgeting.
Which certification does MB-310 lead to?
Passing MB-310 earns the Microsoft Certified: Dynamics 365 Finance Functional Consultant Associate certification. Like other role based Microsoft certifications it is valid for one year and can be renewed free of charge through an unproctored online assessment on Microsoft Learn during the six months before it expires.
How much accounting knowledge does MB-310 assume?
More than most Dynamics 365 exams. The questions are about configuring Dynamics 365 Finance, but they assume you understand double entry, accruals and deferrals, the difference between capital and revenue expenditure, why deferred revenue is a liability, and how depreciation and impairment work. If your background is technical rather than financial, spend some of your preparation time on the accounting concepts behind the configuration.
How should I practise for the interactive components?
Work through the Yes/No statement blocks slowly, treating each statement as a separate true or false decision rather than looking for a pattern across the three. For ordering and drag and drop items, think about dependencies: which step cannot happen until another has, and which of the offered actions is a plausible looking workaround that should never be used. The CertGrid MB-310 bank includes these formats alongside the multiple choice questions.