MB-310 exam guide: what's tested since August 2026 and how to prepare
What MB-310 covers since the August 14, 2026 update, how it's scored, booked and renewed, and a study plan weighted by the five skill areas.
Applies to MB-310, skills measured as of August 14, 2026
MB-310 is the only exam for Microsoft Certified: Dynamics 365 Finance Functional Consultant Associate. MB-310 skills measured as of August 14, 2026 cover five areas, led by financial management at 35–40%; cost management was removed and budget planning added. MB-310 lasts 100 minutes and needs a scaled score of at least 700, and the certification can be renewed free every 12 months by passing an online assessment on Microsoft Learn before it expires.
Key facts- MB-310 is the only exam required for Microsoft Certified: Dynamics 365 Finance Functional Consultant Associate; MB-300 retired on February 29, 2024.
- MB-310 skills measured as of August 14, 2026: financial management 35–40%; accounts receivable, credit, collections and subscription billing 15–20%; accounts payable and expenses, budgeting, and fixed assets 10–15% each.
- Microsoft's August 14, 2026 update to the MB-310 skills outline removed the cost management skill group, added budget planning, and decreased the share of financial management.
- The MB-310 exam lasts 100 minutes, runs in English and Japanese, and needs a scaled score of at least 700, which Microsoft says may not equal 70% of the points.
- As of October 29, 2026, the English renewal assessment for Dynamics 365 Finance Functional Consultant Associate, updated October 19, 2026, still lists cost management, which the MB-310 exam dropped on August 14, 2026.
- Renewing Microsoft Certified: Dynamics 365 Finance Functional Consultant Associate is free: pass an open-book Microsoft Learn assessment in the six months before expiry to extend it one year from the expiry date.
If you bought a course or practice test before mid-August 2026, it may cover a topic the exam no longer tests and skip one the exam now does. Microsoft’s own training hasn’t fully caught up either. Everything here reflects Microsoft’s pages as we read them on October 29, 2026. Microsoft updates exams periodically, so check the official MB-310 study guide before you book.
In our view, three things matter more than which course you pick. Study to the current outline. Split your time roughly by the published weights. And get real time in a Dynamics 365 finance and operations apps (F&O) environment: Microsoft recommends hands-on experience before the exam, and 13 of the 16 sub-areas in the outline start with “configure”, “implement” or “design”.
What does MB-310 certify, and do you need another exam first?
Passing MB-310 earns Microsoft Certified: Dynamics 365 Finance Functional Consultant Associate, and it’s the only exam you need for it. The certification page rates the credential Intermediate on Microsoft’s scale; this guide is written for people sitting it for the first time.
You don’t need MB-300 first. That exam retired on February 29, 2024, and Microsoft’s announcement in August 2023 said the retirement removed the prerequisite rather than replacing MB-300 with a new exam. Older forum answers haven’t caught up: replies in a Dynamics Community thread on whether MB-300 is needed and another comparing the D365 certifications call MB-300 a prerequisite or recommend taking it first. That advice is out of date.
Two other F&O exams sit next to it. MB-330 leads to the Supply Chain Management Functional Consultant Associate, the supply chain counterpart, and MB-500 to the Finance and Operations Apps Developer Associate, the developer track. If your day-to-day work is on the supply chain side rather than in finance, look at MB-330 before you commit to this one.
What’s on the exam, and how much does each area weigh?
MB-310 tests five skill areas as of August 14, 2026, and financial management alone is more than a third of the exam. The weights come from Microsoft’s study guide. The “covers” column is our grouping of Microsoft’s bullets, not the bullets themselves, and the last column links the matching Microsoft learning path.
| Skill area | Weight | What it covers, in short | Microsoft learning path |
|---|---|---|---|
| Implement financial management | 35–40% | Chart of accounts, financial dimensions and account structures; ledgers and currencies; journals, including Excel and intercompany; cash and bank, including advanced bank reconciliation and netting; period close, consolidation and settlement; sales tax and withholding tax | Configure financial management |
| Implement accounts receivable, credit, collections, and subscription billing | 15–20% | Customers, free text invoices, collection letters, interest notes, credit holds, aging; subscription billing schedules, milestones and deferrals | Manage accounts receivable |
| Implement and manage accounts payable and expenses | 10–15% | Invoice matching and validation, vendor posting profiles, centralized payments, recurring vendor invoices; expense categories, per diems, mileage and policies | Manage accounts payable |
| Manage budgeting | 10–15% | Budget models, codes and register entries; budget control rules and over-budget permissions; budget plans, scenarios and the planning process | Perform budgeting and forecasting |
| Manage fixed assets | 10–15% | Fixed asset groups, books and depreciation profiles; acquisition, depreciation, disposal, split, transfer and reclassification | Administer fixed assets and inventory |
The outline isn’t a hard boundary. Microsoft says the bullets illustrate how each skill is assessed, that related topics may appear, and that preview features can be tested if they’re commonly used. The audience profile also names three feature sets no bullet mentions: cost accounting, asset leasing (listed with fixed assets) and agents. Know what each one does and where it lives, and don’t spend days on them.
Two catches in the learning paths:
- The expense management modules in “Manage accounts payable” are written for Dynamics 365 Project Operations, which can throw a Finance-only learner.
- The paths don’t map one-to-one onto the bullets. We couldn’t match some bullets, such as consolidation online, cash flow forecast automation and financial tags, to any module title. Use the study guide as your checklist and the paths as one source among several.
What changed on August 14, 2026?
On August 14, 2026, Microsoft removed cost management from MB-310, added budget planning, and lowered financial management’s share of the exam. The other four areas kept their share but changed inside. The study guide’s skills section is now headed “Skills measured as of August 14, 2026”, and its change log, paraphrased, reads like this:
| Skill area | Share of the exam | What changed inside it |
|---|---|---|
| Financial management | Decreased | Cost management removed. Ledgers and currencies, journals, and periodic processes changed in a major way. Chart of accounts (now including financial dimensions) and taxes changed slightly. Cash and bank unchanged. |
| Accounts receivable, credit, collections, subscription billing | No change | Accounts receivable and subscription billing: major. Credit and collections: minor. |
| Accounts payable and expenses | No change | Accounts payable: major. Expense management: minor, and renamed from “configure and use” to “configure”. |
| Budgeting | No change | Budget planning new. Budget controls: minor. |
| Fixed assets | No change | Processing fixed asset transactions: major. Setting up and managing fixed assets: minor. |
The audience profile also changed slightly. The study guide says it includes two versions of the skills outline, but only the August 14, 2026 version was on the page when we checked, so Microsoft’s previous percentages aren’t available. Treat any third-party page quoting “old” weights with suspicion.
If you’re already studying:
- Drop cost management for the exam. Microsoft still teaches it: as of October 29, 2026, the “Manage accounts receivable” learning path contains a module called “Implement cost management in Dynamics 365 Finance”, which Microsoft’s ILT blog announced in June 2025 as new course content, and the MB-310T00 course page still lists cost management in its audience profile. Don’t read its presence in the course as a sign it’s examined.
- Add budget planning. Practice material written before August 2026 may not cover it at all.
- Check your language version. Microsoft updates the English exam first and says localized versions follow about eight weeks later, adding that this schedule isn’t always met. MB-310 is offered in English and Japanese, and no Microsoft page we read confirms when the Japanese version took the new outline.
How does the MB-310 exam actually run?
MB-310 is a proctored, 100-minute exam in English or Japanese, booked through Pearson VUE and, in most cases, taken online or at a test center. If it isn’t offered in your preferred language, you can request an extra 30 minutes. The certification page says you may have interactive components to complete. The rest comes from Microsoft’s general exam pages, and several points are easy to get wrong:
- Seat time is longer than exam time. On Microsoft’s duration table, a 100-minute associate exam comes with 120 minutes of seat time for instructions, the candidate agreement and comments.
- Microsoft doesn’t publish MB-310’s question count or question types. Its general statement is that most certification exams have 40 to 60 questions, with variation by exam. Microsoft’s sample list of formats includes case studies, drag and drop, hot area and build list.
- Microsoft Learn is open during the exam, with no extra time. The clock keeps running, Q&A and practice assessments are blocked, and Microsoft says that looking up every question will leave you short of time by design. Use it to confirm a detail, not to work out an answer.
- A break locks earlier questions. Five minutes of break time are built into the exam. Once you take a break, you can’t return to questions you’ve already seen, even unanswered ones marked for review. Go back through your marked questions before you take it.
- 700 is a scaled score, not 70%. Microsoft’s scoring page uses a scale of 1 to 1,000, says 700 may not equal 70% of the points, and confirms there’s no penalty for guessing. Leave nothing blank. Some questions are unscored, and you can’t tell which ones.
- The score report won’t tell you how many you got right. It shows a bar per skill area, and Microsoft says the bars can’t be turned into question counts or added together. You have 15 days to challenge a score.
What does MB-310 cost, and how do you book it?
The MB-310 exam price depends on the country or region where the exam is proctored, and Microsoft’s certification page gives no amount. The exam FAQ, last updated June 30, 2025, says associate and expert exams typically cost US$165, priced by local currency, subject to change and possibly plus tax. That figure is over a year old and not specific to MB-310, so check the price for your country in the booking flow before you budget for it.
| What to plan for | |
|---|---|
| Cost | Country-based exam fee; paid retakes where applicable; free renewal |
| Time | 100 minutes of exam, 120 minutes in the seat; retake waits of 24 hours, then 14 days |
| Risk | Lost exam records if you book with a work account and later leave that organization; invalidated results for using dumps or AI tools |
You book from the certification page through Pearson VUE, and you don’t need a voucher to do it: in a Dynamics Community thread about buying an MB-310 voucher, a Super User pointed the candidate straight to scheduling. A voucher comes into it when one has been bought in advance, by an employer for example. The registration rules to know:
- Use a personal Microsoft account. Microsoft strongly recommends it and warns that exam records booked on a work or school account are lost, unrecoverably, if you leave the organization. A Dynamics Community thread on linking an MB-310 certification shows a candidate who booked with a work email and then couldn’t attach the certification on the partner site; the thread doesn’t establish why.
- The legal name on your Learn profile must match your ID.
- You can hold at most two exam bookings at a time, up to 90 days ahead.
- Reschedule or cancel at least 24 hours before the exam, or the fee is forfeited, including a voucher your company bought.
- Request accommodations before you schedule; Microsoft says processing can take up to 20 days.
If you fail, the retake policy makes you wait 24 hours before the second attempt and 14 days before each later one, with at most five attempts in 12 months, and you pay again where applicable. The certification page still lists Exam Replay, which Microsoft’s offers page (last updated September 2023) describes as one exam plus one retake of it, both used within 12 months of purchase.
How should you prepare for MB-310?
To prepare for MB-310, map yourself against the official study guide, learn from Microsoft’s five learning paths, practice hands-on, then test yourself and book. The order and the checkpoints below are our recommendation, assembled from Microsoft’s separate preparation pages.
| Step | What to do | Move on when |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Map the outline | Read the study guide end to end. Mark every bullet: done on a project, seen, or new to you. | Every bullet has a mark. The “seen” and “new” ones are your study list. |
| 2. Learn | Work through the five learning paths in the skills table above, the same ones behind the four-day course MB-310T00-A. Start with financial management. The budgeting path already includes a budget planning module; skip the cost management module unless you’re also renewing. | You’ve covered every bullet on your study list. |
| 3. Practice | Do the hands-on tasks for each area in the next section. | You can do each task without following the module step by step. |
| 4. Test yourself | Take Microsoft’s free practice assessment (see below). | You’ve gone back to the learning path for every area where you missed questions. |
| 5. Rehearse the format | Click through the exam sandbox once. | The question formats look familiar. |
| 6. Book | Schedule through Pearson VUE with a personal Microsoft account. |
How should you split your study time?
Our rule of thumb follows the published weights: for every 10 hours you study, give about four to financial management, two to accounts receivable and subscription billing, and split the other four across accounts payable and expenses, budgeting, and fixed assets. Microsoft’s own advice after a failed attempt points the same way: practice your weak areas and the areas with the highest share of questions. We don’t give a total number of study hours; nothing we read supports one.
What to know about the practice assessment
As of October 29, 2026, Microsoft’s pages disagree on where the free MB-310 practice assessment lives: the certification page says AI Skills Navigator (sign-in required), while the study guide still links a version on Microsoft Learn. The exam FAQ, written when practice assessments were hosted on Learn, says they’re free, can be repeated as often as you like, and explain each answer with a link. They aren’t exam questions, and “choose two” items are scored differently from the real exam. We couldn’t open either version, so we can’t say whether it reflects the August 2026 outline yet. Use it to find the areas you’re weak in, not to forecast your score.
What should you practice hands-on?
Practice a few Dynamics 365 Finance setups per MB-310 skill area, each matching something the outline asks you to configure or process. These are activities, not click paths: labels change between versions, so follow the Learn module for each one.
| Skill area | Try this in a demo or trial environment |
|---|---|
| Financial management | Build an account structure with an advanced rule; post a general journal from Excel; run a bank reconciliation; set up a sales tax group and item sales tax group, then post an invoice that uses them |
| Accounts receivable and subscription billing | Create and post a free text invoice, including a recurring one; put a customer on credit hold; set up a billing schedule with a deferral |
| Accounts payable and expenses | Configure invoice matching, then post a vendor invoice with a matching discrepancy and see how the matching policy treats it; enter an expense report against a policy |
| Budgeting | Create a budget model and register entry; switch on budget control and post something over budget; create a budget plan (the new skill) |
| Fixed assets | Set up a fixed asset group, book and depreciation profile; acquire an asset, run depreciation, then dispose of it through a free text invoice |
Where do you get an environment to practice in?
Ask your employer first: if there’s a project sandbox you can use, you skip the trial setup below, which needs a tenant administrator. Otherwise, one route Microsoft documents is a free subscription-based trial. A tenant administrator gets the trial license from the Microsoft 365 admin center, then deploys it in the Power Platform admin center (PPAC) as a Trial (subscription-based) environment with a template such as Finance (Preview), according to Microsoft’s unified admin trials page. That page gives no trial length and doesn’t say which demo data a trial includes. For how PPAC relates to the older Lifecycle Services (LCS) portal, see our comparison of LCS and PPAC.
Which warning signs should you watch for?
Stop and check if you run into any of these:
- Anything sold as “real” or “actual” exam questions. The candidate agreement forbids sharing exam content and lists using braindump material as misconduct. Microsoft can invalidate your result and bar you from future exams without refunding fees, and misconduct found by statistical analysis counts too.
- Using AI tools during the exam. The same agreement lists it as misconduct.
- A practice test that doesn’t match the five areas above, still covers cost management, or has nothing on budget planning. It was written for an older outline.
- Advice to pass MB-300 first. That rule ended on February 29, 2024.
Questions to settle before you book
- Will your employer or partner pay, and do they already hold vouchers?
- Which language will you sit it in, and has that version moved to the August 14, 2026 outline?
- Is Finance (MB-310) or Supply Chain Management (MB-330) the better fit for the work you actually do?
- Where will you practice: a project sandbox, a trial you can provision, or neither yet?
- Are you sitting the exam for the first time, or renewing against a different list of topics?
What happens after you pass?
After you pass MB-310, the result usually arrives within minutes, and it shows on your Learn profile within 24 hours. The Dynamics 365 Finance Functional Consultant Associate certification is valid for one year. Renewal is free: a shorter, open-book, unproctored assessment on Microsoft Learn that opens six months before expiry. You can retake it as often as you need before the expiry date, and a pass extends the certification by one year from that date. Miss the date, and the expiration policy says you can’t renew; you have to pass MB-310 again.
What the badge is worth: it shows you know the configuration surface Microsoft lists for Finance. It says nothing about running a design workshop or a cutover, so pair it with hands-on work you can describe in an interview.
Questions people ask
Do I need a voucher to book MB-310?
No. You schedule MB-310 through Pearson VUE from the Microsoft Learn certification page, and the price depends on the country or region where you take it. A voucher comes into it if one was bought in advance, by an employer for example.
What score do I need to pass MB-310, and is it 70%?
You need 700 or more on a scale of 1 to 1,000. It's a scaled score, so Microsoft says it may not equal 70% of the points, and there's no penalty for a wrong answer.
How long is the MB-310 exam, and can I use Microsoft Learn during it?
You get 100 minutes of exam time, inside 120 minutes of seat time. Microsoft Learn is available during role-based associate exams, but no extra time is added and the clock keeps running while you search.
Does MB-310 still cover cost management?
Not since August 14, 2026, when the MB-310 study guide's change log marked it as removed. As of October 29, 2026, the renewal assessment (English version updated October 19, 2026) still lists it, and one of Microsoft's MB-310 learning paths still contains a cost management module.
How do I renew the MB-310 certification, and does it cost anything?
Renewing the Dynamics 365 Finance Functional Consultant Associate certification is free. You pass an open-book, unproctored assessment on Microsoft Learn in the six months before expiry, with unlimited attempts, and the certification is extended one year from its expiry date. Miss the expiry date and you have to pass MB-310 again.
What changed
First published . No changes since.
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