What is Business Central and why should we consider it?
Dynamics 365 Business Central is a mid-market ERP system from Microsoft that is the upgraded version of the venerable Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Business Central versions 13 and 14 actually ran on the NAV client software, because it was in fact the same product.
For those customers who have GP or Great Plains, you may recognize the Dynamics NAV name as a sister product to Dynamics GP. Once known as Navision, the NAV system is a good ERP system for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Microsoft defines this as businesses with up to 250 computers.
Microsoft often compared the two products as being sold in the same market. They considered them mid-tier sister products. The reality is that GP was sometimes sold to businesses where the sophistication of accounting needs exceeded what NAV could do. The opposite was true in the supply chain and manufacturing.
Dynamics GP to Business Central? depends on your business
Our experience is with Dynamics NAV or Dynamics 365 Business Central in manufacturing and supply chain. We believe moving from Great Plains to Dynamics NAV/Business Central makes a lot of sense for these companies.
Dynamics Business Central’s manufacturing and distribution capabilities are (in our opinion) slightly better than Great Plains’. This is especially true once complementary products for BC are taken into account. Companies in this space that choose to migrate from Dynamics GP to Business Central will be very happy with their decision. System capabilities are best suited to your needs.
If you run Dynamics GP in a more financially complex environment, things get more complicated. The core functionality in accounting is much more robust if you need the multi-layered approval processes that are out of the box in Great Plains. If you have controllers at the plant level that are overseen by controllers at the division level and perhaps this reflects on a corporate team, GP supports that.
The ability to post to subsidiary ledgers and leave the final General Ledger posting for review and approval is not available at all in NAV/Business Central.
The fact is that we have never seen this as a desirable feature of GP. This is probably because our experience is very limited in the pure financial space.
3 reasons why Dynamics 365 Business Central is the upgrade path for GP
For those companies that are in the right space, we would say that migrating from GP to Business Central is extremely logical and probably the right way to go.
- Business Central is ultramodern and is being heavily invested by Microsoft. Dynamics GP will be supported, but even investments in it usually make migrating to BC easier.
- There is no chance of Microsoft investing in making GP a cloud-ready solution, and there are no plans to build the same AppSource (Microsoft ERP plugin store) capabilities into GP. GP plugin providers flock to Business Central. Unfortunately, GP is a dead end technology if it doesn’t move to the cloud.
- Microsoft and partners they are making a real effort to cut costs and ease migration. Also, this could be a great opportunity to review those problem areas in your business that the GP system is not handling.
If you’re in manufacturing or distribution, unless you pass my complex description of accounting needs, you’re a great candidate for Business Central.
Maybe we need Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations?
If you need the complex accounting checks and approvals I mentioned earlier, you should probably look at the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations product. This product is much more sophisticated and advanced than Business Central. It comes with a price tag to match, but typically those very complex needs will be met by F&O and not Business Central.
Conclusion
There’s a lot more we can say about this process, including discussing the costs of this upgrade; some of the automated tools that Microsoft is developing to help; and the opportunity for business process reengineering this can create.
We will leave that for another time.
Overall, upgrading to Business Central from GP is worth looking at.