Upgrading From Microsoft Dynamics NAV to Business Central

Operating on an outdated ERP system like Dynamics NAV? Are you looking for an ERP system that better serves you and your business in the fourth industrial revolution? It might be time to upgrade to Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Undoubtedly, Microsoft Dynamics Navision, also known as NAV, remains one of the world’s most utilized enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions. It has continued to entice customers, building a solid reputation in its delivery of universal flexibility and functionality to all businesses, regardless of the industry or organization.

You might have used Microsoft Dynamics NAV for several years, but like much other outdated software, you would have seen the cracks in the foundational structure and the ever-increasing maintenance cost. As you strive to grow your company, it is essential to factor in a cloud ERP system that handles more processing while saving considerable processing time.

Every business, regardless of the industry or organization, has felt a great need to identify digital transformation initiatives and build a plan to achieve them. If you’re still on a legacy ERP platfom like Dynamics NAV, one of the most radical changes you need for your organization right now is to consider an upgrade to Dynamic 365 Business Central.

With leverage on the power of advanced systems like cloud storage, data and artificial intelligence (AI), you will succeed in your digital transformation goals and objectives by adopting Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. You need not only an advancement into an ERP system with incrementally enhanced features and functionalities, but a system that radically and progressively transforms your customer experiences.

Besides that, consider adopting a software or system that uniquely transforms your products and services, empowers your employees and takes your organization or industry to an enviable height in terms of employee efficiency.

An upgrade to the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central could be a game-changer for your business. This is due to its practical and sustainable innovative solutions that ignite transformation.

Not only that, but it is also an evolution of Dynamics NAV to Business Central. Concerning the specific needs of industry leaders and business owners, Microsoft has decided to pump a massive investment into creating software that takes cognizance of the needs of a wide range of businesses, focusing on helping organizations operate optimally. Surprisingly, the Business Central technology and community has rapidly expanded into a far more advanced ERP platform, allowing users smooth and easy accommodation with ultra-customized software systems. It also offers automatic upgrades, personalized add-ons and many other incredible features to meet the unique needs of every business.

You might be thinking about the overall aim of Microsoft in creating and deploying this system. It’s developed to guide businesses through their journey of advanced digital transformation, helping them meet the specific needs of their customers. Let’s break down why an upgrade from Dynamics NAV to Dynamics 365 Business Central can be a turning point for your organization.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is the newest version of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV. With all-new advanced features and functionalities, building on the legacy of the now-outdated NAV is a positive change for many organizations. Business Central is built to maintain the overall capacity of the world’s most popular mid-sized ERP systems.

With a seamless and easily customizable upgrade, your decision to upgrade from NAV to Business Central could be a turning point for the rapid exponential growth of your business. If you are in doubt, you can easily consider implementing as much or as little of Business Central now and prepare to roll out more incredible functionalities and features in the future once you start noticing the results.

The NAV to Business Central upgrade presents a unique opportunity to access several deployment options. From public to private cloud, you will find a unique system designed to integrate quickly, easily and seamlessly with a whole lot of other Microsoft applications. With the proactive pivot of Microsoft into the cloud, the headaches of many users become automatically neutralized.

Usually, operating systems, overly expensive hardware, upgrades and even maintenance costs are all problems associated with the on-premises deployment of Dynamics NAV. All these are outrightly eliminated in the Business Central software. And yes, you also deploy Business Central on-premises, but it will not allow you to benefit from incredible features with cutting-edge Dynamics and Azure services.

When it comes to upgrading from Dynamic NAV to Business Central, a steep learning curve is what comes to the mind of many. Surprisingly, it is an easy learning curve, and users will quickly adapt and adopt. Business Central has a slick new web-based interface coupled with a popular look and feel of Microsoft Office, offering full suite integration of Microsoft Office products such as Dynamics 365 for sales, Power Platform (including Power BI) Dynamics 365 CRM and Office 365. For users, a more straightforward presentation of personalized information is guaranteed, plus a more intuitive dashboard and use of graphs.

With an entirely new development platform, many professionals think Business Central is a different software than the NAV. Software developers may agree with this notion. However, the Base Application of the new Business Central is built on most of the robust business code logic and processing routines of the outdated NAV. Surprisingly, these features were subjected to advanced development, testing and enhancement to fit modern-day business needs.

If you had experienced expensive and drawn-out upgrade nightmares in the past, you would know how it feels. Microsoft 365 Business Central solves those problems so that partners and customers can modify the system while not negatively impacting the upgrade paths. Third-party business applications and other specific customizations will also not be affected.

In NAV, any slight modification to the core system would significantly affect the upgrade path. Hence, the core code needs to be unpicked before any upgrade is carried out. Depending on the complexity of the environment, an upgrade could take several months to complete.

Business Central is built with an accurate multi-tenancy system where significant upgrades are automatically processed in the background every six months. In Business Central, you can add to the functionality of the system, but not change the base code. Because of this, the upgrade process does not obstruct or disrupt any part of the system’s customization and doesn’t impact costs. If your Business Central solution is deployed in the cloud, your upgrade will automatically be carried out without any hindrance. You may choose to delay your upgrades for up to 90 days. Business Central also dynamically presents a helpful notification window, allowing users to set up a sandboxed environment to test new versions or upgrades before deployments.

Microsoft Business Central utilizes a modern development interface with multi-language features on Visual Studio, a cross-platform development environment based on open-source codes. Visual Studio’s Application Language (AL) Extension provides an excellent opportunity for developers to extend Business Central. With this extension, you can easily build customizable apps to grow and evolve the needs and goals of customers or tenants, thus increasing their systems’ personalization rate. These apps can also be published and sold on the ever-expanding Microsoft app marketplace, AppSource.

Still unconvinced that yesterday was the right time to upgrade your NAV? You should be aware that Dynamic NAV stopped releasing new versions in 2018, so NAV is closed off to new customers and users. Now that your version of Dynamics NAV has stopped receiving updates, what’s the next move?

For a long time, you have locked yourself in a legacy system that stopped evolving with the requirement of your business today. While upgrading to the new Dynamics 365 Business Central is a big decision, the ROI for your business and your customers in the long-run is well worth it.