Home » 360 View » Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central » Why a Dynamics NAV Upgrade Helps You Meet the Demands of Your Growing Business
Accounting tools are critical to helping companies streamline their operations. But many businesses eventually outgrow their basic accounting software or legacy ERP systems, like Dynamics NAV, for a variety of reasons, including:
High-performing businesses need a more robust solution that is easy to use and connects with their existing tools and data sources. And recent research has indicated that cloud-based ERP systems fulfill this need.
For growing businesses that have outgrown existing accounting software and upgrade Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is an all-in-one business management solution that easily and seamlessly connects people and processes. Dynamics 365 Business Central is deeply integrated with Microsoft 365 and includes built-in intelligence, so it’s easy to use and helps you make better business decisions.
Our solution offering puts flexibility at the core of your business, enabling you to grow at your own pace and adapt in real-time. That means you can start small with the right fit for employees’ roles and business needs, and then you can extend Business Central as your business evolves and grows.
How many tools or apps does your organization use to get work done?
It becomes increasingly difficult to stay productive when systems and processes don’t work together. You may not be ready to handle growth if you’re constantly spending time navigating between different applications or re-entering data by hand. With siloed systems, your people may struggle to quickly locate the information they need to perform their jobs.
Dynamics 365 Business Central automatically pulls your systems and processes together so that you can better manage financials, sales, service, and operations—all from one, unified solution. This makes it easy for employees to quickly locate the most current, accurate data, share it with colleagues, and make informed decisions.
To put this connectivity into perspective, imagine that a sales rep in the field makes a change to a customer quote. The second the rep updates the customer quote, Business Central automatically ensures that the change is reflected in the numbers being pulled for a forecast report back at the office. Because your tools talk to each other, you can rest assured that information is always up-to-date, which means employees can make more informed decisions.
Functions like payroll, banking, and CRM systems are also just as integrated into Business Central. By connecting with third-party applications, it’s easy for your people to share the most current data and respond to customer requests faster.
With Dynamics 365 Business Central, you can shorten the time it takes to go from quote to cash by managing the entire process from inside your Outlook inbox.
Create quotes, process orders, and submit invoices without ever leaving Outlook:
Access live data directly from Microsoft Excel to update items, sales orders, and purchase orders:
Customize outgoing documents such as quotes and invoices in Microsoft Word:
Rest assured that all the work you do within these Microsoft 365 apps and Dynamics 365 Business Central is synchronized so that your data is always up to date.
One of the other differentiating benefits you get with Dynamics 365 Business Central is the mobile experience. Often, mobile versions of ERP systems don’t provide the same rich functionality. Alternatively, Business Central supports all mobile experiences equally. Your people get the same desktop capabilities and experience on Windows, iOS, and Android platforms—all while using their device of choice. Get one experience that is consistent and secure across every desktop, laptop, tablet, or phone.
How many times has the inability to access information impeded your ability to see the bigger picture? Or perhaps, has a lack of information about customers ever affected a sale or your reputation?
When you do not have direct access to updated business data, it becomes more difficult to manage company accounts, create reports, or drive meaningful customer engagements. When information is scattered across spreadsheets and email with notable discrepancies, it prevents you from making data-driven decisions.
Upgrade Dynamics NAV to Dynamics 365 Business Central to help you get an end-to-end view of your business. It centralizes your company’s data from finance, sales, service, and operations to paint an accurate picture of your business.
And with more accurate information at your fingertips, decisions have a bigger impact on the bottom line. Business Central gives you real-time data updates to help your organization spot trends, prevent issues, and deliver great customer experiences.
Another benefit of Dynamics 365 Business Central is that you can easily track ongoing sales performance and leverage actionable insights to focus on customers with the greatest potential for long-term growth. Use custom dashboards and reports to prioritize sales leads based on revenue potential, keep track of every customer interaction, and get guidance on the best upsell, cross-sell, and renewal opportunities.
Business Central empowers your team to take advantage of powerful analytics thanks to its integration with Power BI. Transform data into rich visuals and dashboards. Live updates make sure you’re always looking at the latest data—it’s actionable intelligence anyone in the company can use!
Finally, use Business Central to deliver exceptional service with a comprehensive overview of your service tasks, workloads, and employee skills to effectively assign resources and accelerate case resolution.
Optimize inventory levels:
Manage vendor bills:
Keep projects on time and under budget:
Does security and data compliance concern you?
How confident are you about your accounting solution’s security measures and audit controls? Limited internal controls can make it easier for users to manipulate data and cause security risks.
Dynamics 365 Business Central helps you improve productivity and get more done with easy-to-create workflows, audit trails, and enterprise-level security. Connect workflows across sales and accounting to automatically track cash flow and secure purchasing, credit authorization, and vendor payment processes with pre-defined alerts and approval workflows.
Get the freedom to begin with the apps you need today and add new solutions at your own pace over time. This is a cost-effective way to meet your unique business needs with a cloud-based ERP system that doesn’t just make it easy to scale but also secures financial information and customer data with enterprise-level security.
Handle the most common business processes from day one, like quotes, orders, invoicing, purchasing, cash management, and reporting. And rest assured that all of your company’s assets are protected.
Extend Business Central with integrated add-on apps such as:
And connect to data sources and services such as:
Free your business and your people from the limitations of multiple, disconnected solutions and the inefficient employee workarounds that waste hours every week. Dynamics 365 Business Central automatically pulls your systems and processes together so your people don’t have to, getting your entire company in sync with your business’s growth. Automate critical processes with easy-to-create workflows and audit trails that secure processes without adding complexity.
Now that you are ready to make the switch and migrate your Microsoft Dynamics NAV to Business Central, start with our Business Impact Assessment by completing the simple form here – Start my Business Impact Assessment, or contact us directly (905) 907-3600.
Our Dynamics Consultants team is here to help you upgrade to Dynamics 365 Business Central so you can get the most from your accounting software.
Dynamics NAV has been rebranded as Dynamics 365 Business Central. Microsoft will stop selling Dynamics NAV to new customers on April 1, 2019. Dynamics NAV 2018 will be the last version under the NAV brand name. However, existing Dynamics NAV customers will still be able to purchase new licenses for their solution as needed. Microsoft will continue to offer Dynamics NAV support through January 2028 but will no longer release upgrades for Dynamics NAV 2018 and earlier NAV versions as of April 1, 2019.
Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics NAV run the same application codebase. Therefore, for existing customers, this will be a similar process to upgrading their Dynamics NAV instance. However, they will need to consider variables such as where they are in their BREP, what to do with their customizations, and pricing and licensing differences.
Making the switch to Dynamics 365 Business Central is very similar to any other Dynamics NAV upgrade. Now, instead of upgrading to a newer version of Dynamics NAV, customers will transition to Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Customers are not required to migrate to Dynamics 365 Business Central. However, to stay current and get the latest functionality, we suggest that they upgrade to Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Yes, customers can migrate their customizations and integrations by upgrading to Dynamics 365 Business Central and then converting their customizations to extensions.
As part of a customer’s transition, we suggest that they evaluate their customizations and integrations and determine which ones are still required or cost-effective to redevelop for Dynamics 365 Business Central.
If customers opt to use Dynamics 365 Business Central in the cloud, they will not have to pay separately for cloud hosting, as everything is included in one fee—including software, cloud hosting, and management services.
Yes, customers can customize Dynamics 365 Business Central with the new Extensions model. Customers can’t change standard code, and they need to use the event-based model.
It is not mandatory for customers to deploy their extensions to AppSource. Extensions can be developed and deployed per tenant.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central will be automatically updated monthly by Microsoft.
Yes, the continuous updates to Dynamics 365 Business Central (in the cloud) help ensure that customers are fully GDPR compliant.
No, customers will need to contact a Microsoft partner (CSP) to buy Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Microsoft invests more than $1B a year in Dynamics Azure to ensure unmatched security and governance. It also employs more than 3,500 security experts to protect your information. Microsoft collaborates with industry and regulators to build trust in the cloud ecosystem guided by the following principles:
Your data is stored in one of Microsoft’s several data centers in the same country in which you are located. You can learn more about Microsoft security here.
Microsoft has 99.9% SLA in place on the public cloud platform.