Dynamics 365 Business Central FAQs.

Dynamics 365 is Microsoft’s suite of Business Applications, with solutions spanning both the small to medium business (SMB), and enterprise markets. Its ERP and CRM capabilities are broken down into several apps: 

• Business Central (ERP) 

• Finance & Operations (ERP)  
• Sales Professional (CRM) 
• Sales Enterprise (CRM) 
• Marketing 
• Field Service 

• Customer Service 
• Project Service Automation 
• …and more. 

All apps are hosted on Microsoft Azure in a SaaS (software-as-a-service) model, meaning they’re cloud solutions and licensed individually. Dynamics 365 works alongside other Microsoft products such as Office 365, Outlook and Power BI.   

Business Central (formerly known as Dynamics NAV or Navision) is Microsoft’s end-to-end ERP solution for SMBs. With accounting at its core, it offers capabilities such as purchasing, sales, inventory management, project management, planning, manufacturing and more.   

Business Central is very flexible and can continue to suit business needs beyond the standard product by using a network of third-party apps or custom development.  

Yes and no! In short, Dynamics NAV (or Navision) is the on-premises predecessor to Business Central. Microsoft acquired NAV in 2002 and, in 2016, it was rebranded and integrated into Dynamics 365 as a cloud solution.   

The core capabilities of NAV have stood strong for many years. Under the hood, the core capabilities of both systems are the same (with continual year-on-year updates and enhancements). The move to the cloud now means that Business Central offers improved integration with 3rd party apps, the Microsoft Stack (Office 365, Power Platform etc.) and a lot more flexibility around licensing. 

Check our blog on Business Central vs NAV for more detail on the differences here. 

Yes. There’s no direct migration path so we’d treat it as a fresh implementation. The data will already be in the correct format and there won’t need to be as much training, so speak to us directly to talk it through or get a quote! 

Yes. Business Central cloud is licensed on a subscription model and is hosted in Azure. No server hardware is required, and updates and backups are automatic, meaning there’s no need for in-house IT resources for maintenance. It’s easily scalable and accessible from anywhere with an internet connection. Integrations with Power BI, 3rd party apps, Teams and other Microsoft products are much simpler.  

On the flip side, Business Central on-premises has perpetual licensing (one-time investment). It also requires investment in hardware and a means to maintain the hardware. Updates and backups are not automatic, and a disaster recovery plan will need to be in place. Scaling-up requires additional investment in hardware. Integration with other products is not as seamless. Integration with Teams and 3rd party apps is not currently possible.  

We recommend Business Central cloud for SMBs who are looking for simpler, scalable implementations and do not want the headache of maintaining hardware.  

No, Business Central is its own product and uses its own license. You don’t need Outlook or Office to use Business Central. 

However, using Business Central without an Office 365/Microsoft 365 license will mean you won’t get access to the Office 365 integration features, such as Excel, Teams and Outlook integration. If you’re looking to move to Office 365 at the same time, speak to us – we can help! 

Yes. Business Central is a cloud solution, meaning it requires no PC install and can run on any of the supported browsers – Edge, Chrome, Firefox and Safari. Apps are also available for iOS and Android. 

We do. This video demonstrates the ‘look and feel’ as well as the core finance functions within Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and is great as a quick overview. If you would like to run through a live demo with us, get in touch and we can arrange a time that is good for you. 

You can sign up for a 30-day trial of Business Central at Dynamics Trials. This will only be for the user who signs up and is hosted on a temporary domain (the trial account is not linked to your Office 365 account). 

Alternatively, we can set you up a multi-user trial on your domain too – we’ll need delegate CSP access rights to your current Office 365 domain for this. 

Just get in touch if you’d like to try this. The full process is explained on the Microsoft Docs page. 

There are lots of ways: 

• Microsoft Learn – Microsoft’s learning management system has plenty of Business Central courses.  

• Bam Boom Cloud YouTube Channel – Check out all our videos. 
• Bam Boom Cloud events – Join one of our webinars on Business Central. 
• Free 30-day trial – Under Finance & Operations, you’ll see a link for a free Business Central trial.  
• Speak to us! We’ll be glad to answer any questions or give you more specific info! 

Business Central has hundreds of pre-built reports to cater for typical business needs, including trial balance, income statement, balances sheet, aged accounts payable/receivable, inventory valuation etc. It also has an array of reporting tools including customised home pages, KPI analysis by dimensions, personalised views and seamless Excel integration.  

For custom reporting requirements, Power BI is Microsoft’s dedicated data visualisation tool. It enables you to connect to all your data sources (not just Business Central) and display the data in a live, interactive and meaningful way.  

Check out our Reporting eBook for more details. 

Yes. Business Central has workflow capabilities to enable approvals on documents and master data. There are standard workflows to handle common business tasks such as purchase order approvals, as well as flexible tools to customise them to your business processes. 

Also, Microsoft provides a dedicated workflow solution in Power Automate (formerly Microsoft Flow). It allows you to automate business tasks in an “if this, then that” model across all your business applications in a no-code/low-code manner. 

Yes. There are a number of 3rd party expense solutions that are built specifically for Business Central. We recommend, and can directly implement, Zetadocs Expenses and Continia Expense Management.  

In Business Central, you can keep detailed records of your employees. You can register and maintain employee information such as employment contracts, confidential information, qualifications and employee contacts. You can also register and track employee absences. Beyond this, Microsoft offer more comprehensive HR capabilities by using Dynamics 365 Human Resources. 

Business Central doesn’t include a payroll system as standard but can integrate with many 3rd party payroll apps and solutions. Talk to us about your requirements! 

Yes. Business Central has standard accounting capabilities for month end reporting and accounts prep. This includes automatic depreciation calculation & posting and options for accruals and prepayments. There are a number of different journal types – recurring, and reversing being just two, that allow us to template and repeat calculations like month end accruals.  

In addition to this, you can automatically defer the recognition of expenses and revenues over a custom or pre-templated timeframe – for example recognising an annual cost evenly over 12 months or taking 25% up front and deferring the remainder. 

Download our localisation eBook to understand the options around multi-country implementations. 

sales team. We’d be happy to help with ad hoc training too! 

There are 3 types of licensing: 

• Premium – Full access to all modules 
• Essential – Full access to all modules (excluding manufacturing and service management) 
• Team Member – Read-only access to all modules, with limited access to certain essential capabilities such as approvals and purchase requisitions.  

Read more on our website or via the Microsoft Licensing guide.  

Yes, it can. For example – a user with a Team Member (TM) license can raise a Purchase Quote and then this can then be approved by another user with a TM license. A full user can then convert the approve Purchase Quote into a Purchase Order and continue the process as normal. 

Yes, you can get significant discounts for NFP and educational usage. If you are eligible for these discounts, it’s likely you’ll have already been through the Microsoft registration for discount on Office 365 licenses. Please ask for the discounted license prices when you get in touch. 

Yes. Dual rights allow you deploy both on-premises and online versions of Business Central. Properly licensed users do not need additional client access licenses (CALs) to access on-premises instances.  

For further details, download the Business Central licensing guide.  

Microsoft releases major updates twice a year and minor updates monthly. Most new capabilities are made available in the major updates, with bug fixes and more urgent changes being released in the minor updates.  

Much like PC updates, Business Central updates are automatic and controlled by Microsoft. They’re scheduled out of business hours (with the ability to change if needed) and, from a user perspective, are seamless.  

Also like with PCs, on very rare occasions the update may cause conflicts where new code conflicts with 3rd party code. At Bam Boom Cloud we proactively manage the roll-out of the upgrades and rectify any issues as part of our support services. 

Due to the sheer reach of Microsoft’s products, they operate in a partner model. Meaning Microsoft develop the products, while Microsoft partners (such as Bam Boom Cloud) offer project, training and support services to get the most out of them.  

We offer different levels of support service each month, this includes raising support tickets with our helpdesk team and having a dedicated account manager to support you getting the most out of the Microsoft products. This support also includes upgrade management and consultant reviews.  

Switch to the ‘support’ tab on this page to learn more.  

Break-fix support is an issue whereby something was once working but has since stopped. This includes bugs, errors, inability to access Business Central etc. This is included in all our support plans as standard.  

How-to support includes the ability to raise support tickets for things that aren’t broken and leverage our full expertise. For example, if you want to ask how to do something more efficiently with the system or how to use a new tool as part of a module we’ve previously implemented.  

Modern systems, including Business Central, now have marketplaces for 3rd party solutions – just like the Windows Store for your PC or various stores for your mobile phone. This means accessing and deploying 3rd party solutions has never been easier. 

With this in mind, we’d always recommend ‘buying’ over ‘building’ as best practice. Typically, these solutions have had much more rigorous testing and are kept up to date with the latest requirements and legislation – usually at no extra cost beyond the licensing. 

Customers can no longer customise the system using C/AL in a back-end development environment, like with Dynamics NAV. However, it is possible for anyone to develop extensions (apps) for Business Central in Visual Studio using AL language and upload them into a Business Central environment. We’d recommend considering a 3rd party solution first or, if one isn’t available, considering asking us to develop the solution so it’s covered under your support agreement.  

For more details, speak to one of our team!  

If you’re seeing capabilities in blogs, on videos or in other content that aren’t available in your Business Central, firstly speak to your internal super-user. It’s likely your permissions are preventing you seeing all Business Central functionality.  

If it’s not permissions, it might be that it’s not been set up as part of an implementation or project. We can help – get in touch with your account manager.  

Your Business Central partner (i.e. Bam Boom Cloud) has a service level agreement with you, the customer. This agreement usually includes response times based on the severity of a support ticket. Our SLA response times are as follows: 

• Critical business impact – 15 mins 
• High business impact – 1 hour  
• Medium business impact (normal) – 4 hours 

• Low business impact – 1 working day (or scheduled) 

This is the time we commit to initially respond to your ticket and begin working on a resolution. Should we need to escalate the ticket to Microsoft, they then have an SLA response time to us (ranging from 1-4 hours). 

Yes. Business Central is hosted on Microsoft Azure, one of the leading cloud service platforms in the world. Azure is used by 95% of Fortune 500 companies, with Microsoft investing $1bn in research and development annually towards its continual improvement.  

This means Business Central benefits from all of Azure’s top security features, including: 

• Multi-factor authentication 
• Authorisation 

• Data encryption  
• Auditing 
• Service integration 
• Regulatory compliance 

Check out the following resources for more on security in Business Central: 

• Application Security in Business Central 
• Microsoft Trust Centre Home  

The responsibility of keeping your data safe is shared between you, the data owner and your cloud provider. Azure is a public cloud provider and operates under a shared responsibility model, meaning they provide the tooling, and your IT partner supports you in optimising them for your business.  

This exercise is typically completed as part of an Office 365 implementation by your IT partner. At Bam Boom Cloud, we offer Advanced Security Packs for Business Central to ensure those tools have been optimised for maximum security. Get in touch with us to find out more. 

You can find more information on Microsoft’s Trust Centre. This covers all Microsoft products and services, so your answers will be in the Dynamics 365 section or, in the Azure section if you’re looking for hosting answers. 

Dependent on which region is chosen to deploy your new system, the data will be physically stored in the corresponding data centre. See this link for more details.  

Cloud managed services offer a number of advantages in comparison to on-premises solutions.  

• Subscription licensing – Scale up and down as you need, or lock down your price with a 1-year or 3-year deal. Unlike with on-premise solutions, there’s no annual maintenance or pricey lump-sum costs. 
• Predictable costs – Licenses are typically pre-agreed, not based on usage 
• IT resources – Again, scale up and down as needed – all part of the Azure service 
• Reduced maintenance costs – No hardware costs or in-house IT efforts 
• Automatic updates – No upgrade projects or costs, and you know you’re always on the latest version of the software 
• Integration capabilities – Easier in cloud solutions 
• Skills and expertise – Part of the managed service, you don’t need in-house knowledge 
• Security and compliance – Managed on your behalf, using best in class security, provided by Microsoft. 

The list could go on! Speak to us about the cloud-managed service model. We’d be happy to run through any questions! 

Yes, since GDPR went into effect on 25th May 2018. See these links for further detail: 

• Application Compliance 
• Responding to Requests About Personal Data 

Get in touch! Our customer engagement team will be happy to talk you through the process, including licensing, projects and support. We can provide a fixed-fee quote and support you in comparing Business Central to other solutions.  

If you have already done your research and are ready to buy, we have an eShop purchase option available.  

We’d certainly like you to! We’re 3x Business Central Partner of the Year, as chosen by Microsoft. So, we like to think we know what we’re talking about! 

Get in touch – we’ll be happy to talk you through the process, give you a quote and support you with your system-changing needs! 

If you have already done your research and are ready to buy, we also have an eShop purchase option available.  

Before signing up and implementing Business Central? Our customer engagement team will gladly help with any questions. We can put you in touch with Microsoft too! 

Post-implementation? All technical support questions go direct to our helpdesk and any other questions to your account manager.  

Our years of experience in ERP systems have taught us that multiple short, concise project phases are much more successful (and less costly) than a single, all singing, all dancing, wish-list orientated project. There’s no sacrifice to features or what you’d get on day 1; it’s a different way to approach the same goal. Check out our MVP vs ERP eBook for more detail on why we think this is the best way to do implementations and find out why Ilke Homes loved their Business Central implementation so much here. 

All our packs include everything you need – the tenant setup, module configuration, import of master data, import of opening balances and remote training. Full details of our packs and pricing are available here. 

Yes – you can’t build a house without laying the foundations, right? Check out the description of each pack to see what each pack requires as a prerequisite. 

Yes, of course. Microsoft publishes all the help documentation for Business Central on their Business Central Docs page. It’s part of the user guide for Business Central so it’s goes into great detail, but it also gives you all the full capabilities and features. 

All of our packs include the relevant standard Business Central reporting (e.g. aged accounts payable reporting is included with the Purchase pack). 

There’s a large amount of functionality and therefore a high degree of variance in how complex the implementation can be with Manufacturing and Service Management. For this reason, Microsoft have a separate Premium license for these modules. 

If you’d like to find out more about these, just get in touch and we’d be happy to chat through how we can help get these set up for you. 

Yes, we can certainly implement this module for you, but we’d usually like to discuss this first, rather than including it in a pack. 

There’s a full suite of Customer Engagement apps within Dynamics 365 that offer a much broader array of features and functions. So, we prefer to discuss this with you so that we can help you make the right decision as to which route is best for you and your business going forward. 

Once you’ve signed up for a Business Central project, you’ll be introduced to your project manager who will arrange a ‘kick off’ call with all the relevant project parties. They’ll run through the project timeline in detail, until you’re comfortable with the process. Download our Implementation Guide for an overview on how our projects work.  

If you’re already on Business Central and just need our support services, then you’ll be introduced to your new account manager. They will run you through how we do things and arrange regular contact to make sure you’re getting the most out of Business Central and all Microsoft’s offerings! 

Of course! All our implementation packs are broken down by module and include everything you need as part of a Business Central project. As well as training, they include setting up the environment, data migration, project management and general project support.  

If you’re already on Business Central and looking for additional training or looking to move to a new Business Central partner, speak to our team

The implementation time varies based on what packages you choose. 

Our KickStart implementation takes just 1 week – make sure that you speak with us in advance to ensure that the requirements of your project fit the criteria for this highly compressed timeline. 

If you need more than just the Starter, Purchase and Sales packs included within KickStart then the implementation time for the initial project will vary depending on how many packs you choose. Our average timeline is between 4 to 12 weeks for go live. 

You can see what’s involved in our handy implementation guide, comparing moving systems to moving to a new house. You can download it from the page here. 

We provide you with Excel templates for you to add your data from your current systems. This also gives you the perfect opportunity to cleanse the data, making sure only the good stuff come across. We then load this into Business Central for you and give you plenty of opportunity to make sure it looks the way you want it to. 

Usually, we don’t bring it all across. Matching the data from one system to another and then re-posting it is a time-consuming and costly process that’s usually avoidable. You’ll need sporadic read-only access to the legacy data for a period of time, but most of the time the benefit doesn’t outweigh the cost of transferring it. Your current provider/partner can continue to give you read-only access to the data or, if that’s too costly in terms of licenses and hosting, they can provide it in a database/spreadsheet format. If it’s critical, talk to us – there are other options we can explore with you too. 

You may need to bring over some General Ledger summary balances for the previous year to allow for year-on-year comparison reporting. That isn’t a problem and follows the same easy steps as importing the opening balances 

It’s really quick and simple to integrate a huge number of other systems. The Business Central Docs page covers this too, but if you’d like to check out the more techy side of it, you can find out more on the API Overview page. If there’s something specific you’d like to integrate, we’d be happy to talk through your individual requirements. 

We’ve built a tool to help guide you through importing and posting your opening balances when you’re ready. Typically bank, customer, vendor, stock and fixed assets opening balances are imported just before you go live. Then the general ledger opening balances are imported once you’ve finished off closing the month in your previous system. 

Both Jet Reports and Power BI can either be included in your initial project or added shortly after you are live, once you’ve had a chance to familiarize yourself with the standard reporting features. Find out more about Business Central reporting, and learn about Jet Reports here and Power BI here.