Dynamics 365
Business Central brings the full power of Dynamics NAV to the cloud.
With 160,000+ customers, more
than 2.7 million users, and 3500 partners worldwide, Dynamics NAV
has sold in 195 countries – that’s pretty much every country in the
world.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business
Central is a cloud-based, all-in-one
business management solution which enables customers to upgrade from their
entry-level accounting software or legacy ERP system to one single,
comprehensive solution to manage finances, operations, sales and customer
service.
Business Central has been called
"NAV in the cloud", but there are differences from Dynamics NAV.
Therefore, there may also be a good reason for choosing one solution rather
than another.
Business Central is
built around the following three business benefits:
- No silos(allows to share info's between departments) -
The close integration between business applications in Dynamics
365 ensures a business without data silos where you can share updated
data and not least work smarter and more efficiently.
- Built for development - Dynamics 365 is a flexible
business platform that can be scaled to suit and meet your business needs
in terms of size and complexity.
- Business insight - The integration to Power BI and the
ability to utilize the Azure Intelligence tools (for example
Cortana for forecasts), provide increased insight into your company and
business.
The differences between D365 Business Central and Dynamics NAV
Functionality
As with Dynamics NAV,
the functionality of the D365 Business Central is divided into two so-called
'packages', Essentials and Premium. The functionality of 'Essentials'
corresponds to NAV's 'Starter Pack' and the functionality of 'Premium'
corresponds to NAV's 'Extended Pack'.
HOW MUCH WILL MICROSOFT DYNAMICS 365 BUSINESS CENTRAL COST?
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central will be available at two price points:
Essentials and Premium Licenses for Dynamics 365 Business Central Essentials will be £52.79 GBP per user/month and Dynamics 365 Business Central Premium will stand at £75.40 GBP per user/month. All users in a tenancy must have the same license type, businesses will not be able to mix and match Essentials and Premium licenses.
The following table is
an overview of high-level functional areas addressed in D365 Business Central
and Dynamics NAV.
D365 Business Central Essentials /
Dynamics NAV Starter Pack |
D365 Business Central Premium /
Dynamics NAV Extended |
Financial Management
General Ledger
Cash Management Fixed Assets Currencies Consolidation |
Financial Management udvidet
Inter-Company (Essentals)
Cost Accounting (Essentials) |
Supply Chain Management
Sales Order processing
Purchase and procurement Item management Locations Basic Warehousing |
Supply Chain Management
udvidet
Advanced Warehousing (Essentials)
|
Jobs and Resources
Job Planning, Budgets and
Invoicing
Resource allocations Timesheets |
|
Contact
ManagementContacts
Campaigns Opportunity Management D365 Sales Integration |
Service Management
Service Contracts
Service Items Service Order Management |
Assembly
Assembly Bill of Materials
|
Manufacturing
Production BOMs
Works order management Capacity and Demand planning |
- Team Member licenses
will be available at £6 GBP per user/month and will allow users to:
Read
all tables across the application
- Approve workflow instances
- Edit purchase and sales quotes
- Edit timesheets and personal information
- Update existing financial entries
It is important to note
that all Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central licenses will be named user licenses. This means that businesses must
purchase a license for each user they wish to access the software.
Access the solution
On a computer, Business
Central is accessed via a web client through a browser, on mobile devices, you
acces the Business Central via an application you download. Therefore, you can
only access and use Business Central on your computer via the browser you prefer
and not, as you are used to from Dynamics NAV, via a local desktop client.
On the other hand, you
can use Dynamics NAV both with a local client installed on the computer, but
also access the solution online via a browser. If you are using a mobile or
tablet, there are also apps for Dynamics NAV.
Licensing
Business Central is
licensed as a per month subscription, where you only pay per named user. This
means, among other things, that there will be no opportunity for simultaneous
users, prior purchases, annual maintenance agreements, etc.
This new licensing model
will probably be problematic for some of the NAV users who are used to the
payment model we know from there. On the other hand, Office 365 users who
already know this licensing model, will probably find it easier to adapt.
Hosting options
Business Central is a
SaaS solution and is therefore hosted exclusively in the cloud on Azure by
Microsoft.
With Dynamics NAV, you
have both the options to implement the solution on Azure, in a private data
center or locally on your own server.
Changes
As mentioned above, the
two solutions are very similar, but Business Central has minor functionality
changes, which have been required to take, as certain security considerations
must be taken when running an application as a SaaS solution. The changes in
Business Central imply, among other things, that access to some files on the
servers as well as access to some of the system tables has been blocked for
developers.
Extended functionality
Business Central allows
you to install extensions developed by ISV (Independent software vendor)
partners directly from Microsoft AppSource. That way you can expand the
application's functionality and quickly test and try out the new options and
then quickly uninstall the add-on if it does not meet the needs you expected.
This option is not
available with Dynamics NAV. On the other hand, with NAV you can customize the
solution's functionality so it is tailored to the individual company and
develop add-on modules that extend the functionality of the solution.
However, everything indicates that these opportunities will at some point be
transferred to Business Central.
Updates
Business Central is
constantly updated, so rather than waiting for the annual version release, as
we know it from Dynamics NAV, Business Central is updated on a monthly basis.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR DYNAMICS 365 FOR FINANCE AND OPERATIONS, BUSINESS EDITION CUSTOMERS?
Existing Dynamics 365
for Finance and Operations, Business edition customers will be automatically
upgraded to Dynamics 365 Business Central with access to new functionality and
an all-new user interface. There are also a number of discounted transition
pricing options for existing Microsoft Dynamics customers, available through
Microsoft’s Cloud Solution Providers (CSP).
Our favourite
capabilities in Dynamics 365 Business Central
Because Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics NAV run the same application code base, this empowers us to smoothly transition all our Dynamics NAV partners and customers into Dynamics 365 Business Central. Dynamics 365 Business Central is a cloud first solution, designed for the age of digital transformation powered by the cloud.
But it will not be a cloud only solution. In the fall it will be available for self-deployment on premise and in the intelligent edge for customers that prefer that option.
For the existing partners and customers, this will be just another upgrade, like they would do for Dynamics NAV, with a name change.
For customers interested in the cloud, starting today, Dynamics 365 Business Central offers unprecedented opportunities to drive transformation of the customers’ businesses, increasing their business performance through the power of Microsoft cloud technologies and services.
WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF MICROSOFT DYNAMICS 365 BUSINESS
CENTRAL?
In terms of the future
of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, we are expecting it to follow
the course of the original roadmap shared by Microsoft in October 2017. This
would position it alongside the release of Dynamics NAV 2018 R2 before the two
solutions share one name in the subsequent release and run in parallel as cloud
and on-premises solutions.
