Aug 23, 2018

Thinking about upgrading to Business Central from Dynamics NAV? Read this now!

Updated: Aug 9, 2021

Are you on an older version of Microsoft Dynamics NAV and have become intrigued by the thought of upgrading to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central? If so, this blog post is geared toward you. I'm going to give you my opinion on the most accurate way to import your data and even tell you of a little secret that will save you a lot of money.

Upgrading Microsoft Dynamics NAV to Business Central

What are the major benefits of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central?

Exceptional autonomy and flexibility
Built-in intelligent business apps
Better compliance
Ease of use
A modern client that is connected with other Microsoft software

RapidStart

If you are making the move from Dynamics NAV to Dynamics 365 Business Central you'll most likely have years of historical data that needs to be transferred to Business Central. How might one go about migrating this data? Well in my opinion, you should use RapidStart (Configuration Packages), exporting data from NAV and importing into Business Central via XLS. RapidStart has been around for quite some time now and along with XML ports is the preferred way of migrating data.

However, RapidStart only supports a certain set of tables, no G/L Entries, etc. The default configuration package supports the following tables:

Payment Terms
Customer Price Group
Shipment Method
Salesperson/Purchaser
Location
GL Account
Customer
Vendor
Item
Sales Header
Sales Line
Purchase Header
Purchase Line
General Journal Line
Item Journal Line
Customer Posting Group
Vendor Posting Group
Inventory Posting Group
Unit of Measure
General Business Posting Group
General Product Posting Group
General Posting Setup
Territory
Item Category
Sales Price
Purchase Price

Also, sometimes when using Rapid Start you may run into a situation where the data to load has a very high volume and in these scenarios I'd recommend exploring different migration tactics such as loading data using web services or APIs.

Existing NAV Customer Discount

Hooray! You've made it to this point in the blog post and I promise not to disappoint with this money saving tip. Currently Microsoft is running a promo that allows existing Dynamics customers to receive a 40% discount off of the user subscription price to transition! This discount is available from now until June 30, 2020.

To qualify for this offer you must be an existing customer prior to April 1, 2018 and be on an active Enhancement Plan. Existing customers include those who have been running Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Edition or any other solution from the Dynamics family: