ERP replacement. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
Leaving Business Central for an operations system your business owns
In short
- Black Badger Software Solutions is a custom software company in Clearwater, Florida that replaces Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, ledger included when the accounting is ordinary, with a cloud system your business owns outright.
- We were never a Business Central partner and we have no Business Central engagement on record, so nothing rides for us on which way you go, and we do not configure, patch or administer Business Central for anyone.
- Leaving means customers, vendors, items, open documents and posted ledger entries come out through the Business Central APIs, OData web services and configuration packages, the AL extensions and AppSource apps are read for the rules they hold and rebuilt as code, and Business Central stays live until a closed period reconciles on both sides.
- The two replacements we publish outcomes for went live in six weeks and in sixteen weeks, and the runway for yours goes in the written scope once we have seen your data.
- After launch the system costs roughly $100 to $200 a month to run for a smaller company, and $2,000 to $3,000 a month at enterprise scale. Those are hosting and service bills you pay the providers directly, with no license and no per-user fee.
Business Central is Microsoft's ERP for mid-sized companies. General ledger, receivables and payables, inventory, purchasing, sales orders and projects in one system, run in Microsoft's cloud or installed on premises, and licensed per user in tiers, with Essentials covering the core and Premium adding manufacturing and service management. We were never a Business Central partner, so nothing rides for us on which way you go.
It's a capable product, and the trouble is rarely the accounting. It's that the system is bought and implemented through a firm in Microsoft's channel, every gap in the standard model becomes an AL extension or an AppSource app, and Microsoft ships two major updates a year that all of those have to survive. By the time a company has real volume, it's maintaining someone else's software around its own operation, and the work that actually runs the business still lives in Excel beside it.
Where we stand
Do you implement or support Business Central?
No. We were never a Business Central partner, we have no Business Central engagement on record, and we will not pretend otherwise. What we bring is the build side, the system your operations and your books would move into, and sourced numbers on what ERP implementations cost.
We were partners of other platforms, monday.com, Smartsheet, Wrike and Zoho among them, and we ended those partnerships to build replacements. So the Business Central work we take is replacing it, the whole system where the accounting is ordinary, on accounts in your name. We do not write AL extensions, run update testing or take an admin retainer. What we build always runs in the cloud, on hosting and database accounts in your name, and we never install anything on your own servers. Where the ledger should stay, the section below says so.
Where it fits
Where does Business Central fit?
We sell no Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central licenses and take no referral fees, so this is not a hit piece. These are the cases where keeping it is the honest advice, and if yours is one of them, we will say so on the call.
A company that runs close to the standard model. Business Central out of the box covers ordinary distribution, purchasing and project accounting well, and a business willing to adapt its process to it gets a lot without much custom code.
Businesses that live in Microsoft 365. Outlook, Excel and Teams connect to it natively, and for a finance team that already works in those all day, that integration is worth something real.
Several companies under one roof that consolidate into one set of figures, with intercompany postings between them and an auditor who expects a recognized ERP as the book of record. That's the case where the ledger can stay and everything around it gets replaced.
A company already live whose finance team is happy with the close. If the ledger is doing its job and the pain is all operational, keep it and fix what sits around it. That's a smaller project than a replacement, and sometimes it's the honest advice.
Where it breaks
Where does Business Central break down?
The failure modes below are the ones that show up again and again as a company grows.
Licensing follows people. Every full user carries a per-user license, the tier decides whether manufacturing and service management are there at all, and the warehouse, the field and the people outside your company are exactly where the headcount grows. Growth costs you per seat, not per result.
Every gap is an extension. Customization in the cloud happens through AL extensions and AppSource apps, never by changing the base application, so anything the standard model doesn't do needs a developer who knows AL, or a third-party app with its own license and its own roadmap.
The update calendar is Microsoft's. Two major releases a year, and your extensions and every AppSource app you depend on have to keep up with each one. A postponed update only buys a little time, and an extension that breaks on an update stops the business on Microsoft's schedule, not yours.
Posting setup is a specialist subject. Posting groups and dimensions decide where every transaction lands in the ledger, and the matrix behind them is something only the implementer and one or two people in finance really understand. Operational changes wait on someone who can safely touch it.
Reporting a manager can use means Excel or a separate analytics tool. The everyday questions (what's late, which job is losing money, who is overloaded) get answered by opening a list in Excel, and that's how a shadow system grows next to the ERP.
The operational layer is thin where the working day is thick. Scheduling crews, quoting with real pricing rules, field work and a portal your customers can use don't come in the box, so each one arrives as another app, another extension or another spreadsheet.
The replacement
What does replacing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central look like?
For most companies with ordinary accounting, the whole thing goes. Ledger, receivables, payables, purchasing, inventory, orders, projects and the operational work around them move into one system built for your business, and Business Central is retired once a closed period matches. The exception is real but narrow. If you consolidate several companies into statutory figures and your auditor expects a recognized ERP behind them, the ledger stays and the operational layer is replaced around it, posting back into Business Central through its API.
Either way, the system takes the shape of your operation. The records are your jobs, sites, assets, orders and crews, with real relationships between them, and the pricing, approval and posting rules live in tested, versioned code anyone on your team can read. Reporting reads live data, so a manager's daily question is a screen. No Excel export, no separate analytics license.
Migration reads Business Central through its APIs, OData web services and configuration packages. Customers, vendors, items, open documents, posted ledger entries and dimensions get mapped into the new structure in a document you approve before anyone writes a row. Both systems run in parallel until the numbers reconcile line for line, and nothing gets switched off until finance has signed off on a closed period that matches on both sides.
You own the result. Code in a repository in your name, database and hosting on cloud accounts in your name, unlimited users including people outside your company, and no extension that breaks because the vendor shipped an update. We're added as administrators so we can build it and support it, and you can remove us whenever you want.
The stakes
What does it cost to get this wrong?
More than the software. A replacement that goes badly costs you the one thing the old system was still doing, a single place your team agrees on. The failures below each turn a rebuild into a year of parallel systems, so they are the ones we plan around.
The general ledger is built from posted entries. You can't copy account balances out and call it migrated. Every entry carries its posting groups and dimension values, so an extract that drops the dimensions produces figures that won't tie to a closed period, and finance signs nothing off.
Inventory value lives in the item ledger and value entries, not on the item card. Pull quantities without the entries behind them and the costing history is gone, along with any way to explain last quarter's margin to an auditor.
The operational half is where the working day happens. Replace the ledger, leave scheduling, quoting and the customer view in Excel, and the shadow system survives the whole project. That shadow system is the thing the ERP was bought to kill in the first place.
The order of work
What happens, in what order, when you leave Business Central?
Each step exists because skipping it is how the previous attempt failed. The sequence is fixed. The runway is not, and it goes in your written scope once we know the shape of your data rather than on this page as a calendar promise.
- 01
Extension and license audit
We list every per-tenant extension, every AppSource app and every user by license tier, and mark which ones carry real activity. Permission sets get mapped with the companies they reach. Most companies find apps they pay for that nobody opens, and extensions written for a process that changed years ago.
- 02
Extraction with numbers and dimensions intact
Business Central comes out through its APIs, OData web services for the pages and queries we publish, and configuration packages for setup and master data. Customers, vendors, items and documents keep their numbers so the relationships survive, and every ledger entry keeps its posting date, dimensions and company. We don't copy the extensions. We read each one for the rule it enforces.
- 03
Full replacement or the honest exception
This decision shapes everything after it. Where the accounting is ordinary, the ledger moves with everything else and Business Central is retired. Where several companies consolidate into statutory figures and an auditor expects a recognized ERP, the ledger stays and the new system posts into it through the API. We take a position on which one applies before we scope anything.
- 04
Build against a live ERP
The new system gets built in the cloud while Business Central keeps running, importing on a schedule so nobody re-keys anything. Jobs, scheduling, quoting with real pricing rules and the customer-facing view come first, because that's where the spreadsheets are. The ledger follows once the operational data is flowing cleanly.
- 05
Reconcile a closed period
Nothing gets switched off until finance has a closed period that matches line for line on both sides, by company and by dimension. Open orders, scheduled work, inventory quantities and value get checked at the same time. Then the cutover happens, and the licenses and apps come off at renewal.
Limits
Where do we draw the line?
Saying this out loud is cheaper for both of us than finding out in month two. If one of these is what you actually want, we are the wrong firm and we will say so on the first call.
- We won't tell you to replace a ledger that genuinely needs to stay. Consolidating several companies into statutory figures under an auditor's eye is serious software, and if that's your situation we'll build around Business Central and say so plainly.
- We won't switch anything off before finance signs off on a period that reconciles on both sides. A cutover taken on assurances, without matched numbers, is how an audit trail ends up with a hole in it.
- We won't install, host or build anything on your own servers. What we build runs in the cloud on accounts in your name, and an on-premise Business Central or NAV install gets replaced only by moving it to the cloud as part of the replacement.
Questions
What do people ask before leaving Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central?
Can you really replace Business Central, ledger and all?
Yes, and for a company whose accounting is ordinary that's the project we lead with. Ledger, receivables, payables, inventory, orders and the operational work around them move into one system you own. The honest exception is a group consolidating several companies into statutory figures for an auditor who expects a recognized ERP. There the ledger stays, and we replace everything around it and tell you so.
Do you work with on-premise Business Central or Dynamics NAV?
Only to replace it, and only by moving it to the cloud. We don't install, host or maintain anything on your own servers, and we don't upgrade NAV or on-premise Business Central in place. If you're running either today, that's often the moment the question gets asked anyway, because the alternative is an upgrade project into Business Central online with every customization rewritten as an extension. Our version of that move ends in a cloud system on accounts in your name, with the data and the rules carried across and the old install retired once a closed period matches.
We've got a lot of AL extensions and AppSource apps. Do they come with us?
The rules do. The code doesn't. We read each extension for what it enforces and rebuild the rules that still matter as tested code. AppSource apps get the same treatment. Where one fills a real gap, the capability is built in, and where it existed only to bend Business Central around your business, it goes away with the model, along with its license and its update schedule.
What about audit and compliance?
Access control by role, a change history nobody can quietly edit, approvals recorded with person and timestamp, posted entries that are corrected by reversal and never edited, and clean exports for your auditor. All of it gets designed in from the start. Auditors care about controls and evidence, and the logo on the login screen is neither of those.
Can we leave one piece at a time?
Yes, and that's usually how it goes even when the whole system is leaving. We build the operational area that hurts most first and connect it to Business Central through the API, so nothing gets re-keyed while the rest stays put. The ledger moves last, once a closed period reconciles.
What does replacing Business Central cost?
It depends on how many companies, users and extensions are involved, whether the ledger moves, and what has to keep connecting, so we don't publish a figure for the build. We do publish sourced ranges for what ERP implementations cost by company size. After a strategy call you get a written scope naming every deliverable and what it costs, measured against your license renewal and your update testing. What we do publish is the cost of running the result. After launch the system costs roughly $100 to $200 a month to run for a smaller company, and $2,000 to $3,000 a month at enterprise scale. Those are hosting and service bills you pay the providers directly, with no license and no per-user fee.
Who owns the system, the code and the accounts?
Your company does. The repository, the database, the cloud hosting and the sending domain all get created in your name at the start of the build, and we're invited in as administrators so we can work. You can remove us at any point. No fee, no handover charge, no license reverting to us. That matters more with an ERP than anywhere else, because what makes a renewal uncomfortable is having nowhere else to go.
What happens to our historical financial data?
It stays available and it stays reconcilable. Posted ledger entries migrate with their posting dates, dimensions and company, and customers, vendors and items keep their numbers, so historical figures still tie to the periods Business Central reported. Where the ledger is staying, none of your financial history moves and the new system posts into it. Where it's being replaced, you keep the raw exports as an archive your auditor can read without a Business Central login, and closed periods reconcile line for line before anything gets switched off.
Related
Coming from a different tool?
The same exit treatment for the other platforms people leave, and the pages that explain the custom model itself.
Where did Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central stop fitting?
Book a strategy call, or send a short note about the workarounds your team runs today. If keeping Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is the right answer, you will hear that first.