If I was going to migrate from Dynamics GP (Great Plains) to Dynamics 365 BC (Business Central)…
I’d encourage you to ask a few high-level questions first, just to get sense of what to expect when moving from GP to BC in the cloud. Despite what you have seen or read online, there is no magic button that does that - just makes THAT happen. It takes way more than a button to pull this process off. And its definitely NOT called “GP in the Cloud” either. Read on.
As an ERP systems expert for over 25 years now, I’d encourage you to take the time to pause, and make sure you think this through from the beginning. Gather some intel. See a demo. Involve others. Complete a thorough GP System Audit to see what modules and features you really use right now.
This Dynamics Mindset post is a chance for me to walk through 11 very important Q&A scenarios that I get into all the time. I’ll offer pontification that I hope sets some expectations regarding your Dynamics GP to Dynamics BC migration project. Light the lava lamp - let’s get in the mood!
Q1- Is it a heavy lift to get from GP to BC?
A1- Depends. On a lot of things. Read on.
Q2- Isn’t BC just GP in the cloud?
A2a- Nope, not even close. Different league. Different planet actually. Well almost…It has roots in Dynamics NAV, or Navision.
A2b- BC should be THE logical next choice once you plan to move off of GP. I know, its really sad to see good GP users leave, but BC is the Microsoft cloud accounting and ERP solution geared for SMBs (e.g. most companies). Microsoft has and continues to invest heavily in BC, and there is a rich and diverse group of partners (many of which still and also support GP). Yes, your users will need to be retrained, but that’s relatively easy, we have Microsoft Teams so it can be delivered anytime, and might not require ANY travel! Finally, we can record the sessions for playback anytime after you go live or hire new people who need to be trained.
Q3- Will all of my GP data migrate?
A3- Nope. You don’t want it to. It doesn’t fit right. Take only what you need, safely store the rest. Once you get going on BC, you won’t need much history. Time passes by too quickly, and we really need to focus on the future, not the past, with this migration.
Q4- Why won’t all my GP data migrate?
A4- They are completely different systems. BC is not GP in the cloud.
Q5- What’s different about it?
A5a- Absolutely everything.
A5b- My favorite difference resides in the General Ledger, but rest assured there are other things about BC that you will really like a lot once you buckle in and get a good sense of things.
In GP you need that ‘Fully Qualified Account String,’ which groups all the segments together.
In BC, you just start with the main ‘chart of accounts.’ Then you can have some amazing activity tracked - using up to 8 Dimensions (think data tags), for every GL entry! Enforcement or restrictions for dimensions at the account level ensures all the GL entries get all the data tags they need before posting. The best part is that these dimensions dramatically enhance reporting and analytics capabilities, especially with Power BI. The in-browser Analysis Mode in BC does wonders for getting data. This is much more flexible and scalable than GP in my experience.
Q6- What about my SmartLists? Does BC have something similar?
A6a- I don’t know who owns the copyright or trademark on “SmartList,” but yes BC has “ ‘SMART’ ‘LISTS’ ” baked right into the browser, on pages all over the application. Yes you can save then, rename then, and even share them with others. Truly flexible and even exportable right to Excel.
A6b- My favorite feature here is the Analysis Mode in these lists. They pivot, you can have many tabs, filters, and ranges pre-saved to make your actionable or important data more accessible than you can imagine.
A6c- With the advent of Microsoft Copilot for Business Central its been a lot of fun using it to actually write the reports for me!
Now that’s out of the way, let’s walk through some high-level clarifying questions next. This will position you to make some real progress in this ERP “thERaPy” session / blog post and get at what really comes next in the all-important thought exercise of moving on after GP.
I expect the endgame of this post will be to generate some excitement, and help you lock down more of a sense of direction, and gain more traction in your move from GP to the cloud. I gotta say, is pretty nice up here. Different, yes, but I’m finding more companies are rethinking their ERP and making a thoughtful plan to modernize across the entire Microsoft platform because the benefits are surreal.
Q7- How many different companies or entities are you keeping the books for? Are they merely profit/cost centers, or are they truly different companies with different tax ID numbers, vendor or customer lists, product catalogs, even ownership?
A7a- If you have a single company but need to establish reporting units for capturing income and expense activity, Business Central excels here.
In GP, a lot of environments have somewhere between 2-4 segments, with one of them dedicated to the main account. Often times one of the segments was created with a ‘zero-fill,’ just in case the segment was needed in the future.
The whopping 8 dimensions BC offers for the general ledger are worth their own blog post (…yes, I’ll do that someday!). I like them because dimension codes can be variable length up to 20 characters, and can be represented with alpha or numeric values. A see a lot of words in the dimensions as opposed to numeric codes, which is a striking difference to what we are used to with GP (which is almost always numbers).
A7b- If you have more than one company to stand up, BC handles that really well too. While you are capped at 300 companies, if you have more than 4 or 5 companies I would strongly recommend leveraging an ISV extension from Binary Stream called Multi-Entity Management, to house all of the entities (and your future expansion companies!) in one BC company. I know there are a lot of GP environments out there now that will just want MEM to be central to their overall migration to BC strategy.
Q8- How many different currencies will your business transact in? Do you have bank accounts held in foreign currencies? Do you have operations or sales staff overseas where payment and receipt of foreign currency denominated transactions will be needed? Or is your multicurrency exposure truly immaterial and not necessary in your ERP?
A8a- Multicurrency is a tricky subject for many, and not everyone needs it. You should know that in BC you automatically get a ‘local’ currency, but if you set up additional currencies you can enter transactions and also revalue balances at the end of each period.
A8b- Exchange Rates for non-local currencies are stored in a rates table in BC, which is similar to the way GP stores rates. Rates can be manually entered, but know there are multiple solutions for automating the import of exchange rates which brings accuracy and timeliness of rate loading to the ERP.
Q9- What accounting functions are you really looking to cover in your ERP? Are you a small or medium-sized business and need just the basics, or a full-blown multinational manufacturing organization with global supply chain requirements?
A9a- The basic deployment of Business Central could include a wide swath of functionality, but you’d fall into the ‘basic’ category if you needed only the General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, and Bank Reconciliation. Technically you could toss in Fixed Assets to the basic category for BC as well, because it is a really nice feature and comparable to that from GP in functionality for calculating and booking entries, and for reporting on roll-forward every month or every year.
A9b- When selling products or services to customers it typically requires venturing into the Inventory module, which immediately pushes the basic deployment a notch higher in terms of complexity. The same is true for GP, however the concepts and fields and limitations are quite different and should be fully understood as part of the data extract and prep-for-migration process. The full spectrum from simple non-inventory or service items all the way up to serial and lot tracking on items in multiple locations, warehouses, and SKUs galore is available in BC. If your business is ecommerce, Shopify and many other platforms have integrations and extensions for Business Central already.
A9c- Business Central has a Projects module worth looking into as part of an overall migration strategy. It offers a spectrum of functionality ranging from simple to complex, but the end result is the ability to book and report on Project subledger activity and book project-related entries to the general ledger.
GP had a separate Project Accounting module which allowed similar capabilities, but there is no migration for the module so a reimplementation would be necessary.
In BC it practically extends the general ledger to a 9th dimension.
A9d- Are you a manufacturer of any size? I think Business Central is geared much more toward manufacturing than GP is. For GP it is a separate module, and for BC some manufacturing functionality requires a higher-tiered user license to have access to the module. Getting production orders going is straightforward but the routing and warehousing options integrate with purchasing and sales seamlessly. I’ve had the first-hand experience working with the best and brightest in the BC Manufacturing world, and there is no wonder the largest segment of conference attendees is looking at manufacturing functionality for BC. There is no migration for GP to BC for manufacturing, so get ready for a completely fresh start. I believe picking a partner for this part of the journey will be crucial to getting your migration right.
Q10- How much does it cost to move to BC? How long does it take?
A10a- Licensing users is affordable and if you have GP now, there are and will continue to be incentives to move to BC and transition your licenses. Talk to your current or future partner about options Microsoft is offering at any time.
A10b- The cost of moving from GP to BC is not insignificant. I believe you are best doing so with a good partner and an agreeable methodology. A proper move would:
Start with understanding your current GP usage, requirements for the future state, assessing current process pain points.
Document all of the integrations and customizations and their purpose.
Determine which related applications or other systems might also be on the table for replacement when migrating to BC.
Book an introductory demo of BC to see the nuts and bolts with an open mind knowing it is not “GP in the cloud.”
Remember, its time to GET EXCITED ABOUT THE FUTURE! Then start digging in with your partner on discovery, data extraction and clean-up, setting up a sandbox, migration of master record data.
Work on basic boot-camp training, but also focus on all of the operational and reporting areas you need to cover to prove you can get there.
Perform a parallel month of entry, if possible, to ensure skills are learned and all processes are covered if you are able to.
A10c- On the shorter-end of the timeline, 3-6 months can be achieved for the basic quality implementation. Even many deployments that have limited complexity can get live on BC in this short of a period. Sometimes a phased approach can help everyone ‘get there.’ The biggest hurdle to an efficient implementation, more times than not, is getting good, clean, reliable data from the customer.
If you are migrating from GP, you have SmartLists to get started. Or perhaps your project methodology allows for your partner to extract data, then they would have you clean and scrub it before they import to BC. One example is the Item code character length difference between GP (which is 30) and BC (which is only 20). I think I said earlier that BC is not GP in the cloud.
A10d- ERP can get complex quickly. Some of the larger and more complex projects often take over a year. Sometimes a ‘Minimum Viable Product’ is attained before tackling some of the edge cases. Phased approaches are also frequently mapped out with milestones that purposefully build upon each other over time. If you fall in this ‘complex’ ERP implementation category, you know it already, but also recognize that the more up-front planning you do, the fewer surprises you will experience and most certainly will pay off. You can’t rock the boat with the implementation; you should come out better than when you went in as an organization, and to do so takes a proper, coordinated effort and diligent project management in an enterprise environment.
Q11- Will Management Reporter work with BC?
A11a- No. RIP MR. Bye bye. But if there was anyone on this earth who wanted MR to work with BC more than myself I would be shocked.
A11b- BC has a somewhat redeeming on-board answer to MR, but it is not nearly as feature rich. It does get the finanicals out though. Thankfully the concept for Row/Column has been preserved in the UI for Financial Reports, so you can still have Balance Sheet vs PL row layouts, and the columns also allow trends, AvB, and YTD so the accounting team can get the job done.
A11c- BC does also offer a more simplified approach as well - which often works really well. Simply assigning each main account to a Category and Subcategory does the trick, and the default Balance Sheet and P&L reports take over from there, and you don’t need to overcomplicate the creation or maintenance of financial statements.
A11d- Power BI is often used now to generate dynamic financials with sliders and KPIs every CFO wants, so be ready for that when you move to BC as well!
I’m grateful should this experience or these insights be helpful to you on your journey…until next post!